Keywords
Financial Literacy, Entrepreneurship, Systematic Literature Review
Student entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as a driver of economic growth, innovation, and job creation, particularly in developing countries. However, limited financial literacy remains a major barrier to entrepreneurial success among students. This study aims to systematically review the role of financial literacy in supporting student entrepreneurship. A systematic search using the PRISMA 2020 method was conducted in Scopus for the period 2014–2024 with the following search string: (“financial literacy” AND entrepreneurship AND student*) OR (“financial literacy” AND “youth entrepreneurship”). From an initial 155 records, 36 studies met the inclusion criteria: peer-reviewed, empirical, English language, and focusing on students in the context of entrepreneurship. The review identifies three main themes. First, the financial skills addressed include budgeting, saving and borrowing, cash-flow management, investment and risk assessment, and basic accounting. Second, approaches to improving financial literacy are primarily through integrated curricula, business simulations, student venture projects, and industry mentoring. Third, financial literacy strongly impacts entrepreneurial outcomes, including higher self-efficacy, better financial decision-making, stronger resilience in cash-flow management, and greater sustainability of student ventures. The findings underscore the importance of integrating financial literacy as core human capital within entrepreneurship education, especially in developing countries. Limitations of this review include reliance on Scopus and exclusion of non-English studies. The study provides theoretical, practical, and policy implications for universities, educators, and policymakers.
Financial Literacy, Entrepreneurship, Systematic Literature Review
This revised version of the article makes several substantial improvements in response to reviewer feedback. First, the title has been clarified to explicitly focus on student entrepreneurship in developing countries, addressing earlier concerns about scope and audience. Second, the introduction has been expanded to emphasize the significance of entrepreneurship for national economies, with specific reference to the Indonesian context, youth entrepreneurship trends, and the challenges posed by low financial literacy. The theoretical perspectives of human capital theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior have also been incorporated to strengthen the conceptual foundation.
Third, a dedicated literature review section has been added to situate the study within prior research and to highlight the novelty of this review compared to earlier studies. This includes a clear articulation of research gaps, particularly the lack of systematic synthesis on financial literacy and student entrepreneurship in developing countries.
Fourth, the methodology section has been rewritten for greater transparency. The PRISMA 2020 framework is now described in detail, with inclusion and exclusion criteria clearly specified. The Scopus keyword search is presented both visually and in written form, and limitations such as database selection and language restrictions are explicitly acknowledged.
Fifth, the findings and discussion have been reorganized around three clear objectives: (1) identifying types of financial skills, (2) assessing approaches to improving financial literacy, and (3) evaluating impacts on entrepreneurial outcomes. This restructuring enhances clarity and depth of interpretation.
Finally, the conclusion and recommendations sections have been revised to better align with the findings and to include theoretical, practical, and policy implications. Overall, this version offers a clearer structure, stronger theoretical grounding, and more comprehensive analysis, ensuring improved scientific contribution and readability.
See the authors' detailed response to the review by Muhammad Hasan
See the authors' detailed response to the review by Nurul Hidayana Mohd Noor
Entrepreneurship is widely recognized as a driver of economic growth, job creation, and social innovation, and universities increasingly position entrepreneurship education and support programs as pathways for students to pursue entrepreneurial careers (Mustafa et al., 2023). In the era of globalization and digitalization, the barriers to entry are lower for young people who can leverage data, e-commerce, and social media to innovate and transform conventional industries (Kumar, 2024). Yet, innovation and creativity alone do not guarantee business success; the ability to manage finances effectively is equally decisive.
Financial literacy covering personal financial management, budgeting and cash-flow planning, saving and borrowing, risk assessment and investment, basic accounting, and capital management enables entrepreneurs to make informed decisions, identify opportunities, and ensure long-term sustainability (Dwyanti, 2024). Evidence across contexts indicates that many university students still exhibit low levels of financial literacy, exposing them to costly mistakes, fraud, and fragile cash-flow positions (Abdul Karim et al., 2023; Li, 2024). Insufficient mastery of fundamental principles undermines the quality of decisions, weakens working-capital discipline, and elevates risk of business failure (Rehman & Mia, 2024).
The developing-country context amplifies these challenges. In Indonesia, for instance, the entrepreneurship ratio was reported at 3.47%, below the 4% threshold commonly cited for developed economies, despite a large absolute number of entrepreneurs and strong student aspirations to found businesses (Katadata, 2023; Kemenkopukm, 2023). This structural gap suggests that building robust financial capabilities among student entrepreneurs is not merely complementary but foundational to venture viability and growth.
Theoretically, financial literacy can be framed as human capital that enhances productivity and entrepreneurial performance (Becker, 1993). Within entrepreneurship education frameworks, integrating finance competencies through active, practice-based learning is expected to strengthen entrepreneurial intentions and action (Fayolle & Liñán, 2014). From the lens of the Theory of Planned Behavior, stronger financial literacy increases perceived behavioral control, thereby improving the likelihood of sound entrepreneurial decision-making (Ajzen, 1991). Although prior studies and reviews have examined financial literacy and entrepreneurship, there remains a lack of systematic synthesis focused specifically on student entrepreneurship in developing countries, and on how financial competencies are embedded within higher-education entrepreneurship curricula and interventions. Addressing this gap, the present systematic literature review (PRISMA 2020) analyzes the role of financial literacy in student entrepreneurship with an emphasis on developing-country contexts.
This review pursues three objectives: (1) to identify the types of financial skills addressed in research on student entrepreneurship; (2) to assess approaches and interventions used to improve students’ financial literacy; and (3) to examine the impacts of financial literacy on entrepreneurial outcomes such as intentions, decision quality, cash-flow resilience, and venture sustainability.
This review followed the PRISMA 2020 guideline (Page et al., 2021), comprising four phases: identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion.
A. Identification
Relevant literature was identified through the Scopus database due to its broad coverage of peer-reviewed journals. The search used Publish or Perish software (Harzing, 2024). The primary keyword string was:
(“financial literacy” AND entrepreneurship AND student*) OR (“financial literacy” AND “youth entrepreneurship”)
The search covered 2014–2024 and yielded 155 records. Visualization of results using Publish or Perish is presented in Figure 2.
B. Screening
Records were screened by title and abstract to remove studies that were not student-focused or unrelated to entrepreneurship. Two independent reviewers conducted the screening and resolved disagreements through discussion.
C. Eligibility
Full-text assessment evaluated methodological clarity, topical fit, and validity of findings.
D. Inclusion
Studies meeting all criteria were retained for synthesis. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were defined a priori to ensure relevance and rigor (Tod, 2019).
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Inclusion: (i) 2014–2024; (ii) peer-reviewed empirical studies (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods); (iii) focus on students in an entrepreneurship context; (iv) English language. Exclusion: non-empirical articles, studies outside entrepreneurship education, or non-English sources. After screening 155 records, 36 studies were included in the final synthesis. The selection process of studies is illustrated in Figure 3. The identified records were categorized by document type as shown in Table 1.
Note: This figure/table has been reproduced with permission from Katadata (2023).
Findings are organized according to the three research objectives to improve clarity and interpretability. The national entrepreneurship ratio that contextualizes this issue is shown in Figure 1.
The analyzed studies consistently addressed budgeting and cash-flow monitoring as foundational skills, followed by saving and borrowing, risk assessment and investment, capital sourcing, and basic managerial accounting. Skill gaps were most pronounced in investment analysis and capital structure among student populations in developing countries.
Effective approaches included integrated finance modules within entrepreneurship curricula, case-based learning and business simulations, student venture projects, and mentoring by banks/fintech. Practice-based interventions demonstrated stronger gains in self-efficacy and decision quality compared to lecture-only formats.
Higher financial literacy was associated with stronger entrepreneurial intentions, improved financial decision-making, greater cash-flow resilience, and better venture sustainability. These patterns align with the Theory of Planned Behavior through enhanced perceived behavioral control. Compared with previous reviews, these findings foreground the importance of finance competencies for student founders in developing countries.
A summary of the key characteristics of the reviewed studies is presented in Table 2.
This review confirms financial literacy as core human capital for student entrepreneurship in developing countries. Critical skills include budgeting and cash-flow management, saving and borrowing, risk assessment and investment, and basic accounting. Practice-oriented curricular approaches and industry partnerships are most effective in strengthening literacy and improving entrepreneurial outcomes. Integrating financial literacy within entrepreneurship education can enhance decision quality, resilience, and venture sustainability among student founders.
• Develop entrepreneurship-specific financial literacy modules and experiential finance labs.
• Build collaborations among universities, industry partners, and financial institutions to deliver mentoring and simulation-based training.
• Embed assessment of financial decision quality and cash-flow resilience into program evaluation metrics.
No data are associated with this article.
Reporting guidelines
Zenodo: PRISMA Flow Diagram for Why is it important? Financial Literacy in Students in Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Literature Review [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14639718 (Romadhon & Mulyadi, 2025).
The software tools mentioned in the article are as follows:
Publish or Perish: This software is open-access and was used to retrieve bibliometric data for the PRISMA methodology. A hyperlink to the software has been added in the revised manuscript: https://harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish/windows.
Mendeley Citation Manager: This software is a proprietary tool but is freely available for reference management purposes. To address your suggestion, we have provided an additional note in the Software Availability statement to indicate Mendeley’s availability and functionality. This has been acknowledged in the revised manuscript.
Software availability: The Publish or Perish software used for bibliometric analysis is freely available at https://harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish/windows. Mendeley, a citation management tool used in this study, is freely available for download at https://www.mendeley.com.
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Are the rationale for, and objectives of, the Systematic Review clearly stated?
Yes
Are sufficient details of the methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
No
Is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Not applicable
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results presented in the review?
No
If this is a Living Systematic Review, is the ‘living’ method appropriate and is the search schedule clearly defined and justified? (‘Living Systematic Review’ or a variation of this term should be included in the title.)
Not applicable
Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
Reviewer Expertise: Entrepreneurship education, economics literacy, economics education, knowldge transfer.
Are the rationale for, and objectives of, the Systematic Review clearly stated?
Partly
Are sufficient details of the methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
Partly
Is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Partly
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results presented in the review?
Partly
If this is a Living Systematic Review, is the ‘living’ method appropriate and is the search schedule clearly defined and justified? (‘Living Systematic Review’ or a variation of this term should be included in the title.)
Partly
Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
Reviewer Expertise: Entrepreneurship. social and youth studies, management, and environmental studies
Alongside their report, reviewers assign a status to the article:
Invited Reviewers | ||
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Version 1 27 Jan 25 |
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Provide sufficient details of any financial or non-financial competing interests to enable users to assess whether your comments might lead a reasonable person to question your impartiality. Consider the following examples, but note that this is not an exhaustive list:
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