Social Entrepreneurship Research Research Articles

Tracing the Intellectual Evolution of Social Entrepreneurship Research: Past Advances, Current Trends, and Future Directions

Tracing the Intellectual Evolution of Social Entrepreneurship Research: Past Advances, Current Trends, and Future Directions

Bibliometric Analysis on Social Entrepreneurship Specialized Journals

The topics of social entrepreneurship have increased considerably time by time. Social entrepreneurship becomes an engaging, specific theme in the field of entrepreneurship research. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how are social entrepreneurship articles classified. Then, to know the trend of social entrepreneurship research, to know which research topics are the subject of more publications, and to analyze future social entrepreneurship topics that provide opportunities for further investigation. There are two journals from leading publishers that specifically offer a publishing platform for social entrepreneurship. There are many articles in these two journals that can specifically give us information about the development of this entrepreneurial topic. We have reviewed this database and attempted to classify materials using VOSviewer software. There are several article groupings into sub-topic sections

Lessons from an older sibling: Social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility

ABSTRACT Given the similarities that exist between two constructs—corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social entrepreneurship (SE)—we examine how CSR literature can inform the SE literature. We argue that both CSR and SE emerged from governmental failures as well as the response to the needs of societies. CSR and SE are relatively new constructs that have struggled with definitional problems. We suggest that both constructs may suffer from agency problems while leading to some unexpected benefits. By applying the lessons learned through CSR research to SE research, the development of SE literature could be accelerated, thereby improving interactions for all constituents.

A systematic literature review on personality traits in social entrepreneurship

The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic literature review on personality trait research in social entrepreneurship, clarify the prevailing research categories and research themes, and suggest potential future research directions. The review process follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). A total of 60 publications in the research topic from Web of Science and Scopus were analyzed. This study identifies four main categories in studies of personality traits in social entrepreneurship: ‘comparison of personality traits,’ ‘description of personality traits of social entrepreneurs,’ ‘personality traits and social entrepreneurial intention,’ and ‘personality traits and other factors.’ In addition, the themes in each category are also determined and several research gaps deserving of future investigation are recognized. Policymakers and educators gain a deeper understanding of personality traits in social entrepreneurship to have policies that trigger a change in social entrepreneurship education by cultivating personality traits towards sustainable development. This study classifies publications related to personality traits in social entrepreneurship and provides a guide for researchers by providing a systematic understanding of the research structure in this topic.

The promise of entrepreneurial passion to advance social entrepreneurship research

This article aims to advance the theoretical debate on the role of entrepreneurial passion and paradoxical entrepreneurial interests––two influential concepts of entrepreneurship that have received little empirical validation so far––in predicting social entrepreneurial intention. Drawing on the literature on entrepreneurial passion and pecuniary vs. non-pecuniary interests in entrepreneurship, in particular the tension between money ethics, meaning in life, and public service motivation, we collected survey data from young people who were at the career choice contemplation stage (N = 1021) to test a model of social entrepreneurial intention. Structural equation modeling and mediation analyses supported the tested model. This article contributes to the literature by demonstrating the centrality of entrepreneurial passion in predicting social entrepreneurial intention and the complex role of pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests in the relationships.

“Procedure versus practice”: navigating ethical tensions in social entrepreneurship research involving vulnerable people in the developing world

PurposeThis paper examines the ethical tensions in social entrepreneurship (SE) research by focusing on the ethical consequences of obtaining ethics approval in a university in the developed world while executing fieldwork for data collection in a developing country. It aims to offer insight into ethical research practice to protect vulnerable research participants from being further silenced and marginalised by the dominant social order that developed world universities embody.Design/methodology/approachThe ethical tensions are described through narratives drawn from a Filipino Ph.D. candidate's experience. The candidate obtained ethics approval from the university in New Zealand and collected interview data from social enterprise beneficiaries in the Philippines. A critical reflexive lens carves a space for a deepened understanding of these ethical tensions.FindingsThis paper offers critical insights into ethical SE research involving participants from vulnerable communities. These insights suggest that closer consideration needs to be given to contextual sensitivity, particularly on the part of researchers and research ethics committees, in crafting ethical data collection protocols. Findings also show how it is important for the indigenous researcher to filter ethical protocols through their local knowledge.Originality/valueThe paper uses critical reflexivity to examine ethical tensions in SE research involving vulnerable beneficiaries. It offers insights into ethical research procedures and practices that engender mindfulness of the contextual and relational aspects of doing SE research in the developing world.

Institutional Theory in Social Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review

Over the past years, institutional theory has become an increasingly utilized theoretical lens for social entrepreneurship (SE) research. However, while there is a rapid growth of SE research that employs an institutional perspective, researchers have yet to systematically understand the wide-ranging application of institutional theory to SE study. Thus, a review of existing SE literature that employs institutional theory seems warranted and timely. Accordingly, we initially review the current use of institutional theory in SE research based on 101 peer-reviewed articles published between 2008 and 2020. More specifically, drawing on four critical institutional perspectives that have long been used in entrepreneurship research (including institutional context, legitimacy, institutional logic, and institutional entrepreneurship), we provide the first comprehensive analysis of the uses of institutional theory in SE literature. We then offer a comparative analysis of the application of institutional theory to SE and commercial entrepreneurship based on these four institutional perspectives, especially considering the similarities and differences between social and commercial entrepreneurship. Based on our review, we finally identify gaps in the existing SE study and provide several promising avenues for future SE study, as well as contribute to advancing institutional theory development.

Review of Social Entrepreneurship Literature: Developments from 2009 to 2019

Social entrepreneurship has seen significant growth in number and impact in the past decade, establishing itself as a significant part of modern society. How has academic research on social entrepreneurship changed meanwhile? The current research utilizes both quantitative, bibliometric analysis and qualitative content analysis of 51 articles published in top management journals (i.e., as of UTD’s list) to review the developments of the social entrepreneurship literature. We find evidences of significant developments and diversification in social entrepreneurship research and provide outlooks for future directions.

What Drives SE’ Cognitive Legitimacy: Implications from Consumers’ Legitimacy Judgement

Social enterprises, increasingly seen as an important player in delivering social and public services around the world, however, are still newcomers and legitimacy-deficient in the market. Consumers are a key audience group in enabling social enterprises’ cognitive legitimacy. Unfortunately, extant research on social enterprises has only begun to study organizational legitimacy and ignored the role of consumers as the cognitive legitimacy conferrers. This paper seeks to fill in the “legitimacy-consumer” gap and answer the research question: What are the drivers of social enterprises’ cognitive legitimacy assessment by consumers? We draw on the literature of cognitive legitimacy as the theoretical foundation. We adopt novel text mining approaches and performed two-layer analyses on 1692 consumer reviews on social enterprise restaurants. Our finding highlights four major types of discourses from social enterprise consumers’ legitimacy judgements - utilitarian discourse, social discourse, ecological discourse and social relation discourse. Additionally, utilitarian discourse is significantly associated with higher cognitive legitimacy. The findings add insight not only for social enterprise practitioners to develop strategies to build legitimacy, but also for social entrepreneurship research to open up a new direction using computational techniques and bringing consumers into the research field.

Social Entrepreneurship Research: Intellectual Structures and Future Perspectives

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is an emerging research field that has received much scholarly attention in recent years. Given the global scope of this attention, this review explores the existing scientific literature on social entrepreneurship to contribute to a systematization of the research field. Based on the publications in Web of Science and Scopus, a total of 1425 scientific articles were analyzed. We used the bibliometric method to describe the evolution of social entrepreneurship research (e.g., evaluation by years, authors, scientific journal articles, and countries in the SE literature that have had the greatest impact in terms of production). In addition, we used the mapping of knowledge networks through the citations and co-citations analysis to identify schools of thought. A keyword co-occurrence analysis was performed to detect key research topics over the years. The results show that, although the research is still in a nascent phase, it has a multidisciplinary character. Furthermore, social entrepreneurship appears to be a concept closely linked to three schools of thought: commercial entrepreneurship, sustainable entrepreneurship, and social innovation. The keywords analysis allowed us to isolate the constructs that the literature has considered antecedents (e.g., socio-psychological factors) and accelerators (e.g., education, network, culture, and gender) to the development of social entrepreneurial intention. We will further discuss the ways researchers can explore this research field and contribute to the global literature.

A cross-national perspective of compassion's role in driving social entrepreneurial intentions

This study sheds light on the role of compassion in driving individuals' intentions to pursue social entrepreneurship. Drawing on the embedded agent view of the social entrepreneur, we argue that individuals (agents) are embedded in regulative, cognitive and regulatory institutions that either facilitate or inhibit the relationship between compassion and social entrepreneurial intentions. Compassion as a motive supports personal feasibility and desirability judgments of social venturing, but whether they are actualized into social entrepreneurial intentions is linked to national institutions. We test our model by means of two independent survey studies with 350 respondents from the US population (Study 1) and 223 student respondents from nine countries (Study 2). The results suggest that compassion is linked to social entrepreneurship via the intervening cognitive mechanisms of feasibility and desirability and that this relationship is moderated by national institutions. These results have theoretical implications for social entrepreneurship research and useful practical implications for investors and policy-makers.

Common pool resource institutions: The rise of internet platforms in the social solidarity economy

AbstractThe research problemTheories of organising are dominated by a neoliberal agenda. This authority has been disrupted by social and sustainable entrepreneurship research that highlights alternatives to this hegemony. The motivation for this paper is to argue that the emergence of internet platforms contributes to new ways of working in the social solidarity economy (SSE). We focus our exploration on organisational practices and characteristics, evaluating platforms as contributions to commoning.MethodOur approach offers a way out of the public–private dichotomy. We build theory by positioning the SSE as a series of approaches that hybridise redistribution, reciprocity and market: three distinct strategies of social organisations for achieving their primary purposes. Utilising Elinor Oström's theory of common pool resource institutions (CPRIs) and her design principles, we appraise three internet platforms (Kiva, Loomio and Kickstarter). We triangulate organisational, academic and media narratives to assess the embeddedness of their commoning practices and potential as social innovations for a postcapitalist economy.Contribution to knowledgeSocial enterprises (SEs) can develop internet platforms that use CBPP to build and support the SSE. This is the first paper to deploy Oström's work to study how SEs use CBPP, thereby developing the theoretical connections between these two fields. Our findings are part of a discourse that challenges neoliberalism and identifies how the SSE contributes to sustainable development.

Female social entrepreneurship in Indonesia: a critical literature review

This is a literature review paper related to female social entrepreneurship in Indonesia by using content analysis methodology. Based on papers related to female involvement in social entrepreneurship, there are some gaps within current literature that we tried to analyse. Most research in social entrepreneurship is considered as blurry areas where a female is categorised as 'the other' type of entrepreneur. This condition is also occurring in Indonesia. Even if females are described in the literature, most researchers focus more on the physiological and psychological differences between male and female. Females are rarely being highlighted as the subject of change. They were not seen as the change makers that have contributed more to the social values creation that emerged from their involvement in social entrepreneurship. The contested problems came from the Western point of view that has given some limitation to female empowerment in Indonesia. Therefore, we provide a new focus that emphasises the Eastern tradition to portray how female involvement in social entrepreneurship may give more impact to the social value creation.

An Empirical Model of Motivation for Social Entrepreneurship

This paper responds to calls for more empirical research in social entrepreneurship (SE) and aims to empirically establish the role of intrinsic, extrinsic, and complex motivations, alongside employment status and the existence of start-up capital on motivation for SE. A quantitative methodology is employed, using multiple linear regressions (MLR). Six hypotheses are tested and the results reported show that all variables have a positive effect on SE. For the first time, this study tested the “complex motivation” which has a positive impact on SE up to the level that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, become non-significant.JEL Codes - A14; E02; E03; E61; M14; O31; O52; P52

Mapping the social entrepreneurship research: Bibliographic coupling, co-citation and co-word analyses

In recent years, social entrepreneurship has received an increasing attention from the academic community. Social entrepreneurship is a topic related to various areas such as economics, management, education, sociology, psychology, and it is not surprising that issues related to social entrepreneurship are always debated with various definitions, methods, and approaches. This study aims to establish networks and maps in social entrepreneurship based on a systematic review of 1361 publications from the Web of Science database. More specifically, three methods of bibliographic analysis, namely bibliographic coupling, co-citation and co-word analyses are used to explore publication rankings and the main clusters by each method, the most influential publications, authors, journals, and keywords are therefore identified. The results from this study help researchers locate their research, discover potential themes for future research, and make social entrepreneurship knowledge more accessible to new researchers and policymakers.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP ORIENTATION EFFECT ON FIRM PERFORMANCES: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Research on social entrepreneurship was variously published and has been dedicated to conceptual frameworks, synthesizing and integrating past study in fast growing economies environment. conducted to examine its performances in many angles. This is important since social entrepreneurship has become as new trend in business model globally and the trend also absorb in Malaysia`s commercial market. Although numerous studies have been done, specifically research on social entrepreneurship orientation not yet been tested over firm performance especially company with social mission objective. Therefore, this concept paper will focus and check on direct relationship on social entrepreneurship orientation as independent variable toward firm`s performance. Furthermore, this paper focuses on reviewing the social entrepreneurship performances especially in Malaysia. This study is important since the social entrepreneurship continue to grow blossomly for future country economy development as per stated by join partnership report by British Council, Yayasan Hasanah, United Nation ESCAP and Ministry of Entrepreneurship Development in “The State Of Social Enterprise In Malaysia”. To have an impact of the result, this study will implement Theory of Structural Contingency since it was widely used in previous research especially to test the ‘fit’ factors between variables. This conceptual paper able to develop understanding on diversity, meaning, and evolution of the social entrepreneurship phenomenon in the context of emerging economies; including to facilitate the community of social entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners respectively. It also can advance research in this domain with the aid of the proposed framework and the research questions proposed for future research.

Social Entrepreneurship and COVID‐19

Social Entrepreneurship and COVID‐19

Social entrepreneurship research in the Greater China Region: a scoping review and new research framework

ABSTRACT This article seeks to appraise the state of the art of the intellectual development of social entrepreneurship (SE) scholarship in the Greater China Region. We conducted a scoping review and critically analysed 46 peer-reviewed articles published on SE in the Greater China. Overall, we found that the Greater China SE scholarship lacks novelty and follows the similar ‘style and taste’ of SE research in the West. As a remedy, we propose a new framework for SE research by, among others, broadening the scope of SE, localizing theoretical lenses and concepts, and exploring new contexts.

Subjective Experiences of Positive Impact in Social Enterprises: Working for Impact, Seeing Impact

Individuals start and work in social enterprises anticipating positive impact from their work, thus aligning their work with their values and motivations. Yet, the social entrepreneurship literature assumes that individuals in social enterprises subjectively experience their work as making a positive difference for others directly through their work. In this article we introduce the concept of perceived positive work impact to the social entrepreneurship literature to differentiate between objective social impact and individuals’ subjective experiences of work as impactful. With this inductive study we explore how individuals in social enterprises anticipate, perceive, and question their work as impactful and illustrate how these subjective experiences are shaped by processes to create, visualize, maintain, make sense of, and share subjective experiences of work as impactful. In doing so, we challenge taken-for-granted assumptions in social entrepreneurship research and draw attention to a new subjective experience and its significance for talent retention. By investigating the concept of perceived positive work impact in a new research setting where anticipation of positive impact is highly consequential, we extend the current understanding of the concept in OB research.

The Interplay of Conditions that Affect the Social Entrepreneurs’ Organizational Mission

Our research investigates the interplay of the conditions producing either a dominant social, economic, or hybrid mission type. We examine how the mission of 133 (nascent) social entrepreneurs is affected by the interplay of various conditions. The objective of this paper is to accumulate more knowledge about the configuration of conditions associated with a focus on social entrepreneurs’ social, economic, or hybrid mission and to determine whether and how they interact. Our research addresses whether and how personal unmet needs, entrepreneurial experience, social innovation, and attention paid to the social and economic objectives are sufficient to produce entrepreneurial mission types for social enterprises. In doing so, we do not only examine the conditions that converge, but also distinguish between the ways they affect each mission type. We use a configurational approach and a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQca) to explore different combinations of conditions with a dominant focus on the organization’s social, economic, or hybrid mission as an outcome. Our findings show that all the entrepreneurs in our sample were hybrid social entrepreneurs, whose social and economic mission is not a dichotomy, but an interweaving of each other resulting in a blend with different mission nuances, best illustrated by ‘sliders’ that move on the continuum. Based on our findings we developed a typology which shows that the social and economic missions actually work together and that all enterprises are a hybrid form. By linking the various conditions to the social entrepreneurs’ mission, we gained a better understanding of the design features required to organize these different mission types. Our findings are specifically useful for entrepreneurship support by providing insights into the difference in the perceived importance of the organization’s social and economic missions and how different conditions affect the mission subsequently. Moreover, these insights contribute to our understanding of the configurational approach’s merits for social entrepreneurship research.