Social Impact Scaling Strategies in Social Enterprises: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

Social enterprises have attracted increased attention from both researchers and practitioners around the world. In the social enterprise context, scaling social impact is considered the main currency or key performance metric. Two overarching social impact scaling strategies are organizational growth strategy and ecosystem growth strategy. However, to date, little cumulative knowledge exists on these two social impact scaling strategies. To address this issue, this paper conducts a systematic review of 111 peer-reviewed articles. It identifies and discusses key insights into organizational growth strategy and ecosystem growth strategy as a means to scale social impact in social enterprises. Based on these findings, the current paper also develops a framework to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of social impact scaling strategies in social enterprises. Finally, the review identifies gaps in the existing literature and discusses a comprehensive agenda for future research.