Timmons' Framework

This paper explores and constructs an integrated framework for social entrepreneurship research, which provides some clues for understanding the research status in this field. On this basis, this paper also further proposes the future research direction of social entrepreneurship.

Enrich the research content. First, there should be more research-based on institutional theory. Institutional entrepreneurship is not only an important branch of entrepreneurship research, but also closely related to social entrepreneurship. The emergence of social entrepreneurship opportunities is largely due to the void of the system, which makes the two have a greater overlap. Applying the theory of institutional entrepreneurship research to social entrepreneurship can explain how it solves market failures and government failures in different social institutional environments. However, there is still a lack of research to incorporate the specific social institutional environment into the research model, and further attention should be paid to the factors such as culture and government characteristics in it. Second, there should be more research-based on social capital theory or resource-based view. These two theoretical viewpoints explain the interaction between social entrepreneurship situational factors and micro-foundation. In other words, the study of social entrepreneurship practice from the perspective of social capital is essentially based on the interaction between social entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship environment. Therefore, in the future, we can further analyze the specific actions of social entrepreneurs in the construction of social capital. There are so many questions to be studied, for example, which action can promote the acquisition of resources and determine the process of identification, development and utilization of social entrepreneurship opportunities, and what behavior choices entrepreneurs with different personality traits prefer to make. Finally, there should be more research-based on social psychology related theories. When analyzing a series of problems related to social entrepreneurs' motivation, opportunities and entrepreneurial behavior process, researchers often apply social psychology theory. For example, from the perspective of social cognition theory, entrepreneurs' personality traits (whether they are compassionate, in the pursuit of self-worth), and social growth experience will affect their social cognition and determine their behavioral decisions on social entrepreneurship opportunities. In the future, we can further analyze how various emotional experiences and behaviors in the entrepreneurial process affect the entrepreneurial persistence of social entrepreneurs and determine their entrepreneurial happiness.

Innovate the research methods. Although social entrepreneurship is touted as a powerful mechanism to reduce poverty and realize institutional change, the lack of large-scale empirical data hinders its real impact on the social level. At present, the relevant research mostly adopts qualitative methods such as case description and theoretical research, which makes social entrepreneurship still in the exploratory stage. Therefore, the relevant theories still need to be developed, and the structural framework to be constructed. It is necessary for future research to try to carry out comparative analysis of multiple cases, examining the laws under different conditions to strengthen theoretical construction and deeply understand the mechanism of social entrepreneurship. Or try to develop a measurement scale for social entrepreneurial performance and develop an objective indicator system, establishing a theoretical basis for empirical research. By collecting large sample data and using modern statistical analysis tools, empirical research could verify the conclusions and propositions of qualitative research from different levels and dimensions.

Broaden the research perspective. Social entrepreneurship is a multi-level organizational practice. Research that is rigidly attached to an analytical level tends to distort facts, making it difficult to understand its antecedents and outcomes. Although the existing social entrepreneurship research has gradually combined social entrepreneurship with existing theories or other types of entrepreneurship, the related research still needs to be deepened. Therefore, future research needs to strengthen the cross combination of social entrepreneurship and other disciplines (such as organizational behavior and sociology). In addition, the existing research focuses more on the social value creation. In the future, different social and economic effects (such as negative external economy) brought by social entrepreneurship can be emphasized.

Expand the research situation. Recently, social entrepreneurship research has gradually shifted its focus from developed countries to developing countries. As a core developing country, China has solved many social problems (such as poverty and unemployment) through social entrepreneurship activities, which naturally provides the best research situation for social entrepreneurship research. All along, China has adhered to the socialist road with Chinese characteristics and has a remarkable Chinese color in its cultural background, institutional environment, legal norms and economic system. Therefore, the researchers can take China as the research background in the follow-up research and analyze the social entrepreneurship practice in different regions of China.

This research also has the following deficiencies. Firstly, this study focuses on the process of identifying, developing and utilizing social entrepreneurship opportunities, and may ignore other important behaviors in the process of social entrepreneurship. Secondly, this study also combines the three main entrepreneurial process elements of social entrepreneurial subjects, social entrepreneurial resources and social entrepreneurial opportunities. Although the interaction among the three elements is initially explored, it still needs more in-depth research. Finally, the documents referred to in this paper are only part of a large number of studies, thus limiting the overall grasp of social entrepreneurship research.