Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship research and theory

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed analysis of the social enterprises (SE) and social entrepreneurship (SEship) literature that has been published in international journals from 1991 to 2010, determining the intellectual structure of both fields and their maturity as academic fields of study. Design/methodology/approach -Using a quantitative methodology for literature study, named bibliometric analysis, relevant papers were obtained from three important international databases, and SE and SEship journals. An initial number of 1,343 records were identified and, after applying various filters, a total of 286 papers were studied for bibliometric indicators and epistemological orientation. Findings -The study identified a significant increase in the scholarly investigation of SE and SEship in recent years, together with greater collaboration and international research. It was demonstrated that some countries are dominating the SE and SEship research area, such as the UK and the USA, whereas institutional and individual research output is spread more equally. Currently, no author or institution dominates the SE and SEship literature. The epistemological orientation suggests that the published literature is largely of a theoretical and descriptive nature in both fields, with only a small number of predictive papers. Originality/value -This paper provides important contributions. First, it presents an intellectual structure of SE and SEship as a discipline. Second, it determines the current maturity of the field based on its epistemological orientation, concluding that SE and SEship are maturing, with theory development followed by empirical testing and validation generating an increase in consensus on the boundaries of the field.

Innovation for Society: Towards a Typology of Developing Innovations by Social Entrepreneurs

“…Previous social entrepreneurship research revolved primarily around its definition and conceptualization (Granados et al 2011;Kraus et al 2014;Sassmannshausen and Volkmann 2016). However, even though there is no consensus yet about the definition of social entrepreneurship (Choi and Majumdar 2014), a definition should logically draw upon entrepreneurial processes that require opportunity exploitation and resource (re)combination processes (Newth and Woods 2014).…”

“…Previous research focused predominantly on defining, conceptualizing, and describing the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship (Granados et al 2011;Sassmannshausen and Volkmann 2016;Zahra et al 2009). However, even though social entrepreneurs are characterized as innovative individuals (Zahra et al 2009), the actual innovation process is still an understudied theme in social entrepreneurship (Chalmers and Balan-Vnuk 2013).…”

An epistemological critique of social entrepreneurship definitions

“…These findings suggest that social entrepreneurship research remains in an embryonic state." Granados et al (2011) and Sassmannshausen and Volkmann (2013) also demonstrated that mostly SE papers with high citations did not have empirical sections and had usually used qualitative approaches. On the other hand, in the realm of SE conceptual papers had been dominant (Hoogendoorn et al 2010).…”

Knowledge management activities in social enterprises: lessons for small and non-profit firms

“…Although Social Enterprise is becoming an emerging field of interest for both academics and practitioners (Granados et al, 2011), SEs contributors agreed that they remain an underresearched phenomenon (Robinson et al, 2009;Castresana, 2013;Urban, 2015). It is known that SEs are operating in normal market conditions transforming inputs into outputs through production of goods or services (Doherty et al, 2009;Leahy and Villeneuve-Smith, 2009;Villeneuve-Smith, 2011).…”