Purpose– The aim of this study is to explore the status of contemporary ethnic entrepreneurship studies in 1999-2008 in order to map the intellectual structure of ethnic entrepreneurship research and to provide insights for future research in this field. Design/methodology/approach– This study collected citation data from SSCI, resulting in a data set of 403 journal articles and 18,656 cited references. Then using co-citation analysis, this study identified the core research themes in the ethnic entrepreneurship literature in 1999-2008. Findings– The results showed that contemporary ethnic entrepreneurship studies clustered around a few key research themes and their research foci have shifted from research on enclave economies, ethnic enterprises, and social embeddedness to research on immigrant entrepreneurs, immigrant networks, and transnational entrepreneurs. Research limitations/implications– With the qualification of citation and co-citation analysis, this study profiles the changing paradigms of contemporary ethnic entrepreneurship studies and traces the development of ethnic entrepreneurship research, and thus provides important insights on future ethnic entrepreneurship research, including transnational entrepreneurs, theory refinement and theory development on ethnic entrepreneurship, as well as ethnic culture and entrepreneurship. Limitations of using SSCI data are also discussed. Originality/value– The intellectual structure of ethnic entrepreneurship literature has received relatively little attention in spite that a large number of studies have been done in this field. This study provides researchers with a new way of profiling key themes and their relationships in ethnic entrepreneurship, which will help the academia and practitioners better understand contemporary ethnic entrepreneurship studies.