Research Focus, Frontier of Social Entrepreneurship Based on Scientific Knowledge Map

Abstract

To explore the status and hot spots of social entrepreneurship, this paper takes "social entrepreneurship" and "social venture" as keywords to do search and selects 1378 related literature being collected in the Web of Science Core Collection Databasefrom 1999 to 2020 as research samples to comprehensively sort out the research hotspots, developing venation and evolution process in social entrepreneurship field.Scientometric methods are adopted, such as word frequency analysis, cluster analysis and time evolution analysis, combining with the application of CiteSpace visualization software. According to the research results, the number of social entrepreneurship related literature shows a steady increase, and this subject has become an interdisciplinary research issue. The US, the UK and China have made a lot of achievements and influence.Academy of Management Review,Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,Academy of Management Journal et al. are main journals to publish relevant research papers. Meanwhile, the establishment of Social Enterprise Journal indicates that social entrepreneurship has attracted great attention. Sequential research is supposed toconcentrate on the social entrepreneurs‟ motivation, the organizational modeland institutional environment of social entrepreneurship.