Abstract
Social finance and banking with an embedded social purpose have been on the rise in recent decades. Social entrepreneurs have repeatedly stressed the critical need for financial support from social banks. This study aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of the status of the field in social finance and banking, recognising main topics from existing research and establishing future re-search challenges. Our study used science mapping workflow and multiple research questions to investigate the broad literature about social banking and finance. With in-depth bibliometric analysis, authors examined qualitative and quantitative variables as primary research infor-mation, relevant sources, subject areas, authors data, social, thematic and intellectual structure. The data was retrieved from Web of Science (WOS) and then analysed using Bibliometrix R-package. The analysis was based on a sample of 270 articles and demonstrates a multidisciplinary vision of the research flow investigated. Our results show several insights regarding journals, authors and geographical interest of this research stream. Specifically, the literature, although dwelling on social finance and banking, includes five theoretical and practical clusters as (1) people’s well-being, combined with technological innovation, (2) governance, (3) ethical investment and sustainable development, (4) corporate social responsibility (CSR), and (5) transparency. The authors also note a line of research that observes technological solutions for the response to social and environmental problems. These results may be useful for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to foster social finance and financial system tools.
Highlights
Published: 31 December 2020Investment of capital for social and financial creation has ancient roots
Our analysis is based on an emerging and continually evolving field of research, we have focused on all sources in the database including peer-review articles and conferences as a source of knowledge [50]
This bibliometric analysis started by describing the dataset characteristics of the 270 records
Summary
Investment of capital for social and financial creation has ancient roots. Cooperatives, religious institutions, credit unions and mutual societies have been managing capitals for the social project for many years back. During recent times, new ways of managing finance for achieving positive social impacts have emerged, which have been classified under the term “Social Finance” (SF). Past literature reviews have defined SF as an alternative financing tool for projects and ventures with financial returns that are able to generate a positive impact on society, the environment and sustainable development [1,2,3,4]. J. During the past decades, SF and SB have gained importance and popularity, growing starting to grow significantly and attracting the interest of different stakeholders ranging from governmental agencies to mainstream financial markets.
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