Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Nation-states, researchers, and organizations realized the pivotal role of social entrepreneurship in economic development in the recent two decades. The body of knowledge in this domain witnessed consistent research growth but it still lacks a critical review to guide future researchers. This chapter contributes to the body of knowledge by presenting the first bibliometric analysis (using software such as HistCite, VOSviewer, and Biblioshiny). The relevant articles were searched in the Web of Science (WOS) database to ensure the inclusion of high-quality research. Among 910 initially retrieved publications 86 most relevant publications were included in the final dataset. The analysis included various bibliometrics and visualization maps such as the publication trends, most influential articles and journals, most productive countries and organizations, co-citation analysis, and thematic clustering of the research. The findings showed an overall consistent growth in research publications during the last 16 years (2005–2020) with Social entrepreneurship and enterprise: international and innovation perspectives' as the most influential article, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development as the most influential journal, and the United States and the United Kingdom as the most productive countries. The keyword co-occurrence analysis exposed five thematic clusters within the selected dataset indicating a relatively less focus on economic development aspects. Thus, future research should explore how social entrepreneurship, while solving social, cultural, environmental, and community issues, contributes to economic development. The research implications and limitations are discussed in the end.

Citation

Ahmad, S. and Bajwa, I. (2022), "Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development: A Bibliometric Analysis", Crowther, D. and Quoquab, F. (Ed.) Social Entrepreneurs (Developments in Corporate Governance and Responsibility, Vol. 18), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 55-75. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2043-052320220000018004