Purpose This study aims to investigate the trends in existing studies in the field of ethnic entrepreneurship in the context of growing markets in terms of definitions, theories, themes, methodologies and settings. Design/methodology/approach This study used bibliometric analysis and used Publish or Perish software with Google Scholar as the database. A total of 183 articles published in 122 journals from 1988 to 2018 were selected. This study used systematic data to reveal trends in growing markets and qualitative inductive analysis to define relevant themes within the topic. Findings The results show that ethnic entrepreneurship is defined as involving immigrants from developing countries. From a theoretical point of view, socio-cultural theories, socio-economic theories and combinations of both have been used to explain the phenomenon. Six research themes have been developed indicating potential explorative and exploitative research themes. This study identified the dominance of the qualitative approach in ethnic entrepreneurship research and found that the typical research subjects are Asian immigrants, especially Chinese, in developed countries. The articles reviewed were mainly conducted in developed countries (68.85%) and a lesser portion in developing countries (13.66%), particularly Asian countries. Practical implications This study provides future directions for research on ethnic entrepreneurship, such as gender studies of ethnic entrepreneurs and factors affecting the opening of new businesses in new locations. Originality/value This study reveals trends in the ethnic entrepreneurship field based on the country in which the study was conducted, the definition of ethnic entrepreneurship, the theories, the research themes, the methodologies, the research setting and the ethnicity studied. It also used the framework of input–process–output to establish a generic road map of the ethnic entrepreneurship research area.
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