Journal of Social Entrepreneurship

Aims & Scope

To date, much of social entrepreneurship scholarship has emerged from business schools and has, as a consequence, tended to focus on organizational, strategic, and financial issues.

The perspective has largely been to use business models to explore social innovation, and particularly, social enterprise (social entrepreneurship that moves towards self-funding).

The approach has largely been 'what can social entrepreneurship learn from business perspectives'.

This is an important part of the scholarly picture, but the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship has a far broader remit.

In this journal, social entrepreneurship is defined as having four key components - sociality, innovation, market orientation, and hybridity.

First, sociality is a focus on a defined social purpose or benefit to society that is carefully measured.

This could be identifiable by organization type such as co-operatives or charities, or sectors, like healthcare or education.

Second, innovation is seen as either creative or destructive changes to social or economic systems.

Third, market orientation places social entrepreneurship in a broader competitive landscape of funding, outputs, accountability and legitimacy, all focused on a relentless effort to improve performance and increase social impact.

Finally, social entrepreneurship is defined by its tendency to operate in hybrid spaces between the public, private/commercial and civil society sectors - often in the form of hybrid organizational forms such as co-operatives or social enterprises.

This definition of social entrepreneurship includes both for and not-for-profit organizations, as well as public sector bodies.

However, it excludes all organizations the primary purpose of which is profit-maximisation, irrespective of whether they also aim to do social good, as this falls under quite the separate heading of Corporate Social Responsibility.

View Aims & Scope

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Metrics & Ranking

Impact Factor

Year	Value
2025	1.8
2024	2.60

SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

Year	Value
2024	0.718

Quartile

Year	Value
2024	Q1

h-index

Year	Value
2024	44

Journal Rank

Year	Value
2024	7854

Journal Citation Indicator

Year	Value
2024	495

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Abstracting & Indexing

Journal is indexed in leading academic databases, ensuring global visibility and accessibility of our peer-reviewed research.

• Scopus
• Google Scholar
• Web of Science

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Subjects & Keywords

Journal’s research areas, covering key disciplines and specialized sub-topics in Business, Management and Accounting, Economics, Econometrics and Finance and Social Sciences, designed to support cutting-edge academic discovery.

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Most Cited Articles

The Most Cited Articles section features the journal's most impactful research, based on citation counts. These articles have been referenced frequently by other researchers, indicating their significant contribution to their respective fields.

• Conceptions of Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship in Europe and the United States: Convergences and Divergences

  Citation: 747

  Authors: Jacques, Marthe

• Exploring the Motivation of Nascent Social Entrepreneurs

  Citation: 179

  Authors: Andrew J., Jeffrey A.

• The Institutionalization of Social Investment: The Interplay of Investment Logics and Investor Rationalities

  Citation: 174

  Authors: Alex

• Scaling Social Impact: Building Sustainable Social Ventures at the Base-of-the-Pyramid

  Citation: 130

  Authors: Geoffrey, James L.

• Identifying the Drivers of Social Entrepreneurial Impact: Theoretical Development and an Exploratory Empirical Test of SCALERS

  Citation: 128

  Authors: Paul N., Brett R.

• The Effect of Experiential Social Entrepreneurship Education on Intention Formation in Students

  Citation: 125

  Authors: Kai

• Understanding Value Creation in Social Entrepreneurship: The Importance of Aligning Mission, Strategy and Impact Measurement

  Citation: 125

  Authors: Jarrod, Richard

• Connecting the Dots for Social Value: A Review on Social Networks and Social Entrepreneurship

  Citation: 115

  Authors: Frédéric, Benjamin

• A Systematic Literature Review on Social Entrepreneurial Intention

  Citation: 113

  Authors: Luc Phan, Angelina Nhat Hanh, Lan Pham

• Social Entrepreneurial Intention Formation of Corporate Volunteers

  Citation: 112

  Authors: Florian, Dietmar

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