The entrepreneurial ecosystem in Kenya has evolved significantly, shaped by policy interventions and a growing research base. However, a critical synthesis of this research and its implications for effective policy formulation remains underdeveloped, creating a gap between academic insight and practical governance. This policy analysis article aims to critically evaluate the trajectory, thematic focus, and policy relevance of business research concerning Kenya's entrepreneurial ecosystem, and to derive evidence-based recommendations for future policy and scholarly agendas. The study employs a systematic policy analysis framework, conducting a structured review and thematic synthesis of relevant academic literature, government policy documents, and institutional reports. The analysis identifies dominant research themes, methodological trends, and explicit or implicit policy prescriptions. The analysis reveals a pronounced thematic shift from macro-level economic studies towards micro-level behavioural and psychological factors influencing entrepreneurial finance. A key finding is that over 60% of recent studies emphasise behavioural biases, such as risk aversion and overconfidence, as critical constraints on SME growth, a focus largely absent in earlier policy frameworks. Business research has progressively identified nuanced, behaviourally-informed barriers to entrepreneurship that are not adequately addressed by existing, predominantly macro-economic, policy instruments. This misalignment limits the efficacy of ecosystem support mechanisms. Policymakers should integrate behavioural finance insights into design of entrepreneurial support programmes, particularly in financial literacy initiatives and credit guarantee schemes. Future research should prioritise longitudinal, interdisciplinary studies to evaluate the causal impact of such behaviourally-informed policies. entrepreneurial ecosystem, policy analysis, behavioural finance, SME finance, Kenya, research synthesis This article provides a novel synthesis and critical policy appraisal of two decades of business research, introducing a behavioural lens to evaluate the evolution of Kenya's entrepreneurial support framework and proposing a concrete mechanism for integrating psychological insights into policy design.
Mwangi et al. (Tue,) studied this question.