Social Capital and Social Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is an area that has been extensively researched from a variety of angles and across a broad range of academic disciplines. Parallel to this, practitioners have applied social entrepreneurship ideas to a variety of industries and at varying degrees of complexity. The purpose of this study is to understand how the social capital of an entrepreneur drives the growth of social enterprises by contributing to the social entrepreneur skills. A systematic assessment of available literature was carried out based on searches of major academic databases (Web of Science, EBSCO and CAPES Portal de Periódicos), with an initial list of 3,106 publications being narrowed down to 472 articles that were subjected to content analysis after being narrowed down. Further, a theoretical proposal and research propositions were developed, highlighting the relationship between social capital and the activities of social entrepreneurs, as well as their relationships with the collective actors and institutions that make up social entrepreneurship in its totality. The conclusion of the chapter is that the interface between social entrepreneurship and social capital is a latent field for research. Further contributions of the chapter are a theoretical model to help researchers consolidate their efforts by identifying three key themes identified by intensive literature: creation of social capital by the social entrepreneur, relationships between institutions and the formation of groups and social capital as a formation of groups. In these words, a future agenda for discussing these topics is outlined for discussion.

Citation

Solanki, N., Yadav, R. and Yadav, M. (2023), "Social Capital and Social Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Literature Review", Misra, R.K., Shrivastava, A. and Sijoria, C. (Ed.) Technology, Management and Business (Advanced Series in Management, Vol. 31), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 89-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-636120230000031009