Bibliometric analysis of social enterprise literature : revisit to regroup

Social enterprise (SE) studies are gaining ground as an emerging research domain owing to the duality characterizing their business models for tapping the triple bottom line (TBL) principle, which is a framework measuring the three pillars of sustainability: people, planet, and profit. This rising attention to SE has led to scattering in the research structure and knowledge spillover. Although publications have attempted to regroup this domain, extant analyses lack scientific coverage. By reforming previously adopted research approaches and redesigning metadata retrieval constraints, this study revisits, dissects, and synthesizes relevant SE-related studies to identify the current dominance, recent developments, and future directions of SE studies. Through a bibliometric review that combines descriptive, network, and content analyses, our findings reveal ten avenues worth pursuing, categorized under the research scope, research trajectory, and analytical dimensions. Finally, this study presents practical implications that support the institutionalization of SEs that holistically meet the TBL principle.