Social Entrepreneurship: A Bibliometric Analysis of Its Fields of Study

Abstract

Social Entrepreneurship, one of the branches of Entrepreneurship, has acquired important relevance because it has both social and financial purposes and has become a necessary mechanism to combat social exclusion, revitalize disadvantaged areas, provide employment opportunities, and address social problems neglected by the public and private sectors. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the subject among academics and entrepreneurs, but there is still research that lacks an adequate conceptualization. Therefore, this article aims to identify the main lines of research on social entrepreneurship through a bibliometric analysis. To carry out the analysis, a study of both publication performance and word co-occurrence of 3023 articles extracted from Web of Science during the period 1993–2022 was performed using the SCIMAT v1.1.04 software for data processing. It was found that the year 2022 was the year with the highest scientific production, and a strong relationship was established between social entrepreneurship and gender and economic development issues. As a result of the analysis, possible lines of future research are proposed, and these can contribute to fill the existing knowledge gaps on social entrepreneurship and promote a better understanding of the topic.