Sustainable Social Entrepreneurship and Digital Technologies: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

Shah Nawaz Khan, Aisha Iqbal () and Fernando Luís Almeida ()
Additional contact information
Shah Nawaz Khan: Management Science Department University of Nowshera
Aisha Iqbal: University of Karachi, Faculty of Management & Administrative Sciences
Fernando Luís Almeida: ISPGAYA – Gaya Polytechnic Institute, School of Science and Technology

A chapter in Business Sustainability: Innovation in Entrepreneurship & Internationalisation, 2026, pp 157-181 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The integration of sustainable social entrepreneurship with digital technologies represents a burgeoning field of research, reflecting the imperative to address pressing social and environmental challenges through innovative business solutions. This paper provides a comprehensive systematic literature review to elucidate the intersection of sustainable social entrepreneurship and digital technologies, identifying key themes, trends, and research gaps. By analyzing peer-reviewed articles published between 2015 and 2023 in journals indexed in WoS and Scopus, this review highlights how digital technologies are being leveraged to create, manage, and scale socially and environmentally sustainable ventures. The findings identify 52 published studies and suggest that digital platforms facilitate broader reach and engagement, enhance transparency, and improve operational efficiencies, thereby amplifying the impact of social enterprises. Additionally, the review uncovers the critical role of digital literacy and infrastructure in enabling and constraining the potential of digital solutions in this domain. Based on the systematic review, this article proposes a research agenda to address these gaps, recommending longitudinal studies to assess the enduring impacts of digital interventions, cross-sector analyses to explore synergies between different industries, and an ethical framework to guide the responsible use of digital technologies in social entrepreneurship. This agenda aims to foster a deeper understanding of how digital innovations can be strategically employed to advance sustainable development goals, thereby contributing to both academic scholarship and practical advancements in the field of sustainable social entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Sustainable development; Social entrepreneurship; Digital technologies; Responsible innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-99151-6_12

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031991516

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-99151-6_12

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().