Social entrepreneurship in Africa: A systematic multilevel literature review

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a systematic multi-level literature review of research on social entrepreneurship in Africa. Our review focuses on work from the last decade, since the first issue of the Africa Journal of Management was published, and the widely cited Academy of Management Perspectives paper “Social entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa” by Rivera-Santos et al (2015). Through analysis of 128 papers in 35 journals, patterns in research on social entrepreneurship in Africa are revealed and critically discussed, including insights on the field’s growth, where work is being published, who is writing it, and the role of African based scholars. Saebi et al's (2019) multilevel multistage social entrepreneurship framework is also used to classify existing work, and critically identify those aspects of the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship in Africa that have received more and less attention. Finally, these analyses are synthesized to identify opportunities for future scholarship.