Social Entrepreneurship and Social Capital: A Review of Impact Research

Abstract

This study analyzes social capital as a mediator/moderator of social value creation in social entrepreneurship (SE); thus, we adopted a mixed methods review that was performed in two stages. In the first stage, we overviewed the reviews in order to summarize key findings from the analysis of social entrepreneurship. At this stage, the aim was to show the gap in the existing research, with an explicit focus on impact generation and measuring that impact within social enterprises. Then, we conducted a literature review focusing on studies that analyse the relationship between social entrepreneurship and social capital. Our assumption is that social capital is an impact generation mechanism that works at different interaction levels. Our analysis identifies three pathways which show how social entrepreneurship can have an impact, and how it can be generated by higher levels of social capital. These three pathways involve productivity, community resilience, and institutional development. The proposed classification of the empirically identified SE impact pathways offers insights that are useful to informing the available approaches concerning social impact creation and methods which approximate tangible SE outcomes. In addition, the mediator/moderator approach to social capital identifies these pathways as being complementary value creation processes.

1. Introduction

Research on social entrepreneurship (SE) is rich, and the amount of research on this topic is continuously increasing. In particular, during the last two decades, a large number of contributions has been published in some of the most influential academic journals; furthermore, the list of peer-reviewed academic journals that explicitly focus on social entrepreneurship research has also grown (see Phan Tan [1] for the most recent bibliometric analysis in the field). Research on SE occurs in various fields, such as management, ethics, and entrepreneurship research, among others [1,2]. As such, the bulk of available knowledge comprises insights from diverse, but related, research stemming from approaches that are developed within different theorizations of the phenomenon. At the empirical level, sectoral and spatial analysis also reveals important insights into this field; for example, through research in agriculture, cooperative business models, and rural communities.

It is notable that almost two thousand articles in referred journals were found in the Scopus database using ‘social entrepreneurship’ (we refer here to an exploratory search using the terms ‘social entrepreneurship’, ‘social enterprise’, and ‘social entrepreneur(s)’ as search terms in the titles, abstracts, and keywords of English language articles published in referred journals, in the period between 2001 and 2022) as a search term. This enabled the production of a rich bibliography that included a large number of review articles that summarized the key findings that concern SE, and it has the ability to provide a basis for future research in the field. A common finding is that despite the progress made in the field (as shown in the reviews by Kraus et al. [3], Dionisio [4], and Bansal et al. [5]), further research is needed with respect to advancing the analytical framework, the methodological approaches, and the tools and datasets used to produce evidence in the field [2,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Open research fields involve ongoing debates concerning the conceptualization of related ideas and basic definitions [12,13,14], whereas new debates that have emerged in light of the international character of SE concern the need to develop interdisciplinary approaches to the theoretical, methodological, and empirical analysis of social entrepreneurship [15]. Morris et al. [10] characterized these open debates as comprising a number of ‘great divides’ that they identified as being characteristic of the field. They argued that a process-based approach would be more appropriate for the analysis of social entrepreneurship given that conflicting views characterize research in all parts of the field, namely, ‘social value creation, social innovation, nature of the process, agents, entrepreneurial orientation, scalability, venture creation, revenue sources, organizational outcomes, efficacy, and the appropriate disciplinary home’ [10] (p. 1089).

An area where more research is needed relates to social entrepreneurship and its involvement in social value creation (SVC). Analysis of the impact of social enterprises (SEs) lies at the heart of social entrepreneurship research; this is because it is the anticipated outcome of the ‘social’ element of entrepreneurship, which is most often described in terms of social value, social innovation, social missions, social change, social goals, social performance, social wealth, and social return (to mention some of the most commonly used terms for SEs and their role in social value creation) [5,10,16,17,18,19]. The plurality of these terms derives from the much-debated issue concerning the outcomes of SE and the content and mechanisms that social enterprises use to generate social value. Rawhouser et al. [2] focused on the social impact of SEs as a key point for ongoing research in the field. Through a typology of social impact papers published in FT-50 journals, covering research in a variety of disciplines for the 1996–2016 period, they suggested that although important, available knowledge on the social impact of SEs lacks generalizability. They argued that more multi-sector and single-sector research is needed, and an explicit focus on the outcomes of SEs might be more informative, as compared with an implicit focus based on the activities and orientation of social enterprises [2].

The creation of social value, as an integral aspect of social entrepreneurship, justifies the characterization of social entrepreneurship as an essentially contested concept [6]. Choi and Majumdar [6] (p. 372) proposed a cluster-like conceptualization of social entrepreneurship because “social entrepreneurship is a representation of the combined quality of certain sub-concepts, i.e., social value creation, the social entrepreneur, the SE organization, market orientation, and social innovation”. Such a theorization allows for the complexity that stems from the presence of multiple sub-concepts, patterns (geographical, sectoral, etc.), and changing dynamics; these aspects can then be analyzed as manifestations of the same phenomenon [6]. Thus, at the theoretical level, a process-based approach to the ways in which social value is created from within social enterprises seems to be a promising way forward [10,20]; however, a challenge remains with regard to finding a way in which to bring extant knowledge and insights together to provide common ground arguments and advance knowledge in the field.

The present study aims to contribute to the abovementioned discussion by focusing on the interrelationship between social entrepreneurship and social capital, and how ir forms different pathways in order to create social value. Despite the fact that social capital and its trust, networks, norms/values, and components, is a much-researched theme, we lacked an integrated understanding of its mediating/moderating role as an impact generation mechanism within the social entrepreneurship paradigm; thus, we adopted a mediation/moderation approach for the study of the SE–SC relationship that allows for an explicit understanding of these processes as social value creation pathways (i.e., social capital as a determinant of inter-organization, intra-organization, and sectoral and societal value creation).

To this end, we applied a mixed methods review [21] approach; this was achieved by combining an overview of reviews during the first stage of analysis and a literature review during the second stage of analysis. During the first stage, the overview of reviews aimed to provide a broad and comprehensive summary of the social entrepreneurship knowledge produced over the last two decades. Here, 55 reviews were considered, and their insights were sorted into three categories: conceptual, state of the art, and empirical analysis contributions. In line with our proposition, here, at this stage of the review, it is evident that there was an important gap in our knowledge. In particular, with the exception of only a few studies, most research in the field implicitly assumed social value to be created by SEs. Consequently, the way that SEs generate social impact lacks a holistic analysis. Regarding the second stage, the literature review focused on the provision of such a holistic analysis by means of viewing social capital as the mediator/moderator mechanism that works alongside different (most often complementary) pathways to create social impact. Through a review of 79 articles, we provide important insights into the mediator/moderator role of social capital. Our analysis suggests that there are three pathways through which social capital facilitates social value creation in social enterprises. These pathways involve different loci of value creation that emerge from cooperation (a) within and across groups (productivity), (b) with group(s) and society (community resilience), and (c) with aggregate (macro) structures and localities (institutional development). We argue that further research is needed in this field as a mediator/moderator theorization of social capital might be useful in the creation of flexible theoretical models for an analysis of how SEs develop and how they contribute to tangible social value outcomes. For example, the multiple helices model of development [22] allows for an examination of the cooperation pathways discerned in this study; thus, it can provide a holistic framework for the study of interactions and outcomes, as assumed in contemporary SE models. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that all three pathways concerning mediation/moderation might be at work in high social capital societies, thus suggesting the potential existence of a complementary mode of resource utilization among various processes of value creation. This finding further supports the idea that holistic development frameworks might present the appropriate theoretical context for the analysis of value creation through SEs.

The rest of the study is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the framework of our analysis (i.e., the potential of social capital to work as a mechanism (mediator) and/or a catalyst (moderator) for the creation of social value in SEs). Moreover, this section also presents the review criteria followed in both stages of analysis (i.e., in the overview of reviews and in the literature review). Section 3 is devoted to an overview of extant knowledge, as identified in 55 reviews focusing on social entrepreneurship research. In Section 4, we present a literature review of research regarding social capital (i.e., the social entrepreneurship relationship operating under the mediation/moderation approach to social impact generation). Section 5 discusses the study’s main insights and their implications. Section 6 concludes the study with a presentation of the study’s limitations and directions for future research.

2. Framework of Analysis and Methods

2.1. Social Capital as a Mediator/Moderator of Social Entrepreneurship Impact

This part is devoted to a brief presentation of social capital and its function as a mechanism (mediator) and/or a catalyst (moderator) for the creation of social value in social enterprises. Social value is inexorably linked to this type of enterprise, despite the fact that the term ‘social enterprises’ (and ‘social entrepreneurship’) does not yet have a commonly used and understood definition [23,24], let alone a shared view of how social value is created within SEs. Many different types of organizations are analyzed in terms of SE, such as not-for-profit firms, hybrid types of social businesses, cooperatives, associations, and a multiplicity of organizations that feature some SE characteristics [6]. The present study focuses on research that explicitly concerns social enterprises (i.e., exclusion criteria were applied to all other terms throughout the two phases of our review process).

The study of social entrepreneurship covers research that focuses on a range of issues, such as the type and purpose of a social organization, the profile of the social entrepreneur, the organization’s relationship with the market, and its social innovation patterns [23,25]. For the purposes of this study, we focused on social value creation, and we understood it to comprise the underlying logic of SEs [6,18]. This theorization is consistent with the aim of our study (i.e., with the analysis of how social value is created in the presence of the mediating/moderating role of social capital at all operational levels of SEs).

Social value is a broadly theorized concept. Available definitions include tangible (e.g., innovation) and intangible (e.g., shared values, norms, etc.) outcomes; these are considered to be desirable common goals that SEs are expected to deliver [5,10,16,17,18,19]. Thus, some researchers theorize that social value creation is a behavior-embedded concept that coincides with ‘virtuous’ and ‘altruistic’ goals [26,27], whereas others focus on the measurable social goods that can be produced at the institutional and societal levels (e.g., freedom, equality, tolerance) [28]. Peredo and McLean [16] provide a flexible explanation of the concept. They consider “envision” to be the most important criterion for social value creation, and they suggest that this factor conceptually differentiates social entrepreneurship from other forms of entrepreneurship [16] (p. 64). Nonetheless, they stress the theoretical ambiguousness of notions that assume “an unrealistic homogeneity of social interests” [29] (p. 105); this allows for the selective use of a number of social objectives for empirical approximation [16].

Social capital is widely acknowledged as being conducive to social advancement and prosperity [30,31,32]. It is a stock variable [33] that: (1) allows group members to benefit from the exploitation of their networks’ cumulative resources (e.g., knowledge and information) [34]; (2) facilitates the coordinated actions of individuals [33]; and (3) enriches the “capital-like properties” of societies (i.e., the “ability to create other capital forms, and investment (disinvestment) opportunities” [35] (p. 1)). Thus, individual (micro), community (meso), and aggregate (macro) level effects are expected to result from high social capital stocks. Here, we propose that the classification and presentation of these effects are concrete manifestations of social capital’s dual role in the creation of value for society [33,36]. In particular, we argue that social capital works either as a mechanism (mediator) and/or a catalyst (moderator) for the creation of social value. We assume that SEs form a most important locus for the functions of social capital to unfold.

Within this context, we classified the variety of processes through which social capital can produce growth outcomes which generate a mediating effect (i.e., an account and explanation of a relationship) and/or a moderating effect (i.e., an effect on the direction and/or strength of a relationship) [37] (p. 1174, 1176). As such, we view social capital as a mediator of social value creation in studies that account for the positive growth effects that result from better public institutions, services, and government operations; these effects are induced by higher social capital stocks [33,36]. On the other hand, we view social capital as a moderator of social value creation in studies that account for the positive growth effects that result from innovation diffusion, reduced transaction costs, and reduced investment risks; again, these effects are induced by higher social capital stocks [33,36]. A mediating effect concerns the institutional quality between SC and SVC, whereas a moderating effect concerns the productivity gains that act upon the relationship between SC and SVC.

2.2. Methods: Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

As mentioned above, in order to meet our goal, we employed a research method that involves two stages (mixed method), namely, an overview of reviews and a literature review [21]. Regarding the first stage, the overview of reviews focuses on social entrepreneurship research, and it allows us to discern areas of common ground. Moreover, it revealed the lack of an explicit focus on the function of social capital as a social value creation mechanism in SEs. Regarding the second stage, a literature review focusing on social entrepreneurship, which may be defined in terms of the social capital interrelationship, aimed to provide insights into this research gap by means of identifying and classifying the paths to social value creation in SEs.

The same systematic review inclusion/exclusion criteria were adopted to select studies to be included in both stages of the analysis. This strategy was adopted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA 2000) reporting guidelines [38]. The Scopus database was chosen as it is an inclusive database endorsing high quality publications of an interdisciplinary nature [11,39]. Regarding the location of the studies, first, the predefined search terms (and their combinations) were used in order to produce a pool of studies; then, the specific search strings were applied using eligibility and inclusion/exclusion criteria. The predefined search terms and their combinations are reported separately; they can be found in Section 3 and Section 4. Here, the inclusion/exclusion criteria that were applied are as follows: (1) the studies must include exact keyword terms in their article title, abstract, and/or keywords (indicative of the studies’ emphasis); (2) the documents must be peer-reviewed journal articles (i.e., regarding the type of documents used in this study, we excluded books, chapters in collected volumes, conference papers, and so on, as they may not have undergone a peer review process); (3) the documents must be classified under the subject areas of ‘business, management and accounting’, ‘social sciences’, ‘economics, econometrics and finance’, and ‘environmental science’ (these areas were chosen in accordance with Scimago’s ‘subject area and category’ classification system, which is used for leading journals in the field, namely, the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and the Social Enterprise Journal. Both journals are listed in high quality academic journal guides such as the Academic Journal Guide (AJG) and the Australian Business Deans Council’s (ABDC) Journal Quality List. In particular, the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship is listed as an AJG 2 and an ABDC B journal, and the Social Enterprise Journal is listed as an AJG 1 and an ABDC C journal); (4) the documents must be written in English; and (5) the documents’ publication date must only go up to 2022 (i.e., documents published in 2023 were excluded from the systematic analysis). After applying these criteria, we eliminated duplicates/triplicates, and excluded short commentaries and notes (e.g., published in outlets such as Strategic Direction). During the final stage, a screening process was conducted, which included an assessment of each study’s focus; the focus of each study was ascertained with the study’s title and/or abstract/full text where necessary. For each stage of the analysis, a search flow diagram was generated. These are presented and analytically discussed in Section 3 and Section 4 of the study.

3. Social Entrepreneurship: An Overview of Reviews

This part is devoted to a brief presentation of key the findings in social entrepreneurship literature, as developed over the last two decades. As previously mentioned, the literature is rich that which summarizes the key findings in SE research, as well as directions for future research in this field; therefore, our aim is to illustrate the lack of an explicit focus on social impact generation and the measurement of that impact.

In order to identify the review studies to be included in this stage of the analysis, a number of key search terms were used to initially identify the relevant research. The predefined search terms and their combinations are: ‘social entrepreneurship’, ‘social enterprise’, or ‘social entrepreneur(s)’; and ‘review’, ‘systematic review’, ‘state-of-the-art’, ‘future research agenda’, ‘common ground’, or ‘prospects’. After applying the exclusion and inclusion criteria to the initially identified records, 133 documents were found to be eligible for final screening. During the last stage, the records were assessed in terms of their focus, and a total of 78 documents were excluded. Our final list included 55 reviews. Figure 1 summarizes the steps of the analysis using a PRISMA flowchart for reporting systematic reviews [38].

In accordance with the aim of our study, the key findings of these contributions are tentatively classified into three sub-groups, namely, conceptual, state-of-the-art, and empirical contributions; these categories are presented in Section 3.1, Section 3.2 and Section 3.3 below.

Table 1. Summary of the key evidence from the review studies.

Type of Review	No. of Studies	Period Covered	Key Insights
Conceptual	5	2006–2017	[1] Focus on concepts and components. [2] Boundaries and definitions of notions.
State-of-art	41
Contemporary knowledge	14	2005–2022	[1] Field development. [2] Extant knowledge. [3] Research agenda.
Common ground	4	2009–2022	[1] Conceptual analysis prevails; however, [2] the empirical analysis lacks an integrative framework and methodological rigor. [3] Multi-framework needed.
Dimensions	20	2015–2022	[1] Analytical approach. [2] National/cross-national context. [3] State vs market initiatives. [4] Accountability. [5] Performance–efficacy.
Impact	3	2015–2019	[1] Value assumed, not approximated.
Empirical	9	2020–2022	[1] Factors differentiating empirical manifestations: − Age (youth SE); − Gender (women SE); − Health; − Center–periphery/rural–urban; − Knowledge (types of and management).

summarizes the key information drawn from these review studies.

Table A1. Studies included in the overview of reviews.

No.	Study	Method	Focus/Contribution
Conceptual contributions (Section 3.1)
1	Peredo and McLean (2006) [16]	Critical review	‘Social’ and ‘Entrepreneurship’ as the main components of SE.
2	Bacq and Janssen (2011) [24]	Thematic review	Differentiate between ‘social entrepreneurship’, ‘social entrepreneur’, ‘social entrepreneurship organization’—geographical facets of these phenomena.
3	Choi and Majumdar (2014) [6]	Theory of essentially contested concepts	Define SE as a cluster concept—useful for comprehensive analysis despite its contested nature.
4	Conway Dato-on and Kalakay (2016) [7]	Systematic review using Gartner’s (1985) five value creation dimensions	Limited progress in the development of a SE definition.
5	Alegre et al. (2017) [40]	Thematic review	Connection between social and financial goals, taking an innovative aspect of the community’s values into consideration.
State-of-the-art/Up to date knowledge (Section 3.2.1)
6	Haugh (2005) [41]	Review	Research agenda drawn from contemporary knowledge of the development of SE in UK, Europe, and the USA.
7	Weerakoon (2021) [11]	Bibliometric analysis of 221 articles (2010–2020 period)	Research refers primarily to North America and Europe—identified the business model that is best for social financing.
8	Kraus et al. (2014) [3]	Citation analysis (129 core papers and 5228 cited references)	Field development.
9	Littlewood and Khan (2018) [46]	Systematic literature review	Extant knowledge and research agenda.
10	Dionisio (2019) [4]	Bibliometric analysis of articles in the Social Enterprise Journal (2005–2017 period) using R	Field development.
11	Saebi et al. (2019) [8]	Systematic analysis of 395 articles	Extant knowledge and research agenda.
12	Gupta et al. (2020) [9]	Systematic review of 188 SSCI journal articles (2010–2020 period)	Extant knowledge and research agenda.
13	Kumar and Tripathi (2020) [42]	Review	Extant knowledge and research agenda.
14	Tan Luc, Xuan Lan, Le, and Thanh Trang (2020) [43]	Co-citation co-word analysis	Field development.
15	Tan, Le, and Xuan (2020) [48]	Systematic literature review	Progress in the field of social entrepreneurial intention.
16	Hidalgo, G., Monticelli, J. M., Vargas Bortolaso, I. (2021) [47]	Systematic literature review of 472 articles (Web of Science, Ebsco and Periódicos Capes)	Social capital as a driver of social entrepreneurship.
17	Ahmad and Bajwa (2021) [44]	Meta-analysis	Extant knowledge and research agenda.
18	Phan Tan (2022) [1]	Bibliometric analysis—co-citation and bibliographic coupling	Field development.
19	Klarin and Suseno (2022) [45]	Literature review	Extant knowledge and research agenda.
State-of-the-art/Common ground (Section 3.2.2)
20	Short et al. (2009) [49]	Critical review	Conceptual analysis prevails—empirical analysis lacks formal hypotheses and methodological rigor. SE research at an embryonic stage.
21	Clarkin and Cangioni (2016) [50]	Literature review	Importance of the impact of investing—Opportunities for and the potential of SEs are subject to the applicability and efficacy of initiatives undertaken.
22	Cieslik (2018) [20]	Discursive literature review	Differences concerning SE working in terms of mitigation or transformation should be re-considered in a process with a complementary framework.
23	Rodrigues et al. (2022) [14]	Bibliometric analysis	Inclusive entrepreneurship field development.
State-of-the-art/Dimensions (Section 3.2.3)
24	Phillips et al. (2015) [17]	Systematic review	Systems of innovation approach.
25	Burga and Rezania (2015) [65]	Scoping review	Accountability.
26	Sengupta and Sahay (2017) [56]	Review of 101 articles (1998–2015 period)	Insights from Asian and Pacific countries.
27	Golubović and Muhi (2019) [51]	Critical review and case study review	Insights from Serbia.
28	Mahfuz Ashraf et al. (2019) [52]	Systematic review and case study review	Insights from Bangladesh.
29	Bozhikin et al. (2019) [63]	Systematic literature review	State versus non-state actors in SE.
30	Pradhan (2019) [53]	Case study review	Insights from India.
31	Bansal et al. (2019) [5]	systematic review	Social change.
32	Bandyopadhyay and Ray (2020) [66]	Literature review	Marketing.
33	João-Roland and Granados (2020) [19]	Systematic analysis of 54 articles (Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCO)	Drivers of social innovation and social enterprises.
34	Gupta and Srivastava (2021) [51]	Systematic literature review and case study review	Insights from India.
35	Anggahegari et al. (2021) [55]	Review	Female social entrepreneurship in Indonesia.
36	Montes-Martínez and Ramírez-Montoya (2021) [59]	Systematic mapping review of 92 Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus articles (2015–2020 period)	Insights into education.
37	Diaz Gonzalez and Dentchev (2021) [62]	Literature review	Ecosystems of SE.
38	Iskandar et al. (2021) [64]	Literature review	Knowledge, intellectual capital, and performance of social enterprises.
39	Bhardwaj and Srivastava (2021) [67]	Qualitative meta-synthesis	Dynamic capabilities.
40	Ibáñez (2022) [57]	Review	Insights from Latin American countries.
41	Fauzi et al. (2022) [58]	Review	Dimension—social innovation insights from ASEAN countries.
42	Bataglin and Kruglianskas (2022) [60]	Bibliometric survey of 1192 articles in high impact factor journals listed in SCOPUS database (2006–2021 period), VOSviewer (VOS) 1.6.15 graphs	Identify a theoretical framework with a SI structure, alongside four areas related to the third sector; the strategic management of innovation; the sociopolitical environment and the spatial context; and the sustainability aspect of SI.
43	Manjon et al. (2022) [61]	Systematic literature review	Social innovation to energy transition.
State-of-the-art/Impact (Section 3.2.4)
44	Holt and Littlewood (2015) [68]	Critical review	Impact of hybrid firms—identification and measurement.
45	Hlady-Rispal and Servantie (2018) [18]	Critical analysis	Theoretical contextualization and analytical framework of social impact generation is needed—value is assumed, not approximated.
46	Rawhouser et al. (2019) [2]	Critical analysis	Social impact measurement.
Empirical (Section 3.3)
47	Bazan et al. (2020) [73]	Systematic literature review	Student entrepreneurship.
48	Maalaoui et al. (2020) [70]	Systematic literature review	Knowledge management.
49	Pounder (2021) [69]	Review	Cultural contextualization.
50	Srinivas et al. (2021) [75]	Scoping review	Sexual health.
51	Sadeghi et al. (2021) [76]	Critical review	Global health.
52	Khalid et al. (2022) [77]	Case study review (Ashoka organization initiatives)	Gender entrepreneurship in health.
53	Tabares et al. (2022) [74]	Critical review	Rural sustainability.
54	Costa and Miragaia (2022) [63]	Systematic review	Gender entrepreneurship in the sports industry.
55	Jeong and Yoo (2022) [72]	Systematic literature review	Women entrepreneurship.

Source: Authors’ elaborations. Note: the above classification is proposed in accordance with the study’s aim.

in Appendix A analytically presents the method, focus, and contribution of these reviews using the classification used in this study.

3.1. Conceptual Contributions

We categorized a set of five papers as conceptual contributions that present an in-depth analysis of relevant notions and terms; we focused on the content, definition, and conceptualization of the phenomena. Moreover, we identified [6,7,16,24,40] as being contributions that focus on definitions of social entrepreneurship and related terms. These contributions try to highlight certain ideas using different classification approaches in an attempt to distinguish between similar, albeit distinct, concepts (with regard to types of organizations, processes, outcomes, etc.). It is now widely acknowledged that we are still far from developing a commonly agreed definition of social entrepreneurship [7]. The variety of definitions and conceptualizations of SE is a characteristic complexity drawing from multiple aspects of the idea; however, Alegre et al. [40] have suggested that some progress has been made in the sense that there is now a shared understanding of the nature of these multiple aspects. They argue that a social entrepreneurship definition will have to account for a type of entrepreneurship that combines social and financial goals, along with community ideals and innovations [40].

3.2. State-of-the-Art Contributions

The bulk of the review articles (41 of the 55 reviews included in this overview) were state-of-the-art contributions. The studies presented in this section are comprehensive contributions that analyze all, or most of, the significant aspects of social entrepreneurship that are relevant for a review study; thus, our proposed categorization is exploratory, with the purpose of highlighting the themes that the dominant reviews analyze, with reference to some indicative publications per theme. Four broad themes are identified and relate to: (1) summaries of contemporary, up-to-date theoretical and methodological developments in the field (14 reviews); (2) mappings showing common ground (4 reviews); (3) analyses of core SE dimensions (20 reviews); and (4) impact (3 reviews) analyses. The key findings of each theme are presented, in brief, below.

3.2.1. Contemporary Knowledge Reviews

The studies that summarize up-to-date knowledge in the field (14 identified here) begin with contributions that set out the boundaries of the field itself. For instance, Haugh’s [41] article, entitled ‘A research agenda for social entrepreneurship’, was published in the inaugural volume of the Social Enterprise Journal (SEJ). After establishing the size and importance of the social enterprise sector in western countries (UK, Europe, and the US), [41] (p. 1) proposes eight research priorities related to the following: ‘defining the scope of social entrepreneurship; the environmental context; opportunity recognition and innovation; modes of organization; resource acquisition; opportunity exploitation; performance measurement; and training education and learning about social entrepreneurship’.

The bulk of the review contributions that dealt with the aforementioned priorities was published at least a decade later (i.e., after sufficient research was conducted in all aspects of the field, and after that research had been made available); for instance, the review by Weerakoon [11] summarized the knowledge published in the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship during the 2010–2020 period. Through a bibliometric analysis of 221 articles, she highlighted an upward trend in publications that were underpinned by business management research; this research originated in developed countries (North America and Europe) and it centered on identifying the business model that is best for social financing [11]. She suggested that in light of the abovementioned research, future research might focus on advancing multidisciplinary perspectives and methodological diversity in the study of SE. She argued that in doing so, we could better capture the context and mechanism of social entrepreneurship as a process of social change [11].

Contemporary developments in the field are also reported in the works of Kraus et al. [3], Dionisio [4], Saebi et al. [8], Gupta et al. [9], Kumar and Tripathi [42], Tan et al. [43], Ahmad and Bajwa [44], Klarin and Suseno [45], and Phan Tan [1]. All of these studies employ systematic (e.g., bibliometric, citation analysis, etc.) review methods, they focus on high quality journal lists, and they aim to address the underlying core research areas and themes that dominate research in the field of SE. Under-researched areas, and those where open debates prevail, were also identified so that future research might focus on providing insights on specific issues.

More recent articles endorse a thematic approach to reviewing papers, wherein they suggest that emerging themes in integrative research might also be identified through such a process; for instance, the study by Littlewood and Khan [46] suggests that an informed SE research agenda might be able to inform the role of business networks, which act as catalysts of SE creation, operations, and outcomes. Conversely, Hidalgo et al. [47] undertook a social capital–social entrepreneurship review, and they suggested that social capital is a latent field of research. Similarly, Tan et al. [48] focused on social entrepreneurial intention, and they identified relevant research directions which could enable an understanding of the conceptualization of the phenomenon, the individual and contextual aspects of the phenomenon, the institutional level parameters that are conducive for the phenomenon, and the underlying behavioral process of the phenomenon.

3.2.2. Common Ground Reviews

A challenging task that is often addressed in review papers concerns identifying those parts of extant knowledge that can be identified as areas of consensus (or areas with a lack thereof). Given the continuous increase in social entrepreneurship research, common ground findings are essential pillars in the field. On the other hand, identifying the reasons that underlie the persistence of open debates and/or contested approaches in a research field is also important for advancing research of this kind. Four review studies provide us with such common ground arguments. The arguments suggesting that more theoretical and methodological research is required were categorized as shared findings. SE develops in multiple ways, wherein country level variations are important (an issue which many review studies focus upon, see Section 3.2.3).

The urge for more research to focus on the analysis of SE can be found in the study by Short et al. [49], which was a relatively early contribution to the field; they suggested that research on SE is at an embryonic stage. As they note, there has been little empirical research on this topic, and such research was informed by theoretical developments in the field; moreover, conceptual contributions outnumbered the number of empirical studies at that time [49]. More recently, Clarkin and Cangioni [50] acknowledged the need for interdisciplinary research on SE in order to promote high impact investments and the establishment of supportive environments for such investments in all countries. Cieslik [20] proposes a process-based approach (as opposed to an outcome-based one) for the study of SE, suggesting that it might lay the groundwork for complementary research to occur between the mitigation and transformation approaches to SE. Such a conceptualization would, in turn, allow social entrepreneurship research to better investigate ‘the structures that truly underlie the social problems’, which SE attempts to address [20] (p. 369); however, the analytical framework that best suits such an endeavor is yet to be found, due to the multiple dimensions of SE. Rodrigues et al. [14] applied a bibliometric approach to inclusive entrepreneurship research; it took social entrepreneurship, alongside inclusive and sustainable business analysis, into consideration. They argued that such a framework would allow for a holistic view of SE (e.g., the analysis of SE can work as an integration tool that transcends the poor and deprived contexts, upon which, research usually focuses [14]).

3.2.3. Dimensions of SE Reviews

A large body of reviews (20 identified here) summarized key research findings at a country level, with a view to identify supportive SE environments. We classified these studies as being reviews with SE dimensions; this is because they enrich our knowledge and understanding of SE types, goals, and outcomes, which are dependent upon the social, economic, political, institutional, and environmental context of societies, from which, SEs emerge. These studies provide ample evidence that SE is bound to national context, and thus, with regard to the phenomenon, the task of building a supportive environment might be informed by knowledge of the specificities of the country level. Relevant studies are provided by Golubović and Muhi [51] for Serbia, Mahfuz Ashraf et al. [52] for Bangladesh, Pradhan [53] and Gupta and Srivastava [54] for India, and Anggahegari et al. [55] for Indonesia. In addition, a number of studies provide comparative evidence for a group of countries. Cross-country evidence is provided by Sengupta and Sahay [56] for Asia and Pacific countries, Ibáñez [57] for Latin America countries, and Fauzi et al. [58] for ASEAN countries.

In addition to the national aspect of the phenomenon, other dimensions that are related to the opportunity to develop SE, or the necessity–identification rationale behind the development of SE, have been extensively reviewed. Among them, innovation is the most heavily studied dimension of social entrepreneurship. This is anticipated to the extent that innovation is acknowledged as a structural and defining feature of SE. The studies by Phillips et al. [17], João-Roland and Granados [19], Montes-Martínez and Ramírez-Montoya [59], Bataglin and Kruglianskas [60], and Manjon et al. [61] are indicative of a research focus on SE innovation. The variety of other dimensions underlying SE research includes an analysis of social change and ecosystems of change [5,62], institutional environment and the role of the state [63], as well as a number of inter-organizational issues related to knowledge management [64], accountability [65], communication strategy [66], and the dynamic capabilities of SEs [67]. These case study reviews provide micro (individual and/or organizational) level information, which thus complements the country (macro) level evidence in the field.

3.2.4. Impact of SE Reviews

The last group in this category involves the few (three identified here) reviews that focus on the impact of social entrepreneurship and its actual measurement. Most impact studies tend to implicitly assume that positive social effects result from SE; this assumption has now been acknowledged as the result of a lack of actual social impact studies. Holt and Littlewood [68] directly study the social impact of hybrid organizations through an approach that identifies, maps, and controls for the outcomes of SEs. In general, however, social value as generated by SEs is most often implied and not measured [2]; therefore, the lack of impact assessments is identified as a core theoretical and methodological issue that emerged due to the lack of an inclusive analytical framework for the study of SE [2,18].

3.3. Empirical Analysis Contributions

The last group of reviews (nine identified here) comprises country, sector, or organization analyses. These exemplar case studies were analyzed with the intention of producing largely generalizable findings that stem from a national, industrial, or case specific context. Themes concerning how to develop and provide support for social entrepreneurship dominate these empirical analyses. Our search shows that studies in this group deal with the support of country level development (socio-economic, institutional, legal, technological) [69], and the support of entrepreneurship initiatives [70], in light of the countries’ need to deal with specific social issues such as cohesion, integration, equality, and so on. These issues are central to the reviews that focus on women entrepreneurship [71,72], youth entrepreneurship [73], and community sustainability and resilience [74]. Finally, empirical studies setting the groundwork for sectoral findings are also numerous. The study of the health sector is most often chosen with a view to providing gender, age, spatial, and country level findings, given the SEs’ role in promoting positive health outcomes [75,76,77].

3.4. Summary of Overview of Reviews

Overall, it is interesting that among the aforementioned reviews (Section 3.1, Section 3.2 and Section 3.3) we only located three articles that make explicit reference to social capital. If the article’s title denotes explicit focus, we found that only the studies by Littlewood and Khan [46] (networks), Hidalgo et al. [47] (social capital), and Pounder [69] (culture) fulfil this criterion. The three contributions present parts of a larger discussion concerning the interrelationship between social capital and social entrepreneurship. Hidalgo et al. [47] and Littlewood and Khan [46] provide systematic reviews of social capital and networks, respectively, and they argue that it is conducive to social entrepreneurship development, its operations, and outcomes. Both studies urge for more research focusing on the field of social capital. Moreover, the social entrepreneurship interrelationship and Littlewood and Khan [46] also indicate the need for wider geographical coverage of empirical investigations. Pounder [69] takes a macro framework of national cultures and suggests that the conceptualization of social entrepreneurship should embrace different notions of social problems as deriving from differential cultural environments.

4. Social Entrepreneurship and Social Capital: A Review of Impact Research

Using the findings of the overview of reviews, we identified and addressed a gap in our summary of knowledge regarding the social entrepreneurship–social capital relationship. The results of this task are shown in the present part of our study, and the task was conducted under the hypothesis that this interrelationship provides the base for social impact generation. For the initial identification of relevant research in the initial stage of the analysis, again, a number of key search terms were used. The predefined search terms and their combinations were as follows: ‘social entrepreneurship’, ‘social enterprises’, or ‘social entrepreneur(s)’; and ‘social capital’, ‘trust’, ‘(social) network(s)’, ‘norms’, ‘social norms’, ‘collective norms’, ‘values’, or ‘culture’. After applying the exclusion and inclusion criteria to the initially identified records, 253 documents were found to be eligible for the final screening. Then, we assessed the 253 records in terms of focus, and we allowed for articles that included the following keywords in their title: ‘impact’, ‘outcomes’, ‘value’, ‘value creation’, ‘development’, ‘mobilization’, and ‘innovation’. Such articles were included in the final review list. Our final list comprises a total of 79 articles, the key findings of which are presented separately in order to assess the theoretical and empirical contributions. Figure 2 summarizes these steps of the analysis using a PRISMA flowchart for reporting systematic reviews [38].

As in the overview section of this study, the classification of these works is exploratory, and it serves the purpose of identifying the intersecting areas between social capital and the impact of SEs.

Table 2. Classification of key evidence from SE–SC studies.

Type of Study	No. of Studies	Period Covered	Key Insights
Theoretical	13	2008–2018	[1] Impact concerns development and welfare levels being directly/indirectly induced by: − Third sector accumulation of social capital; − Socio-economic integration; − Social change (peace); − Qualitative institutions.
Empirical	66
Inter-/Intra-organization	13	2009–2022	[1] Efficiency induced by networks supporting: − Business resources and their use; − Values/goals of organizations; − Group trust.
Community	46	2010–2022	[1] Space–geographical context of the common good envisioned as: − Cohesion; − Human empowerment; − Inclusion; − Sustainable practices; − Public goods.
Institutions	7	2010–2022	[1] Aggregate (macro) level institutions conducive to: − Innovation; − Productivity; − Promotion of social goals.

briefly summarizes the key findings from the analysis of these studies, as discussed in Section 4.1 and Section 4.2.

Table A2. Studies included in the literature review of the analysis.

Theoretical Contributions (Section 4.1)
No.	Study	Construct	Approach	Theme/Context	Insights
1	Birch and Whittam (2008) [80]	Social capital	Theoretical/policy	UK regional development	Third sector contributes to the regional development of social capital.
2	Bloom and Smith (2010) [78]	Social capital	Theoretical/SCALERS method	US 591 worked for nonprofit organizations	Drivers of impact generation.
3	Roberts (2010) [83]	Social capital, networks	Theoretical	Conflicted and war-torn areas	San Francisco-based Kiva to rebuild and reconstruct devastated areas.
4	Smith and Stevens (2010) [88]	Social networks	Theoretical	‘Sites and spaces’ where social entrepreneurial processes take place	Typology using structural embeddedness of social entrepreneurship.
5	Dees (2012) [89]	Norms/values (culture)	Theoretical	Old culture of charity and a contemporary culture of entrepreneurial problem solving	The success of social entrepreneurship requires integrated values from both cultures (satisfaction of giving correlates with social benefits of rigorous problem solving).
6	Calton et al. (2013) [82]	Moral values, networks	Theoretical	Extreme poverty	Mental models creating value in accordance with the base of the pyramid—“community of practice”.
7	Dufays and Huybrechts (2014) [79]	Social networks	Theoretical	Review	Sociology of social networks to explain SE at the micro–macro level interface. Social networks for SE embeddedness, collectiveness, networking skills/activities, and social capital creation.
8	Păunescu (2014) [85]	Social capital	Theoretical	Review	Impact measurement of social innovation.
9	Newth and Woods (2014) [86]	Norms	Theoretical	Analytical perspective/Schumpeterian notion of resistance	SE as context dependent opportunities.
10	Rymsza (2015) [81]	Social capital	Theoretical	Labor integration, community empowerment	Hybrid entities strengthen social bonds, produce bonding moments, and bridge social capital divides.
11	Shamir (2015) [84]	Norms, values	Theoretical/empirical application	Israel/two campaigns: society for workers’ rights and the rights of the disabled; consumer movement against the cottage cheese producers	Political consumerism (alternative politics/participation) prompting institutional change and social justice.
12	Oskooii and Ajali (2017) [87]	Social capital	Theoretical	Content and interrelationship between basic notions	Links between social capital and social innovation and the promise for growth.
13	Newth (2018) [90]	Beliefs	Conceptual paper	Managers’ attitudes to social innovation	Advocate the greater use of ethnographic research.
Empirical contributions/Inter- and intra-organization studies (Section 4.2.1)
	Study	Construct	Country	Theme/methods	Insights
14	Squazzoni (2009) [91]	Business Network	Northern California, US	Inter-sectoral initiatives/‘Silicon Valley Network’ (NPO)	Supports an initiative-oriented collaboration framework among participants and across sectors.
15	Salim Saji and Ellingstad (2016) [92]	Social networks	Kenya	Interaction and social innovation/Hewlett Packard and early infant diagnosis innovation projects	Illuminate the power of certain words that are repeatedly used in e-mails and articles related to social innovation.
16	Pazaitis et al. (2017) [93]	Network, values	International	Open co-operativism/Enspiral Network (New Zealand founded)	Peer-to-peer relations that organize productive efforts and achieve sustainable livelihoods.
17	Ko et al. (2019) [94]	Network	UK	Two-hundred and twenty-nine UK-registered Community Interest Companies	Network connections with commercial firms are a stronger moderator of the relationship between social entrepreneurial passion and creative solution generation capacity.
18	Chowdhury (2020) [97]	Values	Bangladesh, India, Paraguay, Sri Lanka	Institutional bricolage in emerging economies/three party cooperation for the transferring system concerning affordable eye-care services.	Institutional bricolage—the crafting of improvised solutions in resource-constrained settings. This can promote innovation transfer to align the values between partner social enterprises.
19	Oriakhogba (2020) [98]	Culture (values)	KwaZulu-Natal/South Africa	Empowering rural women crafters/Group of women crafters (bead-makers)—the Woza Moya project, Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust	Collaborative and inclusive innovation practices empower craftspeople.
20	Milgram (2020) [102]	Trust	Philippines	Indigenous textile production and trade/group trust for the global market of artisanal goods	Artisans and entrepreneurs operationalize work opportunities to negotiate market precarity and the material representation of local cultural identity.
21	Weerakoon et al. (2020) [103]	Social capital	Australia	One-hundred and twelve managers/structural equation models showing mediation effects	Opportunity, motivation and ability factors conducive to knowledge creation. Cognitive social capital for innovativeness.
22	Pathak and Mukherjee (2020) [99]	Networks	Kutch district of Gujarat, India	Craft-based enterprises with symbiotic linkages/two case studies: Ajrakh craft cluster from Ajrakhpur, and Kala Cotton from Aadeshar, Bhuj	Like-minded individuals/social entrepreneurs, social enterprises, design networks, and educational institutions are vital for craft sustainability.
23	Pelizza et al. (2021) [100]	Values, networks	Brazil	SE growth/eight social entrepreneurs in two waste-pickers’ cooperatives and two artisan associations)	Growth is a collective phenomenon subject to intentions, meanings, support for other organizations, and participation in networks.
24	Kelly et al. (2022) [95]	Social networks	US	Leadership of social entrepreneurs	Authentic leadership is a more effective driver of multiple outcomes in social entrepreneurship.
25	Drencheva et al. (2022) [96]	Social networks	UK	Feedback for resource mobilization/82 interviews with 36 nascent social entrepreneurs	Searching for resource holders in the resource mobilization process; social entrepreneurs’ decisions concerning whom to approach for interpersonal feedback is a valuable resource.
26	Naznen et al. (2022) [101]	Values, beliefs, norms	Bangladesh	Seven-hundred and ninety-seven students from higher educational institutes in Bangladesh/structural equation modelling	Altruistic and traditional values influence normative beliefs that influence personal norms that interrelate (two-way causation) awareness and responsibility. Personal and social norms impact SE intention.
Empirical contributions/Community outcome studies (Section 4.2.2)
27	Friedman and Desivilya (2010) [108]	Social networks	Israel	Social divisions/‘Studio for Social Creativity’	Social capital conducive to redefining inter-group relationships.
28	Martin and Novicevic (2010) [104]	Norms/values	Kenya	Poverty/Horace Tipton (leader)	‘Servant leadership’ approach to cultural learning and building sustainable farming communities.
29	Bahmani et al. (2012) [134]	Social capital	Cross country	Economic growth/NPOs mediation	NPOs enhance growth through entrepreneurship, human capital, and education.
30	Pearson and Helms (2013) [105]	Social capital	Australia	Poverty/Indigenous SE (The Gumatj Clan Enterprise in East Arnhem Land)	Alleviating poverty and enhancing the socio-economic environment of an indigenous community.
31	K’nIfe and Haughton (2013) [137]	Trust	Jamaica	Crime/perception of police performance	Trust sustains socially inclusive partnerships and strategies.
32	Schnarch and Franco (2013) [109]	Networks	Colombia	Cohesion and civil resistance/‘Corporación Picacho con Futuro’	Networks help young people resist armed groups’ and drug-dealing networks’ recruitment efforts.
33	Werber et al. (2014) [138]	Social capital, trust	Los Angeles County, California	Health/14 congregations—races/ethnicities (African-American, Latino, white) and faith traditions (Jewish and various Christian)	Congregations’ health initiatives have unique strengths and complement the efforts of health and social providers.
34	Chirozva (2015) [118]	Networks	Zimbabwe	Community development/Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area	Innovative community leaders for ecotourism opportunities.
35	Urban (2015) [113]	Networks	South Africa	Self-efficacy/two major cities in South Africa	Perceptions of capability are positively related to: implementing a social vision, sustainability, social networking, innovativeness, and financial returns.
36	Kummitha (2016) [110]	Trust	India	Labour market integration/socially excluded persons	SEs enhance empowerment, work integration, building trust, and achieving a sustainable orientation.
37	Lindberg et al. (2016) [114]	Gendered norms, Networks	Sweden	Women entrepreneurship/a network promoting women’s employment	Gendered norms, subordination, and empowerment affect social inclusion in social innovation processes.
38	Larsson et al. (2016) [135]	Trust	Sweden	Organic food sector/‘Biodynamiska Produkter’ producer	Social and sustainability entrepreneurial organizationand organizational resilience.
39	Nicolás and Rubio (2016) [115]	Social norms	48 countries	Gender gap in social and commercial entrepreneurship	Gender gap reduced in social entrepreneurship. Cultural/social norms explain female behavior and participation in SE.
40	Von Friedrichs and Wahlberg (2016) [139]	Sports club	Sweden	Public services and community development/sports club	Conditions and challenges of SE when voluntary sector takes over traditional public commitments in small rural societies.
41	Seferiadis et al. (2017) [106]	Social capital	Bangladesh	Poverty alleviation, rural women/transdisciplinary action–research methodology	Non-transformational vision of development that comprises small, incremental, locally embedded changes.
42	Hlady Rispal and Servantie (2017) [111]	Network	Colombia	Social change/Foundation for community-based network	Communitarian innovative solutions for the excluded.
43	Morrison et al. (2017) [119]	Social capital	Scotland	Remote community resilience/15 island communities, Scotland	Renewable energy initiatives build community resilience.
44	McMullen, and Bergman (2017) [140]	Moral norms	Uganda	Hybrid goods and SE’s rights/responsibilities/‘Safe Water for Africa’ program	SE’s marketing and stakeholders’ expectations of the enterprise’s rights and responsibilities.
45	Pret and Carter (2017) [120]	Community norms	local, virtual and transnational communities	Entrepreneurs’ ‘fitting in’/10 craft entrepreneurs	Entrepreneurs ‘fit in’ by learning accepted norms and adapting their conduct to meet the expectations of community members.
46	de Beer (2018) [121]	Social networks	Netherlands	Social embeddedness /18 neighborhood-based entrepreneurs	Local social networks have a direct, indirect, and moderating effect, but are not prerequisites for local social value creation to occur.
47	Kokko (2018) [122]	Networks	Nairobi	‘Logics’ of social value outcomes/Case study ‘Peepoople’	A shared goal facilitates the co-existence of competing value logics, and provides, thus common space forming multiple social value outcomes, which are products of the different logics.
48	Ozeren et al. (2018) [141]	Social networks	Turkey	Social needs—social problem/‘Garbage Ladies’, a social development project	Importance of network processes rather than network structure/design for social innovation.
49	Santafe-Rojas et al. (2018) [123]	Networks	Norte de Santander, Colombia	Endogenous development of the Catatumbo sub-region/15 inhabitants and 11 mayors of the sub-region	SEs were used as the basis for endogenous development through the articulation of business actors and the society within them.
50	Sigala (2019) [142]	Networks	Thessaloniki, Greece	Social value and change, provision of healthy, good quality food/social restaurant (Mageires)	“Learning with the market” approach—framework explaining SEs’ management, engagement, new market, and social value co-creation by various stakeholders.
51	Naderi et al. (2019) [124]	Social capital	Iran	Rural tourism/168 employees of social enterprises	Highlights the power of social value creation and social capital in SEs operating in rural destinations.
52	Hoang Tien et al. (2020) [125]	Social capital	Vietnam	Sustainable rural development/Commercial—social entrepreneurship comparison	Social entrepreneurship needs a more strategic approach in theoretical and empirical investigations.
53	Thomsen et al. (2020) [107]	Culture, Gender norms	Guatemala	Transcultural development, poverty alleviation/new export crop ‘pigeonpea’ (Cajanus cajan)/NGO ethnographic study	Inclusion and preservation of cultural norms and rights of receiving cultures when conducting projects to alleviate poverty.
54	Suhaimee et al. (2020) [136]	Social capital	Malaysia	B40 household income/304 respondents—purposive sampling	Social innovation and social entrepreneurship creates an innovative (high social capital) society that can reduce income inequality and enhance wellbeing in B40 households.
55	Langley et al. (2020) [112]	Community groups	Berlin	Crowdfunding ecologies of cities	Understanding relations between crowdfunding and cities. Solidarity economies of community groups and charities.
56	Agarwal et al. (2020) [143]	Values, norms	India	Jugaad in India’s healthcare sector: Aravind Eye Care System, LifeSpring Hospitals, and Ziqitza Health Care Limited	Jugaad approach is conceptually distinct from bricolage. Jugaad elements of frugality and inclusivity are relevant to the study of social enterprises’ resource mobilization processes.
57	Morales et al. (2021) [117]	Norms, culture	Colombia	Indigenous social entrepreneurship/five indigenous communities (Curripaco, Puinave, Yanacona, Misak, and Wayuu) in three geographic regions	Indigenous social enterprises operate as hybrid organizations; they are influenced by their cultural practices and dominant Western forms.
58	Nambudiri (2021) [126]	Social capital	India	Social capital utilization and creation/413 social entrepreneurship projects in India	Funded SEs create more bonding moments and they bridge more capital. Market model SEs create more linking capital. The two models utilize different types of social capital to create social outcomes.
59	Rado et al. (2021) [127]	Social capital	Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan	Sustainable Asian rural societies/multi-sector initiatives and common patterns and key drivers for collaboration	Distinct drivers are involved in each context (solutions, advocacy, and reconciliation) due to different types of social capital.
60	Silfia et al. (2021) [128]	Network	Indonesia	Agriculture Cluster Development, Community Social Business/farmer groups in Lembah Gumanti subdistrict, Solok regency, West Sumatra province	Community effectiveness entrepreneurship index.
61	von Schnurbein et al. (2021) [129]	Networks	Basel, Switzerland	Urban development/District of ‘Gundeldinger Feld’ in Basel, Switzerland	The presence of high social capital supersedes the coercive power of the public sector.
62	Akinboade et al. (2021) [144]	Network, trust	Gauteng and Western Cape provinces, South Africa	Social goods/electricity distribution, water reticulation, and waste management	Overwhelming complexity of local government services in South Africa.
63	Mishra and Tapasvi (2021) [145]	Network	India	E-services to citizens/Network of village level entrepreneurs in rural and peri-urban areas public service delivery	Common service center scheme model falling short in transforming village level entrepreneurs into leveraged nonprofit social entrepreneurs.
64	Kulshrestha et al. (2021) [146]	Trust	India	Fresh drinking water/in-depth interviews with the JanaJal Water on Wheels founder	The founder worked on gaining the trust of his beneficiaries and stakeholders in order to create social value.
65	Colovic and Schruoffeneger (2021) [147]	Networks	Brazil	Institutional change/a local, grassroots social business venture operating in Brazilian favelas	An innovative social business model acts on institutional voids and creates social value for deprived communities.
66	Ummiroh et al. (2022) [116]	Norms	Indonesia	Qualitative exploratory study—six Muslim women social entrepreneurs in contrast to three women working with, and three women working without, their husband	SE assists women leadership to address socioreligious patriarchical norms in a Muslim society.
67	Anh et al. (2022) [130]	Social capital	Vietnam	Entrepreneurship in rural and urban areas/largest megacities and far-off countryside areas	Predominant kind of entrepreneurship in each of the two distinctive zones.
68	Naranjo-Valencia et al. (2022) [131]	Social capital, social networks	Colombia	Social innovation in rural communities—victims of armed conflict	Social enterprises integrated into social networks achieve two significant outcomes.
69	Zhang et al. (2022) [132]	Value networks	China	Longitudinal research in rural communities—contextual/non-participatory observation and 50 interviews in Yuanjia Village, Shaanxi Province	Development of SE as a three stage dynamic outcome. Community mobilization leads to effective participation in tourism-based SEs, and requires participation of indigenous population.
70	Suriyankietkaew, et al. (2022) [133]	Social capital, values and norms	Thailand	Case study: green social enterprise (winner of Best Responsible Tourism award) in small coastal fishing village/ multi-data collection methods (in-depth interviews, focus groups, stakeholders)	Evidence complies with six-category sustainable leadership practices and five essential sustainability leadership competencies to varying degrees.
71	Ketprapakorn and Kantabutra (2022) [148]	Values and norms	Thailand	Theptarin Hospital/practices of a sustainable social healthcare enterprise	Focal core code comprises wellbeing and five influencing core codes (social vision, values and norms, knowledge, impact),which are are components of the sustainable social healthcare enterprise model
Empirical/Institutions for social impact (Section 4.2.3)
72	Onyx and Leonard (2010) [153]	Social capital	Australia	Community diversity/four small rural towns	Depends on (a) pre-existing community structure, (b) whether it is supported (not controlled) by local government, and (c) whether it is inclusive entrepreneurship.
73	Toivonen (2016) [149]	Culture	Europe	Social innovation /the social innovation community	Categorization of social innovation communities.
74	Vasilieva et al. (2018) [154]	Trust, social participation	Russian Federation	Civil society, nonprofit (third), and commercial sector basis for the development of a legislative, economic initiative/Volgograd Region	SE depends on objective (income, unemployment) and subjective (trust in NPOs, attitudes for the activities of public organizations) factors/objective conditions that can hinder the efficiency of socially-oriented NPOs.
75	Brieger and De Clercq (2019) [150]	Social capital, culture	35 countries	Hofstede’s cultural values framework/12,685 entrepreneurs in 35 countries—Global Entrepreneurship Monitor	Individual-level resources predict the extent to which entrepreneurs emphasize social goals. Culture influences the allocation of resources towards social value creation.
76	Aksoy et al. (2019) [155]	Trust	Cross country	AshokaU Changemaker Campuses (survey through Aspen Institute’s newsletter)/66 institutions of higher education and 8 social entrepreneur interviews	Business schools are uniquely positioned and responsible for educating future business leaders.
77	Deng et al. (2020) [151]	Social capital	42 countries	Subjective wellbeing/socio-political conditions of not-for-profit and hybrid SE	Configurations of institutional and social capital conditions lead to prevalence of different types of SE.
78	Jiatong et al. (2021) [152]	Social network	27 countries	Enterprise development/ online survey data for 486 social entrepreneurs	Mediating role of social networks, and moderating role of government regulations.
79	Usman et al. (2022) [156]	Social network	Pakistan	Social entrepreneurial intentions/247 university students	Social worth is the dominant trait, whereas the social network is the trait that has the least influence in impacting SE intentions.

Source: Authors’ elaborations. Note: the above classification is proposed in accordance with the study’s aim.

in Appendix A analytically presents the reviewed studies, the methods, the analyzed examples, and the key insights produced by these studies.

4.1. Theoretical Contributions

At the theoretical level, the key themes that were analyzed refer to the conceptualization and measurement of SE’s impact. In the 13 studies classified as theoretical contributions, it is evident that the inclusive terms of development (regional development) and provision of public goods and services were chosen in order to analyze the impact of social capital that has been accumulated through SEs. Contributions such as those by Bloom and Smith [78] and Dufays and Huybrechts [79] focus on how welfare levels are supported by higher levels of social capital. Overall, impact studies include an in depth analysis of a number of issues relating to wellbeing, including: (a) the third sector’s ability to support regional development dynamics via social capital accumulation [80]; (b) the strengthening of local social bonds through work integration [81]; (c) the reduction of poverty [82]; (d) social change (e.g., in conflicted and war-torn areas [83]); (e) institutional change (e.g., via political consumerism [84]), and (f) social innovation in general [85,86,87].

The consequences for policy interventions in support of social entrepreneurship are discussed in all the cases mentioned above, and thus, the importance of the paradigm is systematically evidenced. In addition, the analysis of SEs as affected by social capital is based on the common understanding that: (a) geography matters, to the extent that both social networks and SEs are embedded in, and structured by, space [88]; and (b) an inclusive common values set is needed, as charity and altruistic behavioral norms are called upon to inform entrepreneurial practice and market-related decisions [89]. The latter is an aspect that further indicates the interdisciplinary nature of the subject. Newth [90], for example, argues for more ethnographic research in order to understand how managers’ beliefs and attitudes transform into social innovation initiatives.

It is indicative that in such implicit approaches, social capital is viewed as a key productive resource. In such theorizations, social capital is a vital production input; thus, higher development levels are implicitly assumed to be possible when higher levels of social capital are accumulated [80,81]. Relevant to our analysis is the argument that in most cases, social capital is seen as a moderator acting upon concrete business problems; for instance, it moderates access to financial resources [83], the building of a social problem solving culture [84,89], and the identification of social innovation opportunities [86,87]. On the other hand, social capital effectively acts as a mediator variable when it lays the groundwork for business partnerships and associations that focus on social value creation activities at the sectoral and the community levels [79,82,85,88].

4.2. Empirical Contributions

We classified empirical studies concerning the social entrepreneurship–social capital research into three sub-groups, in accordance with the study’s focus: (a) inter- and intra-organization networks; (b) the benefits to community, region, and country; and, (c) institutional development. Again, it is notable that this is a tentative classification; as in most cases, the analysis performed acknowledges or discusses the interplay between the individual, meso (regional/community), and/or macro level parameters, with regard to the operation and success of SEs. However, our focus is to identify the origins of effects, as highlighted by each study’s focus on the way in which social impact is mediated/moderated by the social capital embedded in SEs.

4.2.1. Inter- and Intra-Organization Studies

First, we present the group of 13 studies that follow a business resource theorization of social capital. In such studies, inter- and intra-organizational success is found to depend on the presence and operation of dynamic business networks [91,92,93,94,95,96], the values that are shared among business and/or network members [97,98,99,100,101], and group trust [102]. In other words, the efficiency of business models that arise from within a social innovation–social goods provisional framework is reduced in the presence of distinct social capital items such as the networks, values, and trust components analyzed in the aforementioned studies. Tangible business goals include production initiatives, innovation, and firm growth and empowerment, all of which are achievable when motives are transformed into creative products [94], new innovations [91,103], and improved productive organization. These are the result of repeated social interactions [92,93], a strongly motivated leadership [95], and effective resource mobilization using networks’ feedback [96]. At the sectoral and community levels, empirically tangible effects associated with the presence of social capital include trade development [102], the provision of healthcare services [97], and a reduction in gender occupation gaps [98].

4.2.2. Community Outcome Studies

The bulk of the empirical research (46 studies) refers to the social entrepreneurship–social capital relationship, and it aims to provide evidence of the concrete outcomes of this interrelationship. Core societal problems are analyzed using the networks, values, and trust approach to building SEs. Here, the main themes analyzed are: (a) poverty [104,105,106,107]; (b) social change (divisions /cohesion/inclusion/solidarity) [108,109,110,111,112]; (c) human empowerment [113]; including women entrepreneurship [114,115,116] and indigenous entrepreneurship [117]; (d) community development [118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133]; (e) growth and wellbeing [134,135,136]; and (f) public goods such as water, electricity, waste management, safety, health, food, and so on [137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144,145,146,147,148].

Two observations can be made with regard to the focus and insights produced from the abovementioned studies. First, research verifies that social capital is a flexible resource in both developed and developing countries. We characterize it as being flexible because a variety of goals, products, services, and so on, can be produced by strong networks of people who share common values and who trust each other. In other words, it is a need-mobilized resource that is able to address specific group goals that are in accordance with a society’s socio-economic, institutional, and political context. Second, despite the contextual differences in the origins of these challenges, the same underlying need is observed (i.e., the need to overcome development lags and inequalities in both western developed economies and developing/emerging economies). In both types of countries, common problems arise, and thus, SEs are businesses that can deliver ‘public goods’ or address social challenges such as: (a) escaping poverty, analyzed in countries such as Kenya, Bangladesh, Guatemala and Australia; (b) enhancing cohesion, inclusion, and solidarity, as analyzed in the case of Israel, Colombia, India, and Berlin/Germany; (c) empowering people, women, and indigenous populations in South Africa, Colombia, and Sweden; (d) enhancing community resilience in Zimbabwe, Scotland, Nairobi, Iran, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, and Indonesia; (e) addressing a lack of healthcare services or healthcare access inequalities in the case of Los Angeles County in California, India, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Paraguay, and Sri Lanka; (f) providing safety resources in Jamaica and Uganda, and water in in India, Uganda, and South Africa. Growth, gender, and spatial inequalities in income and wellbeing comprise the core issues in cross-country studies. These challenges are considered as baseline developmental requests, and thus, cross-country comparisons of social entrepreneurship are employed under the hypothesis that SEs are, or should be, a mechanism that is successful in inducing employment, productivity, and integration.

This list is not exhaustive; however, the bulk of this research indicates that these studies focus on the ‘third way’ approach when it comes to the results of SEs. This is because both the markets and the state are considered to have failed. On the one hand, the markets have failed to produce opportunities for employment, productive entrepreneurship, and work-induced socio-economic integration, whereas the state has failed to safely and efficiently deliver the ‘public’ or ‘social’ goods that citizens demand.

4.2.3. Institutions for Social Impact

Last, we present a set of seven studies that focus on aggregate level institutions as being the key to social value creation, social innovation, productivity, and wellbeing. When acknowledging the potential contribution of SEs, or allowing for an opportunities-oriented approach, these studies suggest that established institutions at the socio-economic and regulatory levels are critical for the promotion of social goals and the value created in social enterprises. In most cases, cross-country comparisons are made in order to verify the decisive role of such institutional differences; for example, this occurs in the studies by Toivonen [149], Brieger and De Clercq [150], Deng et al. [151], and Jiatong et al. [152]. However, country level investigations also exist; for example, this occurs in the studies by Onyx and Leonard [153], who studied peripheral diversities in institutional development in Australia, and the study by Vasilieva et al. [154], who analyzed the interplay between objective (macro) and subjective (individual) factors in the development of civil society in the Russian Federation. A key institution that has been the subject of little research, with regard to its role in promoting social entrepreneurship and social value creation, is education. In our search, we found only two relevant works that concerned education, namely, the study by Aksoy et al. [155], who employed a cross country comparison of education, considering it as uniquely positioned to create future business leaders that aspire to tackling social goals, and the study by Usman et al. [156], who analyzed the role of education in social innovation with regard to emerging economies.

5. Discussion

The study emphasizes social capital as a mediating/moderating factor with regard to the social impact creation of social enterprises. This argument is verified through a two-step process, namely, the adoption of a mixed methods review process. During the first step, an overview of social entrepreneurship reviews was undertaken in order to identify the lack of explicit research on the impact of social entrepreneurship. The analysis showed that there are only a few (three identified here) review studies that summarize the available SE knowledge by taking SEs’ impact into account. This finding indicates that in most cases the positive impact of SEs is implicitly assumed not observed and/or measured. Predefined benefits can be generated once SEs are established, or even when the intention, interventions, and initiatives used to promote them are enhanced. As a result, the impact of SEs is reflected upon/incorporated into the observed socio-economic growth rates and wellbeing achievements, but it cannot be directly linked with their presence and efficient operation. We lack a mechanism-based approach though which to conceptualize the impact generation processes that are embedded in social enterprises.

In light of the abovementioned issue, the second step in our analysis focused on the social capital–social entrepreneurship relationship as the locus of impact generation. In particular, we undertook a literature review of the existing research that focuses on the social capital–social entrepreneurship relationship, using ‘impact’ as the keyword to identify the studies to be considered in this phase of the analysis. Our analytical method adopts a mediating/moderating approach with regard to social impact creation. Drawing upon the literature on social capital, in particular, its content, workings, and effect on social advancement and prosperity, we identified it as being a mediator/moderator for the creation of social value in social enterprises. Then, we focused on identifying the ways through which social capital facilitates social value creation in social enterprises. This is important as the available knowledge suggests that we need more insights on (a) the operating processes that differentiate SEs from commercial businesses, and (b) the social impact that SEs generate through the adoption of such operation processes.

As a result of the abovementioned literature review process, we identified the moderating/mediating relationship between social capital and social enterprises, finding that it is structured in accordance with the ability of social capital to induce the generation of direct and indirect impacts that are associated with the presence and operation of SEs. In particular, there are three pathways of social value creation that are induced by the SEs–SC interrelationship, namely, productivity, community resilience, and institutional development. A well-performing network induces productivity, which is essential for economic sustainability and a means to securitize positive social impacts that go beyond the SEs’ output (e.g., public good provision); for instance, these impacts include wider socio-economic benefits such as work integration, poverty alleviation, social cohesion, and so on. In the case of community outcomes, a pre-existing social structure is the mobilizing factor that necessarily creates an enterprise scheme that succeeds; this is because shared views concerning how to address a need exist. Finally, in the case of institutions, it is the quality of the regulatory framework that should be improved for social goods to be reflected in the preference agenda of citizens (civil society empowerment). In all these cases, the mediating/moderating effects of social capital are present in the horizontal and vertical links among and between firms, community members, and state institutions.

The theoretical and practical implications of the above insights are important. At the theoretical level, a more inclusive theorization of social entrepreneurship could be provided by re-considering the social economy model as a third-way initiative that can be found at the intersection between business scope formation and social capital accumulation. The locus of the intersection can be observed at the individual (micro), the community (meso), and the country (macro) levels. Further research in this field might involve the adaptation of a flexible theoretical framework, such as the Quadruple/Quintuple Helix Innovation System Model [22], for studying multiple stakeholders’ goals and multiple social outcomes, as endorsed by the social entrepreneurship–social capital interrelationship. At the empirical level, an explicit categorization of SEs’ impact, bearing in mind that it originates from, and is directed toward, particular level(s) of social capital accumulation, will allow for a better understanding of the complex horizontal and vertical links between associations among various stakeholders. This approach will enable a deeper understanding of the value creation processes that are facilitated by the social entrepreneurship–social capital interrelationship.

6. Conclusions

This study analyzes social capital; it views social capital as being conducive to social value creation in social entrepreneurship. Our framework identifies the mediating/moderating functions of social capital and its components, namely, networks, values, and trust. The analysis adopted a mixed methods review that was performed in two stages. First, through an overview of 55 reviews in social entrepreneurship research, we identified a gap in the literature concerning the explicit analysis of the role of social capital in the generation of SE outcomes. Then, we undertook a literature review of 79 studies that focused on the social capital–social entrepreneurship relationship. The insights provided were investigated with reference to the mediating/moderating functions of social impact that are present in SEs. We conclude that social capital is an impact generation mechanism working at different interaction levels; these levels might be identified as pathways to impactful social entrepreneurship, and they are observed when higher levels of social capital are present. These pathways refer to productivity, community resilience, and institutional development. The proposed classification of the empirically identified SE impact pathways offers insights that are useful to informing the available conceptualizations of social impact creation and the methods used to approximate tangible SE outcomes. In addition, the mediating/moderating approach to social capital allows for the theorization of these pathways as complementary value creation processes.

Lastly, we should note the limitations of the present study. First, we should mention that the study’s focus on applied research is evidence of SEs’ impact; this is based on the social capital levels that are embedded in an organization, group of people, community, country, and so on. A large body of research employing theoretical analysis methods is available, and thus, the incorporation of their insights into the proposed mediation/moderation framework is an important direction for future research. In particular, identifying common lines of theorization in the field of impact generation mechanisms will contribute to building an integrative framework for SE analysis. A second issue relates to the need to expand the analysis towards inclusive entrepreneurship, a notion that encompasses a large variety of social value creation organizations.