Financial Landscape of Social Enterprises: Mapping the Literature and Future Research Directions

Social enterprises struggle greatly to pursue the twofold goal of attaining financial viability while also meeting social objectives. Sometimes, the quest for financial returns leads to the mission drift of social enterprises. The bibliometric analysis reviews academic sources published between 2001 and 2025 on the financial landscape of social enterprises, with a final sample of 129 documents identified in the Scopus database. The results show that academic interest in the field of study has been growing steadily. The use of keywords reflects current research trends, including social investment, impact investment, crowdfunding and social innovation, indicating the emergence of innovative financial mechanisms that integrate social and financial goals. Recent literature shows growing interest in impact investing as an accelerator of social innovation, enabling social enterprises to expand their social impact. It also highlights the need to create new financial instruments to ensure long-term financial sustainability and to drive social impact in the fast-evolving financial ecosystem.