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Review

Mapping the Knowledge Structure and Unveiling the Research Trends in Social Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Development: A Bibliometric Analysis

by
Mir Shahid Satar
1,
Deepanshi Aggarwal
2,*,
Rohit Bansal
3,* and
Ghadah Alarifi
4
1
College of Administrative and Financial Sciences, Saudi Electronic University, Riyadh 11673, Saudi Arabia
2
Department of Commerce, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak 124001, India
3
Department of Management Studies, Vaish College of Engineering, Rohtak 124001, India
4
College of Businesses Administration, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 88428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(7), 5626; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075626
Submission received: 23 February 2023 / Revised: 19 March 2023 / Accepted: 21 March 2023 / Published: 23 March 2023
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Versions Notes

Abstract

:
Several kinds of research from both global and local perspectives have discussed social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. Accordingly, this article aims to highlight the key contributors (authors, institutions, countries, journals) and knowledge structure (co-authorship analysis and cooccurrence-of-keyword analysis) of this research domain. Utilizing the bibliographic data of 300 articles extracted from the Scopus database, we primarily employed Biblioshiny software, resulting in 673 authors from 69 different countries and 496 different institutions. Furthermore, the yearly publication of the 300 documents rose from 1 in 1996 to 24 in 2022, with an average age of 6.08 years and a citation rate of 13.79 yearly. Remarkably, the number of publications on this subject accelerated in 2014. According to the study’s findings, the most productive country in line with research publishing is the USA. The most productive institution has been recognized as the Amrita School of Engineering. The most active author is reported to be Kadol N. The most prolific journal is Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. In addition to this, the top three most frequent terms are ‘social development’, ‘economic development’ and ‘entrepreneur. ‘Social entrepreneurship’, ‘social and economic effects’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘social development’ are the latest keywords in this field that predict future trends. Taken collectively, this review is an expedient resource for gaining a thorough grasp of the state of the art and prospective routes for future research.

1. Introduction

Social entrepreneurship refers to an “entrepreneurial activity with an embedded social purpose” [1]. Social entrepreneurship is a creative way to deal with the complex demands of modern life. In reality, in developing nations, entrepreneurship is frequently seen as a way to improve the economy; nevertheless, this economic growth causes a variety of social issues that the government lacks the funds to address [2]. Even though the idea was first proposed more than forty years ago, social entrepreneurship is a developing real-world phenomenon [3,4,5,6]. It has been applied to improve societal wealth, innovation, employment generation and economic growth, as well as several social issues that have gone unaddressed. Its effects on society are extensive and diverse [7]. Additionally, social entrepreneurship has developed into a research area of major significance for businesses and academics [8,9]. Many businesses are driven to conduct business operations with an embedded social motive because of numerous challenges including poverty and human wellbeing [10]. Social entrepreneurs do not anticipate receiving immediate financial gain from their social businesses or for catalyzing social change. Every form of entrepreneurship, according to [11], serves a social purpose; nevertheless, social entrepreneurship differs from conventional entrepreneurship in that its main purpose is to generate social value as opposed to pursuing individual financial gain [5,12,13]. Thus, social entrepreneurship works with two main objectives: inclusive development and environmental protection. Moreover, entrepreneurship, opportunity and generosity as understood within the larger system create a viable situation for societal as well as fiscal institutional growth. Social enterprises combine the quest for the public good with the methods used by market-aligned, profit-making businesses [14]. Thus, social companies fundamentally work within the limits of those organizations’ established traditional ideas [15,16]. Accordingly, social entrepreneurship might be viewed as a groundbreaking activity to increase producer surplus by minimizing undesirable externalities or generating constructive externalities through the incorporation of key entrepreneurial and societal dimensions [17]. The academic community is very interested in social entrepreneurship and finds it to have a compelling adaptive value. However, this is a relatively new field and research on social entrepreneurship is slim [18]. The existing literature tends to focus on specific elements of social entrepreneurship, such as conceptions and descriptions of social entrepreneurship [19], kinds of institutions in social entrepreneurship, societal innovation [20], statistics on research studies on social entrepreneurship [8], societal effects and societal change [21], environmental protection and social entrepreneurship [22] and women and social entrepreneurship [23]. These results develop specific knowledge about social entrepreneurship in the expected ways. As a result, a thorough and methodical examination of the fragmented area of social entrepreneurship will not merely give a gestalt of the current status of current research; nevertheless, it will also call social entrepreneurship researchers’ attention to less well-known issues. Regardless of this increased attentiveness from the scientific community, a review of the current state of social entrepreneurship literature has revealed that there has been no systematic investigation of the most crucial goal of social entrepreneurship, namely inclusive development. This study used performance and a scientific-mapping review methodology for analyzing the intellectual structure of the knowledge base on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development to report apparent limitations in the existing literature and accomplish a further thorough research assessment on this subject matter, as social entrepreneurs are one of the key enablers of inclusive growth and implement realistic and long-term solutions to problems in a variety of fields, such as health, education, and environmental sustainability. Hence, the present study aims to thoroughly grasp the state of the art in social entrepreneurship and inclusive development research field over the past decades, from 1996 to 2022, by evaluating the key contributors (authors, institutions, countries, journals) and knowledge structure (co-authorship analysis and co-occurrence-of-keyword analysis) of this domain.
The review addresses the following research questions in particular:
RQ1: What is the publication and citation trend of the literature on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development?
RQ2: Which sources have the greatest impact?
RQ3: Who are the authors, institutions, and countries worldwide that contribute and collaborate the most?
RQ4: Which publications have established the most influence or citations?
RQ5: What topics (keywords, trending topics, and themes) are linked with this research domain?
The remaining article is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the literature review of the study, Section 3 delivers a brief description of the materials and methods, Section 4 provides the results, Section 5 presents a discussion of the results and Section 6 provides a thorough explanation of the conclusions.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Social Entrepreneurship

Many definitions of social entrepreneurship cover the coupling of entrepreneurship and social purpose, which is related to the recognition of opportunities and business operations to accomplish social agendas [24]. Social aims are the primary incentive for social entrepreneurship; they must address social problems while generating financial returns, resulting in a dual responsibility for social entrepreneurs along with social enterprises [25]. Social entrepreneurship entails a creative approach to addressing social concerns. Social entrepreneurship is a “process that begins with the production of social ideas, recognizing opportunities and solutions for sustainable social development” [26]. Furthermore, other researchers have created more progressive viewpoints of social entrepreneurship as commercial operations that mix the “social” and “entrepreneurship” to tackle social problems with creative solutions for long-term social and sustainable development [27,28].

2.2. Inclusive Development

There is currently no clear definition of inclusive development. As development should be human-centered, we argue that inclusive development should include both “fair distribution and optimal development returns”. The rationale for this is that individuals serve as the end and the means to that development [29]. All development strategies and measures are designed to benefit persons and their quality of life. As a result, focusing solely on GDP and its growth rates does not provide a complete picture of inclusive development [30,31]. Furthermore, inclusiveness is defined as a “community outcome that arises from inclusion practices that use variety as a resource”. In this context, inclusivity is defined as “the inclusion of all individuals and groups, particularly those who were previously not included or excluded” [32]. This is consistent with the value placed on variation in personal qualities and life goals. Individuals have equivalent exposure to the societal, political and economic mainstreams as well as opportunities to express their preferences, as suggested by the word ‘inclusive’. This moral aim necessitates that all aspects of society benefit from development.

2.3. Bibliometric Analysis

The “bibliometric” method is defined as “the use of mathematical and statistical approaches to books and the other means of communication”. Furthermore, the bibliometric method allows researchers to study the literature on a research subject to determine the knowledge structure and evolution of research themes [33,34]. Mixing multiple bibliometric methodologies fosters a greater understanding of issues in that field of study [35]. Several studies have conducted bibliometric analyses on social entrepreneurship [36,37,38]; social entrepreneurship and complex thinking [39], social enterprise and social entrepreneurship [40], social entrepreneurship and women [23] and technology and social entrepreneurship [41] Despite this increased interest from the scientific community, a survey of the literature on social entrepreneurship has indicated that the most important objective of social entrepreneurship, i.e., inclusive development, has not been the subject of any systematic research. To fill in the evident gaps in the available literature and carry out a more in-depth examination of this topic, this study employed performance and scientific mapping review methodology to analyze the intellectual structure of the social entrepreneurship and inclusive development knowledge base.

3. Materials and Methods

Scientific research has increased in recent decades. As an outcome of this, keeping track of relevant papers in one area is becoming increasingly difficult. This mandates the development of quantifiable bibliometric methodologies suitable for addressing such huge amounts of data, separating the most significant work by analyzing its impact and uncovering the fundamental structure of the subject [42]. Accordingly, we employed the bibliometric technique. Bibliometric analysis is a method of assessment that outlines the influence and quality of systematic papers in a certain domain [43]. It is the process of examining bibliographic data using numerical methods [44]. To begin, we chose the most renowned academic database, Scopus, to collect data to integrate the current status of the social entrepreneurship and inclusive development research field. Scopus is the most prevalent database of academic publications, according to [45], with 60% more coverage than Web of Science [46]. When compared with other databases such as PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar, this one is the most comprehensive. As a result, we choose to employ Scopus for this study. The researchers of this study begin by identifying relevant search phrases (based on a review of the literature and verified by domain experts). The title, abstract, and keywords were encompassed in the search (“social entrepreneurship” OR “social enterprise” OR “social business” AND “inclusive development” OR “inclusive growth”). Our initial search turned up 416 documents. Following the application of the year’s initial operation by the selection, we obtained documents from the years 1996 through 2022. While applying inclusion-exclusion criteria, filtered by subject area, those domains included which were directly related to the keywords i.e., business management and accounting, social sciences, environmental science, economics, econometrics and finance, earth and planetary sciences, arts and humanities, psychology, and multidisciplinary, and any that were not directly related to the present study were excluded. Additionally, only those book chapters, review papers, articles, and conference proceedings were considered for the review process which were in the English language. A total of 300 documents were found relevant to the search. To minimize bias caused by continual updating of the Scopus database, the work of searching for required papers was completed only once. Retrieved articles were then manually examined for validity purposes (quality check of publications via abstract reading in order to know whether the chosen keywords were contextually relevant) and found satisfactory. The documents were then primarily brought into Biblioshiny software, a virtual interface for Bibliometrix, developed by [47]. “When compared to most other bibliometric tools, it offers a comprehensive set of statistical methods and visualisations (it excels at providing dynamic visualisations that demonstrate change over time) that can be used for performance analysis or to ascertain the conceptual, intellectual, or social structure of the field”. In addition to this, VosViewer, a far more commonly applied visualization software, has been utilized. ‘Performance analysis’ and ‘science mapping’ are included in the method. Performance analysis looks at authors, sources, nations, and institutions concerning publications. Science mapping, on the other hand, uses bibliometric approaches to spot trends in scientific research. Both give support for notionally defined groups in review papers and add quantifiable rigor to the individual literature assessment. More precisely, we examined the subsequent indicators: (a) overview including main information, annual scientific production, average citations per year and three field plot; (b) sources entailing most relevant sources, most local cited sources, Bradford’s law and sources’ local impact; (c) authors, covering most relevant authors, most local cited authors, authors production overtime, Lotka’s law and author’s local impact; (d) most relevant affiliations; (e) countries, including corresponding author’s countries and most cited countries; (f) documents, comprising globally most cited documents, most cited documents locally, reference spectroscopy, most frequent words and trending topics; (g) co-authorship analysis based on authors, countries and institutions; (h) conceptual structure entailing thematic evolution.
Figure 1 portrays that the study begins by identifying relevant search phrases. Initially, 416 documents were found in social entrepreneurship and inclusive development, but after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the number of documents was reduced to 300 from the years 1996 through 2022. This study employed the Biblioshiny software to analyze the publication and citation trend, journal performance, author performance, institution performance and country performance along with the co-occurrence of all keywords. Further, the study employed VosViewer for the analysis of collaborative networks among authors, institutions and nations based on Scopus data.

4. Results

4.1. Performance Analysis

It examines the contribution of research constituents to a given field (authors, institutions, countries, journals).
Table 1 portrays the bibliometric metadata’s summary statistics; the published records included 673 authors from 69 different countries and 496 different institutions. Further, the annual publication rate of the 300 documents rose from 1 in 1996 to 24 in 2022, with a mean age of 6.08 years and a citation rate of 13.79 yearly. Remarkably, the number of publications on this subject accelerated in 2014 and has continued to rise steadily, with an annual growth rate of 5.27 percent. Figure 2a,b exemplify the annual production of scientific articles and average citations per year. Notably, 2020 had the most production, with 40 publications or 13.33 percent of all publications from 1996 through 2022. The highest average number of citations per year was 8.03 in 2011. This can be connected to the fact that the OECD has been working to create policies to encourage social entrepreneurship since 2011.

4.2. Most Influential Journals

We focused on the Bradford law of scattering, which measures the correlation between journals and the number of articles published. It makes the case that a small numeral of principal journals will produce the major portion of articles on a particular topic, presenting a sizeable portion (one-third) of publications, accompanied by a second, more comprehensive group of journals, while the other third portrays a much broader group. As a consequence, three clusters made up of 207 journals were discovered grounded on the cumulative frequency of publications and citations. According to Bradford’s law, the smallest cluster entails 26 journals (12.56 percent) that encompass the core of the papers. The top 26 journals are shown in nuclear zone 1 of Figure 3.
Table 2 and Figure 4a–d represent the most relevant journals of nuclear zone 1. They demonstrate that according to the H index (a journal performance measure that aids in identifying a journal’s significance), the most productive journal is Entrepreneurship and Regional Development followed by Sustainability Switzerland and Voluntas. Further, as per the G-index, the most influential sources are Sustainability Switzerland followed by Entrepreneurship and Regional Development and Voluntas. Furthermore, as per the M-index, the most productive journals are Sustainability Switzerland followed by the Journal of Rural Studies and Frontiers in Psychology. Journal of Business Venturing (168), Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (154) and Social Enterprise Journal (124) are the most significant sources when evaluating journals’ publication quality based on the most often cited local sources.

4.3. Most Influential Authors

An aggregate of 673 authors contributed 300 articles to the literature regarding social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. Table 3 demonstrates the top 10 most productive authors. This analysis is also presented in Figure 5a,b. We find that Kadol N tops the list, followed by Ferguson KM and Luke B. Figure 5c to f depicts Ferguson KM, Luke B, and Barraket achieving the top spot as per the H-index (an author-level statistic that gauges the scholar’s productivity and the influence of citations on their publications) (also depicted in Table 4). Significantly, Ferguson KM, Luke B, and Barraket J have all maintained their respective positions in the G-index author local impact rankings. In addition to this, Evans MM (five citations), Robinson JA (five citations) and Willaimson IO (five citations) are the most significant authors when evaluating authors’ publication quality based on the most often cited local authors. Further, Lotka’s law (also depicted in Table 5) is used, which is as follows: as the number of documents written increases, the number of contributing authors decreases in your analysis. Accordingly, as the number of the document written increased from one to two and thereafter, the number of authors and their proportion decreased from 639 to 31 and 0.949 to 0.046, respectively.

4.4. Most Productive Affiliations

Figure 6 portrays the most relevant affiliations regarding social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. The results of Figure 6 show that out of 496 institutions, Amrita School of Engineering has achieved the top position with seven publications, followed by North-Eastern Federal University, Roskilde University, School of Management and Labor Studies and University of Northern British Columbia with six publications each.

4.5. Most Contributing Countries

In contrast, Figure 7a shows 69 nations have so far contributed globally to the literature on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. The top three contributing countries are the United States (28 articles), Canada (15 articles) and the United Kingdom (14 articles). These top three nations collectively account for 57 (32.7 percent) of the total articles. Further, 7b depicts the most cited country in this research field so far. In Table 6, several scenarios also materialize. The overall citation count is much higher than the mean citation count for each article. The articles from the USA obtained the most total article citations (979 citations), as seen in the list of the top 10 most cited nations (Table 6), making them the best in terms of average quality. In addition, Canada and the UK are ranked second and third in terms of total citations (436 and 400, respectively), and average article citations (29 and 28), respectively. Interestingly, the USA, Canada and the UK continue to hold the top three spots in terms of the highest volume of articles produced and citations obtained.

4.6. Document Analysis

Analyzing the citation patterns in the literature on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development can give us important clues about the future direction of the study. Three hundred documents were found in the analysis, and each document had an average of 13.79 citations. The top 15 most often cited articles globally are shown in Table 7 and Figure 8a, with Brinkerhoff DW 2011 being the most significant, followed by Anderson RB 2006, Bradley SW 2012 and Perrini F 2010. To identify the underlying historical foundations and subsequent movers’ social entrepreneurship and inclusive development literature, we analyze the citation trends in our dataset. Table 8 and Figure 8b display the 15 most often locally cited articles, with Ebrashi RE 2013 (five citations) being the most significant, followed by Friedman VJ 2010 (four citations), Gray M 2003 (four citations) and Roundy PT 2017 (three citations). Figure 8c reveals that all 300 documents had citation counts that peaked in 2010 (870 citations), according to reference publication year spectroscopy (which “shows the frequency with which references are cited in the publications of a specific research field”).

Science-Mapping Analysis

The analysis pertains to the intellectual interactions and structural connections among research constituents (co-authorship analysis, cooccurrence-of-keyword analysis).

4.7. Co-Authorship Analysis

4.7.1. Centered on Authors

Co-authorship analysis was carried out and a network graph with the unit of analysis “author” was generated. It highlights the most efficacious network of authors and their relationship within the field of research. Articles with 25 or fewer authors per document have been used as the baseline. Additionally, the minimum number of documents an author has was set to one with zero or more citations. Therefore, out of 673 authors, all the authors met the threshold, with the largest set having 13 connected items (Figure 9). Significantly, the network shown above reveals that there is only one cluster. The cluster shown in red highlights the authors who collaborate the most, namely Arifin B., Ariutama G.A., Damayanta S.A., Djunedi P., Handoko R., Rahman. A.B., Saputra A.H., Setiawan H., Solikin. A., Suhendra M., Tenrini. R.H., Wardhana I.W and Wicaksono E.

4.7.2. Centered on Countries

Co-authorship analysis was carried out, and a network graph with the unit of analysis “countries” was generated. It highlights the collaborations among authors from different nations (Figure 10). Articles with 25 or fewer countries per document have been used as the baseline. Additionally, the minimal number of documents from each country has been set to two with zero or more citations. As a result, 46 of the 69 countries met the requirement with the largest set of 35 connected items. There are ten clusters observable in the above network. The aforementioned network demonstrates that the United States (Cluster 5, purple) is the most collaborative nation, with a total link strength of 16, followed by the United Kingdom (Cluster 4, yellow), with a total link strength of 16 and Canada (Cluster 3, blue), with total link strength of 9.

4.7.3. Centered on Organizations

Co-authorship analysis was carried out, and a network graph with the unit of analysis “organization” was generated. It draws attention to the authors’ institutional networks that are most widely shared. Within Figure 11, the basis was set at articles with 25 or fewer organizations per document. Additionally, a minimum of one document of an organization with zero or more citations has been set. Accordingly, out of the 496 organizations, all the organizations met the threshold, with the largest set having six connected items. It has been noted that the above network contains one significant cluster. The cluster shown in red entails the organizations that collaborate the most: Open University, United Kingdom, Sciences Po, France, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom, University of Massachusetts, United States, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, University of Wisconsin Madison, United States, with a total link strength of five.

5. Discussion

5.1. General Trends in the Literature on Social Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Development

We now briefly discuss the findings after having correctly outlined the summary data. However, to set the stage for the following discussion, we must quickly caution the readers. First, be cognizant that, unlike other bibliometric analyses, ours did not involve meticulous sample data gathering. However, to develop a tenable research trajectory for the subject, we resorted to relatively straightforward and measurable primary data collection and the deployment of apt analytical techniques to evaluate how much research has been undertaken on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. We examine a few chosen sample outcomes in the discussion that follows, which lays out some observations that academics, organizations, and policymakers can glean. This article reviewed existing literature on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development indexed in the Scopus database. We used Biblioshiny for Bibliometrix analysis to identify the current research landscape in this domain—examining the “contributions of journals, authors, keywords, Keyword Plus, highly cited papers, institutions, and nations”. In terms of relevance, citations and publications, the findings indicate an increasing interest in social entrepreneurship and inclusive development research. The findings also show that the top sources, nations, and organizations in this field are located in advanced economies. Similarly, developed economies show the most collaboration in research. This can be observed via the lens of their cutting-edge worldwide studies. The approach highlights the importance of R&D processes in high-income economies. In contrast, we find that Latin American, Southeast Asian, and African authors’ viewpoints are unrepresentative in the set of literature. Based on this perspective, future research in the domain of social entrepreneurship and inclusive development may come from developing countries. Moreover, the connections between nations, authors, journals and organizations are shown in Figure 12 as potential sources of insightful information. Figure 12a shows the connections between India (the nation), Amrita School of Engineering (the institution), and Grigorieva V.V. (author) in terms of offering high-caliber research on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. The interactions between the Gordon Institute of Business Science (institution), Sustainability Switzerland (journal), and Indonesia (country) are also highlighted in Figure 12b, as they have contributed to the development of important insights in this study area. In addition, Figure 12c highlights collaborations between the Queensland University of Technology (institution), Kadol N. (author), and the Journal of Rural Studies (journal) in producing high-quality research in this field.

5.2. Co-Occurrence of Keywords Analysis

We examined 1165 keywords to better understand the most significant words in our dataset. The top 10 most relevant keywords are shown in Figure 13, with the top three most frequent terms being social development (38 occurrences), economic development (34 occurrences), and entrepreneur (34 occurrences), respectively. These terms partially reflect the search terms we entered into the Scopus database, which suggests that these topics are among the most often discussed in the literature on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. The main applications of social entrepreneurship are represented by additional terms such as ‘innovation’, ‘sustainable development’, and ‘economic and social effects’.

5.3. Thematic Evolution

Figure 14 shows the theme development as well as future study directions. There has been a discernible change in the research streams on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development over the past 27 years. The figure’s rectangle and square shapes, which run from left to right, show how numerous theme evolutions have changed over time. The grey lines attached to the various rectangle-colored shapes show the relationships between the keywords; for example, the term “social economy” is consistently used with terms such as “social entrepreneurship” and “social capital” (from 1996 to 2022). The phrase “social economy” was utilized the most during the 27 years studied, followed by “sustainable development” and “non-governmental organizations”. The social economy has demonstrated its significance.

5.4. Future Research Directions

The themes that are currently popular and the field’s potential future developments are shown in Figure 15. According to the keywords, social entrepreneurship and inclusive development are linked to ‘social entrepreneurship’, ‘social and economic effects’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘social development’. These are the latest keywords in this field that predict future trends. These trending topics are discussed as follows:
(a)
Economic and Social Effects—Social entrepreneurship and inclusive development has emerged as the most popular topic. Social entrepreneurship, a rapidly developing field that uses an entrepreneurial approach to achieve social and economic effects, is essential for inclusive development and helps to strengthen a nation’s economy and societal fabric [71]. Social enterprises have the power to advance sustainability, provide cutting-edge services and goods and inspire optimism for the future. “Almost 200 million individuals are already involved in social entrepreneurship projects worldwide”, according to the European Commission, and that number is rising [72]. The creation of jobs, particularly for the less fortunate or marginalized segments of society, is one of the most evident and striking effects of social entrepreneurship. “Social enterprises operate as an intermediary between unemployment and the open labor market”, according to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Large-scale worker reintegration into the labor market has enormous social and economic benefits, at least from a simple quantitative standpoint. The concepts of social entrepreneurs and social enterprises are relatively hazy, despite the beneficial effects they have on the economy. For instance, there is no unified definition of social entrepreneurship [73]. Our data show that it started to be widely utilized in 2019 and has continued along this path (Figure 15).
(b)
Sustainable Development—The most recent set of keywords used by researchers in social entrepreneurship and inclusive development ranked it third. Social entrepreneurship offers two paths: ‘social innovation’ and ‘scaling of social innovation’—to create a solution for Sustainable Development Goals. “Young social entrepreneurs play a significant part in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda”, according to the UN. As a result, social enterprises have become viable options for addressing social issues through entrepreneurial prospects [74]. In addition, social entrepreneurship—the use of entrepreneurial qualities like ”creativity, innovation, and motivation along with the determination to address society’s most pressing social problems”—is necessary to face the difficulties of sustainable development [75,76,77,78]. Although sustainable development is not a new topic, interest in it has significantly increased recently, particularly since 2019, according to our statistics (Figure 15), and it is anticipated to continue to be a buzz topic, supporting social entrepreneurship and inclusive development.
(c)
Social Development—This is yet another term that has recently appeared in academic works on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. As opposed to an approach that prioritizes immediate financial gains for entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurship is a process that sparks social change and meets critical societal needs [79]. In comparison to other forms of entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship is thought to place a substantially larger premium on advancing societal value and development than on maximizing financial gain [48]. As a type of social innovation, “social entrepreneurship is good for society because it can benefit a variety of stakeholders, including businesses and socially targeted groups. For businesses, social entrepreneurship can increase revenues and profits, customer volume, loyalty and satisfaction and business reputation. For the government, it can decrease unemployment and social exclusion. According to our research, it first became widely used in 2018 and has kept going in the same direction since then” (Figure 15).
The current study substantially contributes in two separate ways: (a) It views social entrepreneurship as an concept integrated with inclusive development, which broadens the body of knowledge; (b) This analysis offers a guide to those who are entering the field of social entrepreneurship and inclusive development by giving them “existing research directions and suggesting the emerging tendencies in this field”. It puts out some important, precise observations that scholars, organizations, and policymakers may benefit from.

6. Conclusions

Over the past few decades, research on social entrepreneurship and inclusive development has grown significantly across the globe. We used Biblioshiny for Bibliometrix analysis on a dataset of 300 documents to assess how academic study on this topic has changed and whose viewpoints are most important and to showcase research objectives that are significantly propelling the literature forward. Bibliometric analysis helps researchers choose “what to publish and where while keeping in consideration the productivity of the subject—the most relevant sources, nations, authors, thematic evolution, organizations, etc.”. It also helps to analyze publication trends and patterns to understand the virtue and productivity of a field. Throughout the past few decades, the ratio of publications to citations has been steadily rising. According to the study’s findings, the most productive countries in line with the research publishing are the USA with 28 published papers, followed by Canada and UK, collectively accounting for 57 (32.27 percent) of the total articles. The most productive institution has been recognized as Amrita School of Engineering with seven publications. The most active authors are reported to be Kadol N, Ferguson KM and Luke B. In a similar vein, the most prolific journals are ‘‘Entrepreneurship and Regional Development’’ followed by ‘‘Sustainability’’ Switzerland and ‘‘Voluntas’’. In addition to this, the top three most frequent terms are ‘social development’ (34 occurrences), ‘economic development’ (38 occurrences), and ‘entrepreneur’ (34 occurrences). ‘Social entrepreneurship’, ‘social and economic effects’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘social development’ are the latest keywords in this field, and they predict future trends. By equipping them with scientific research areas and identifying the emergent tendencies in this subject, this analysis acts as a guide for those who are approaching the field of social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. The current study has some limitations that can help future researchers to expand their research scope. To begin, data was gathered from the Scopus database, which is regarded as one of the most reputable databases; however, other reputable databases, such as Web of Science and Dimensions, were not evaluated. Additionally, given the wealth of research in this field and the implausibility of a single database providing a comprehensive picture of a field of study with such a broad worldwide impact, other research areas deserving further investigation may include employing other databases or combining the two main bibliometric databases, such as Web of Science and Scopus. Moreover, this analysis only included research articles published in English, and key literature published in many other languages was not considered.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.S.S. and D.A.; methodology, R.B.; software, D.A.; validation, M.S.S., R.B. and D.A.; formal analysis, G.A.; investigation, R.B.; resources, G.A.; data curation, D.A.; writing—original draft preparation, D.A.; writing—review and editing, R.B.; visualization, M.S.S.; supervision, G.A.; project administration, R.B.; funding acquisition, G.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University Researchers Supporting Project number (PNURSP2023R 277), Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not Applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available upon request from the authors.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Flowchart of database selection strategy and data analysis. (Source: researchers’ calculation).
Figure 1. Flowchart of database selection strategy and data analysis. (Source: researchers’ calculation).
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Figure 2. (a) Annual production of scientific articles in the field of social entrepreneurship and inclusive development in the years 1996–2022 (b) Average article citations per year. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 2. (a) Annual production of scientific articles in the field of social entrepreneurship and inclusive development in the years 1996–2022 (b) Average article citations per year. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 3. The 26 most productive journals in the social entrepreneurship and inclusive development research field from 1996 to 2023 (Nuclear Zone 1). (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 3. The 26 most productive journals in the social entrepreneurship and inclusive development research field from 1996 to 2023 (Nuclear Zone 1). (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 4. (a) Source Local Impact by H-Index (b) Source Local Impact by G-Index (c) Source Local Impact by M-Index (d) Most Local Cited Sources. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 4. (a) Source Local Impact by H-Index (b) Source Local Impact by G-Index (c) Source Local Impact by M-Index (d) Most Local Cited Sources. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 5. (a) Most Relevant Authors (b) Author’s Publication Production Overtime (c) Authors Local Impact by H-Index (d) Authors Local Impact by G-Index (e) Most Local Cited Authors (f) Lotka’s Law. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 5. (a) Most Relevant Authors (b) Author’s Publication Production Overtime (c) Authors Local Impact by H-Index (d) Authors Local Impact by G-Index (e) Most Local Cited Authors (f) Lotka’s Law. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 6. Most Relevant Affiliations. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 6. Most Relevant Affiliations. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 7. (a) Most Relevant Corresponding Author’s Countries, (b) Most Cited Countries. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 7. (a) Most Relevant Corresponding Author’s Countries, (b) Most Cited Countries. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 8. (a) Most global cited documents [38,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61] (b) Most local cited document [50,51,54,55,58,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70] (c) Reference publication year spectroscopy. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 8. (a) Most global cited documents [38,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61] (b) Most local cited document [50,51,54,55,58,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70] (c) Reference publication year spectroscopy. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 9. Co-authorship analysis based on authors. (Source: VosViewer).
Figure 9. Co-authorship analysis based on authors. (Source: VosViewer).
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Figure 10. Co-authorship analysis based on countries. (Source: VOSviewer).
Figure 10. Co-authorship analysis based on countries. (Source: VOSviewer).
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Figure 11. Co-authorship analysis based on organizations. (Source: VosViewer).
Figure 11. Co-authorship analysis based on organizations. (Source: VosViewer).
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Figure 12. Three field plots among countries, institutions, authors and journals in the social entrepreneurship and inclusive development research field. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 12. Three field plots among countries, institutions, authors and journals in the social entrepreneurship and inclusive development research field. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 13. Most relevant keywords. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 13. Most relevant keywords. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 14. Thematic evolution of author’s keywords. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 14. Thematic evolution of author’s keywords. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Figure 15. Trending Topics. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Figure 15. Trending Topics. (Source: Biblioshiny).
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Table
Table 1. Summary statistics of the articles collected. (Source: Biblioshiny).
Table 1. Summary statistics of the articles collected. (Source: Biblioshiny).
DepictionOutcomes
Duration1996:2022
Sources (Journals, Books, etc.)207
Articles300
Annual Rate of Growth (%)5.27
Mean Age of Article6.08
Mean Citations Per Article13.79
References15,249
Keywords Plus482
Author’s Keywords785
Authors673
Authors of Single-authored Article87
Single-authored Article94
Co-authors Per Article2.38
International Co-authorship (%)15.67
Countries69
Organizations496
Table
Table 2. Most Relevant Journals.
Table 2. Most Relevant Journals.
ElementH-IndexG-IndexM-IndexTCNPPY_Start
Entrepreneurship and Regional Development890.57143692010
Sustainability Switzerland7111.167143122018
Voluntas 670.6677772015
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business440.4005242014
International Journal of Social Economics440.2229942006
Journal of Rural Studies440.80019842019
Local Economy440.3643342013
Technological Forecasting and Social Change450.44427052015
Frontiers in Psychology330.7507732020
Journal of Business Ethics330.21412132010
“TC = Total Citations, NP = Number of Publications and PY = Publication Year” (Source: Researcher Calculations).
Table
Table 3. Most Relevant Authors.
Table 3. Most Relevant Authors.
AuthorsArticlesArticles Fractionalized
Kadol, N.54.00
Ferguson, K.M.42.75
Luke, B.31.00
Ahmad, S.21.50
Barraket, J.20.50
Barth, S.20.50
Crofts, P.20.83
Dogar, M.N.22.00
Grigorieva, V.V.20.7
Healy, K.21.33
(Source: Researchers Calculations).
Table
Table 4. Top Influential Authors.
Table 4. Top Influential Authors.
AuthorsH-IndexG-IndexM-IndexTCNPPY_Start
Ferguson, K.M.440.2357742007
Luke, B.330.1676932007
Barraket, J.220.2225922015
Barth, S.220.2225922015
Healy, K.220.0718021996
Legrand, W.220.1823922013
Manimala, M.J.220.1541022011
Nega, B.220.2005322014
Pennink, B.J.W.220.2001222014
Schneider, G.220.2005322014
“TC = Total Citations, NP = Number of Publications and PY = Publication Year” (Source: Researcher Calculations).
Table
Table 5. Authors’ productivity through Lotka’s law.
Table 5. Authors’ productivity through Lotka’s law.
Articles WrittenNumber of AuthorsRatio of Authors
16390.949
2310.046
310.001
410.001
510.001
(Source: Researcher Calculations).
Table
Table 6. Most Cited Countries.
Table 6. Most Cited Countries.
CountryAggregate CitationsMean Article Citations
USA97935.00
Canada43629.10
UK40028.60
Italy29432.70
Australia16615.10
China14413.10
Spain10217.00
Croatia8320.80
Egypt8383.00
Germany7525.00
(Source: researcher calculations).
Table
Table 7. The 15 Most Cited Documents Globally.
Table 7. The 15 Most Cited Documents Globally.
PaperDOITotal CitationsTC per YearNormalized TC
BRINKERHOFF DW, 2011, PUBLIC ADM DEV [48]10.1002/pad.58430623.542.93
ANDERSON RB, 2006, J WORLD BUS [49]10.1016/j.jwb.2005.10.00520911.614.11
BRADLEY SW, 2012, J MANAGE STUD [50]10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012. 01043.x19916.586.77
PERRINI F, 2010, ENTREP REG DEV [51]10.1080/08985626.2010.48840217112.213.53
EVANS M, 2007, EUR URBAN REG STUD [52]10.1177/09697764070726641066.242.42
HAYHURST LMC, 2014, GENDER PLACE CULT [53]10.1080/0966369X.2013.802674979.706.37
RAO-NICHOLSON R, 2017, TECHNOL FORECAST SOC CHANGE [38]10.1016/j.techfore.2017.03.0139012.864.49
SURIE G, 2017, TECHNOL FORECAST SOC CHANGE [54]10.1016/j.techfore.2017.03.0068512.144.24
EBRASHI RE, 2013, SOC RESPONSIB J [55]10.1108/SRJ-07-2011-0013837.556.30
STEINER A, 2019, J RURAL STUD [56]10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.12.0217815.606.32
RICHTER R, 2019, J RURAL STUD [57]10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.12.0057715.406.24
GRAY M, 2003, AUST SOC WORK [58]10.1046/j.0312-407X.2003. 00060.x773.671.00
MEYSKENS M, 2010, ENTREP REG DEV [59]10.1080/08985620903168299654.641.34
ROSCA E, 2020, TECHNOL FORECAST SOC CHANGE [60]10.1016/j.techfore.2020.1200676416.007.66
JANSSEN F, 2018, ENTREP REG DEV [61]10.1080/08985626.2017.14137696410.675.55
(Source: Researcher Calculations).
Table
Table 8. The 15 Most Cited Documents Locally.
Table 8. The 15 Most Cited Documents Locally.
DocumentDOIYearLocal CitationsGlobal CitationsLC/GC Ratio (%)Normalized Local CitationsNormalized Global Citations
EBRASHI RE, 2013, SOC RESPONSIB J [55]10.1108/SRJ-07-2011-001320135836.029.176.30
FRIEDMAN VJ, 2010, ENTREP REG DEV [62]10.1080/08985626.2010.48840020104537.553.001.09
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Satar, M.S.; Aggarwal, D.; Bansal, R.; Alarifi, G. Mapping the Knowledge Structure and Unveiling the Research Trends in Social Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Development: A Bibliometric Analysis. Sustainability 2023, 15, 5626. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075626

AMA Style

Satar MS, Aggarwal D, Bansal R, Alarifi G. Mapping the Knowledge Structure and Unveiling the Research Trends in Social Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Development: A Bibliometric Analysis. Sustainability. 2023; 15(7):5626. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075626

Chicago/Turabian Style

Satar, Mir Shahid, Deepanshi Aggarwal, Rohit Bansal, and Ghadah Alarifi. 2023. "Mapping the Knowledge Structure and Unveiling the Research Trends in Social Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Development: A Bibliometric Analysis" Sustainability 15, no. 7: 5626. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075626

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