Sustainability in Social Enterprise Research: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Given the noteworthy contribution to the global socio-economic development, research on social enterprises (SE) has gained prominence over past two decades. Making a clear departure from for-profit counterparts, the core purpose of SEs is to deliver a social mission while at the same time staying financially viable and as a consequence, “sustainability” is strongly embedded in their core drive of existence. Rapidly sprouting body of literature on SE posits that “sustainability” is intensely coincided with “social enterprises.” Although “sustainability” has been a buzz word in the context of SE, lacking of systematization and categorization of knowledge hinders the advancement of SE specific research. Consequently, the primary objective of this paper is systematization and categorization of the extant knowledge on sustainability in SE research context. The study carried-out a systematic literature survey from reputed databases; Scopus, Social Science Citation Index and Science Direct. Removing the repetitions, 136 papers on sustainability was compiled for analysis. The analytical approach was two-fold: First, a citation analysis was performed in order to evaluate the prominent, emerging and popular sustainability-based research areas in the extant body of knowledge in the field. Second, a thematic analysis was performed to analyze and interpret explicit themes on which sustainability concept has been investigated. Paper discovered six themes that the sustainability concept has been researched through significant research popularity disparities can be witnessed among the discovered themes. Since this paper identifies several research gaps and inconsistencies, it noticeably sets path for future research on the concept of sustainability in SE.

A Quest for a Sustainable Social Enterprise Model: The Case of Amphawa Chaipattananurak, the Kingdom of Thailand

“…Leadership is affirmed in many studies as one of the antecedents driving sustainability in SE [1]. There is a tension in managing SE as one of the goals is to deliver an impact to society whereas the second goal is to create a sustainable business that is financially successful.…”

“…According to Kantabutra's study on SEP and leadership [47], a leader ought to have a clarity of vision for abstraction, challenge, and future orientation. The vision must comprise moderation, reason, the need for a self-immunity mechanism, knowledge, and morality imagery that is directly associated with sustainable employment and customer satisfaction, and with a satisfactory financial outcome [1]. Another study by Phukamchanoad [62] confirmed that the leader in a community should be committed to the application of SEP in order live a life of sufficiency.…”

“…Although the body of knowledge on social enterprise and sustainable enterprise is flooded with a wide variety of concepts, only a few reports address both concepts as a sustainable social enterprise or contain a holistic approach to develop one [1,2]. In particular, scholars have critiqued to which extent a social enterprise with social objectives can be sustained over a long period of time to achieve its objectives [3].…”

Identifying Crucial Attributes of Sustainable Operation for Scientific Instrument Platforms With a Fuzzy Synthetic Cause-Effect Model

“…Wang et al, 2021b). To integrate sustainability into SIP operational management is not only the entry point for theoretical research and application of scientific and technological resource allocation and scientific research management, but also the actual demand and management challenge for sustainable development of most current social organizations (Jayawardhana et al, 2022). Although SIPs are different from social enterprises and supported by government annual financial grants, SIP sustainability reveals a fresh but ongoing problem and challenge for contemporary organizational management and business models capable of transforming the social landscape of science, technology and the market economy.…”

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“…The result of implementing green practices in various business entities is their gradual greening. The indicated greening process is observed by researchers at least on the example of the activities of social enterprises (Davies, Mullin, 2011;Jayawardhana et al, 2022;Withisuphakorn, 2017). These entities are a rather specific type of business entity, as their purpose of operation is primarily to achieve the set social goals, and not to maximize the profits made.…”