Is social innovation about innovation? A bibliometric study identifying the main authors, citations and co-citations over 20 years

Abstract

The aim of this study was to map and analyse the scenario of scientific production with respect to social innovation through a bibliometric study, using the Scopus database, contributing to future studies on this topic. We identified the main themes addressed in the field and the main authors, works and citations, in addition to analysing a co-citation map and determining whether the term 'social innovation' depends on the field of innovation. The results show that the most commonly cited key words are 'innovation' and 'social entrepreneurism', demonstrating their complementarity. The number of citations has grown in recent years, demonstrating an opportunity to conduct academic studies in the field and an opportunity to conduct quantitative studies, given that the articles examined in this study were theoretical and qualitative in nature. Apparently, innovation is not the main field in which this theme is analysed; rather, institutional theory, social entrepreneurship and public policy constitute the main theoretical framework found in this work.