A Bibliometric Analysis of Social Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship plays an important role in the maintenance of economic prosperity and brings benefits to society. The role of social entrepreneurship is growing in the light of challenges of the global economy, increasing uncertainty of the environment, the growth of social problems, and the emergence of crises in the 2020s. These derive an increase in economic and psychological challenges. Social entrepreneurship is known as the driver for solving global problems of society. The entrepreneurial ecosystem serves as a source of entrepreneurial opportunity, as a breeding ground for entrepreneurship. Therefore, exploring the topic of social entrepreneurship in the context of the entrepreneurial ecosystem becomes relevant. Social entrepreneurship, with respect to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, has been extensively explored. However, despite a growing body of publications, to the best of our knowledge, no bibliometric analysis is available on the topic. This analysis is important to understand what trends in the development of social entrepreneurship and the ecosystem exist, what further research directions can be recommended, and how the relationship between social entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial ecosystem has been studied. This study aims to close the gap, consolidate research, and identify the state of the art in the field. In total, 357 publications from the Scopus database were selected for the period of 2009–2022. The study used social network analysis (bibliographic coupling network, co-citation network, citation network, and co-authorship network) and semantic analysis (semantic network) through VOSviewer version 1.6.19 and Gephi version 0.10.1 software. The results showed a growth of publications during this period, allowing us to observe influential journals, the most productive and cited authors, leading countries and universities, impactful papers, networks of collaborations, and co-citations of scholars. The paper with the highest degree of centrality is “Ecosystems in Support of Social Entrepreneurs: A Literature Review” while Sustainability is the most influential journal in the field. The analysis identified six thematic clusters within the research topic. The study contributes to the literature by presenting the research agenda, structure, characteristics of social entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial ecosystem research.

Hybrid Entrepreneurs as the Neoteric Driver of Skill Variety and Economic Prosperity

“…Despite the significant, growing body of knowledge on HE available globally over the past decade, there are scant or no specific Australian studies on this phenomenon. As a novel study in Australia, this explorative study expands similar studies on other types of entrepreneurship (see, for example, Maritz et al 2021;Maritz and Laferriere 2016;Trabskaia et al 2023;van Stel et al 2021) while also integrating and extending similar studies on HE (see, for example, Klyver et al 2020;Luc et al 2018). The study also provides a unique approach to the assessment of research engagement impacts, which usually focuses on non-academic and practicing entrepreneurs (see, for example, Featherstone 2019).…”

“…However, in this paper, our approach is aligned with human capital and skill variety (Krieger et al 2021;Trabskaia et al 2023), postulating the degree to which a job requires various activities, requiring the worker to develop a variety of skills and talents. Jobholders can experience greater meaningfulness in jobs that require several different skills and abilities than in jobs that are elementary and routine, particularly when engaged in simultaneous roles as an employee and a hybrid entrepreneur.…”

Entrepreneurship and environments of international crisis: a bibliometric analysis approach

“…Second, the bibliographic analysis by Trabskaia et al [106] seeks primarily to understand the most significant trends in the development of social entrepreneurship, its ecosystem, and future lines of research, and the way the relationship between social entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial ecosystem has been studied, with special emphasis on situations of international crisis. The authors analyzed 357 publications selected from the Scopus database for the period 2009-2022.…”

“…External events such as international crises can drive researchers' interest and increase publications. For Trabskaia et al [106], crises create new social problems and call attention to social entrepreneurship as a tool for solving these problems. Such stimuli in 2016 could be the long-term consequences of Brexit or, after 2020, of the crisis caused by Covid-19.…”

“…In this study, content analysis enables us to classify words into various categories related to "entrepreneurship" and "international crises and/or Covid-19 crisis. " The results showed five different categories: "challenges for entrepreneurs, " which shows the consequences and mechanisms used by entrepreneurs in times of crisis; "social entrepreneur" as a subcategory of entrepreneur who plays an important role in the maintenance of economic prosperity and brings benefits to society in times of crisis [106], "entrepreneurial financing" considering the economic climate in a crisis environment; "support policies" which refers to support services for entrepreneurs as an alternative for facing crisis in developed economies and "resilience" as the capacity for or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances [72].…”