An ecosystem view of social entrepreneurship through the perspective of systems thinking

The surge in the growth of social entrepreneurship (SE) scholarship and its evolution concerning different fields and research areas (e.g., strategy, sociology and economics) have resulted in somewhat diverged literature lacking comprehensive representations and frameworks. As a result, the extant SE literature demands a comprehensive study of SE research from a holistic viewpoint. To address this gap, the current study provides a consensus on the SE research. The authors put forward a system theoretic analysis of SE research and afterward present a SE ecosystem model, by employing systems thinking approach and using the principle of ‘wholeness’. From a theoretical viewpoint, the study offers implications for academicians to consider systems thinking in order to understand the growth strategies and continuous social transformation in SEs from a systemic level as well as understanding the importance of collective interactions of different components of the SE phenomenon. To the practitioners or social entrepreneurs, the study provides the perspective of improving social ventures' (1) input synergies of resources, capabilities, processes and dynamism to improve and augment the continuous social transformation and (2) acquisition of knowledge from feedbacks and external changes to enhance the SE system. The study as a whole contributes to the advancement of SE research by outlining a new direction of ecosystem‐based research for future scholarship.