“ANALYSING CORE THEMES AND CO-AUTHOR PATTERNS ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ENTERPRISES”

Abstract

This study focuses on deriving key issues relating to social enterprises and intellectual property rights using text mining methods, and analysing the co-author patterns of researchers working in these fields. For this purpose, the Netminer program was used to analyse journal papers published by Springer Publishing. As a result of the analysis, the research topics relating to social enterprises and intellectual property rights were, by way of a theoretical framework, classified according to nine issues: the management model of social enterprises; social enterprises and NGOs; the supply chain of social enterprises; the impact of social enterprises; environmental changes in social enterprises; social entrepreneurship; social enterprise and education; the social enterprise ecosystem; and social enterprises and NGOs.. These nine key issues represent areas of great importance in terms of business activities that link social enterprises and intellectual property rights. Contrastingly, examination of the co-author patterns of authors discussing social enterprises and intellectual property rights suggests that those employing multi-disciplinary approaches should engage more actively in joint research activities. Though such authors have achieved notable results to date, their engaging more actively in joint research activities should enhance the success of policies linking social enterprises and intellectual property rights.