Unraveling youth entrepreneur pitfalls and barriers to success: bibliometric analysis & lessons learned

Abstract

This analysis examines the challenges and obstacles confronting young entrepreneurs, a vital consideration given Indonesia’s potential to harness its youthful demographic to fill the gap in economic development and creativity. As a last resort to formal employment, youth entrepreneurship is a critical activity that needs to be promoted in order to engender economic stability and social mobility. Using a bibliometric meta-trend review approach, this paper brings into sharp focus the most dominant trends and principal challenges in the field of youth entrepreneurship—socio-cultural hindrances that discourage youth from taking risks and embracing traditional forms of employment due to their security; and the regulatory mazes that undermine the endeavors of young start-ups. These challenges, combined with a lack of entrepreneurship-education support systems, are thus highlighted as the major hindrances to youth-driven ventures. Policy and practice implications involve a critical need for tailored interventions, such as increased access to finance, better entrepreneurship education, and culturally relevant mentoring programmes, which seek to remove roadblocks and promote sustainable youth-led business developments. Through adopting such structures, Indonesia will allow its fledgling generation of entrepreneurs to make a greater contribution to economic development in the country and the successful delivery of wider social and development objectives.