Mapping the intellectual structure of social finance; a bibliometric overview

Recently, there has been significant growth in the number of published articles on social finance in academic journals. However, myriad of different terms are often involved in Social Finance discourses. This study provides a bibliometric analysis of the research on social finance. Our results show that the social finance research field is composed of several research hotspots - which represent the core of this research domain – and five main research clusters including impact investing, social entrepreneurship, social impact bonds, and social innovation. The paper also identifies the research institutions and the researchers that contributed to this field of research. Finally, emerging research areas are also mapped and described. The theoretical contribution of this paper lies in its intention to connect the different manifestations of Social Finance under one concept. Using a common umbrella concept allows researchers to find common ground for their otherwise isolated research endeavors.