Social Entrepreneurship: A Bibliometric-Based Research Trend

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is a relatively novel topic and popular area of research and practice. It is recognised as a key instrument for addressing social issues and promoting sustainable development.The evolution of the social entrepreneurship concept has been discussed in the entrepreneurship domain last fifteen years.Therefore, a comprehensive inquiry of the overall body of knowledge relating tosocial entrepreneurship research in the entrepreneurship domain is vital for stimulating social entrepreneurship ecosystems. The research aims to support further study based on the current research trend through graphical visualization and bibliographic analysis. This study also maps the expansion of scientific and academic researchto explain the most recent stage in developing the phenomenon. It presents a general structure of the field and details of the main topics studied in this discipline. One thousand seven hundred sixty-three (1763) research papers published in the Scopus database from 1996 to 2019 were reviewed using bibliometric statistics covering 23 years. Thus, the study, therefore, serves to map trends in the development of the research in this field. The results showed some useful insights, such as the pattern of annual publications, top citation-based authors, organizations, nations, and publishers worldwide. This paper will also provide a primary reference source for the researcher to establish a theoretical framework in this area.