The purpose of this article is to identify, organize
and analyze the international scientific production
on social enterprises (SE). It presents the results of a
bibliometric study combined with a systematic literature
analysis. We analyzed 204 academic articles on the
subject, from four different sources: (i) articles published
in journals with high impact factors; (ii) most cited
articles as per Google Scholar; (iii) articles addressing
topics related to SE; and (iv) articles from the Social
Enterprise Journal, specialized in the subject. Results
point to remarkable recent growth in the field of SE, both
theoretically and empirically. In addition, this study
presents the main pieces of work, countries, institutions,
research questions, methodology and results found in
the SE literature. Studies have concentrated around six
main categories: (1) understanding SE, through different
approaches, concepts and models; (2) governance and
relationships with stakeholders; (3) attempts to increase
practical references and samples within the field; (4)
organizational learning, structure and critical factors for
success and failure of SE; (5) metrics, indicators and social
impact generated by SE; and (6) legislation of different
countries and how it relates to SE.
