Why Finance is Missing in Social Impact Bonds Research? A Bibliometric Review

Abstract - Social impact bonds (SIBs) have emerged as a financing tool under the broader spectrum of social finance and impact investing (Corvo&Pastore, 2019). SIBs are a new financing mechanism for delivering public services to overcome social issues by involving four parties: commissioner, service provider, specialist intermediaries, and investor (Fraser et al., 2018). The United Kingdom issued the first SIB in 2010 as a financing tool that raised capital for innovative social projects (Le Pendeven, 2019) or social programs (Del Giudice&Migliavacca, 2019). Although over the last 12 years, SIBs have attracted increasing attention from policymakers, investors, and scholars (Del Giudice&Migliavacca, 2019), there is still a significant gap in understanding the SIBs research landscape because mainly all published papers are based on traditional literature review methods that are generally ad hoc (Qasim, 2017). Therefore, this study aims to provide an extensive review of SIBs’extant literature that explicates scientific developments and identifies latent patterns. A bibliometric approach – specifically performance analysis and science mapping– was applied to analyze the academic contribution, conceptual structure, and leading research areas of the SIBs research field. Further, this scientific research study also highlighted unexplored areas within the SIBs paradigm for future research. Thus, this research contributes to current knowledge about SIBs by providingthoughtful insights onall aspects ofthis emerging research field