Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to describe the relevant similarities and differences among research approaches for studying social value and to use these insights to provide a more clearly articulated path for future research using the appropriate methodologies. To accomplish this task, we undertake a three-step process to study the literature published in three sets of different literature from different disciplines – specifically, we focus on the methodology employed for studying the social value in different landscapes (Rawhouser et al.2019). The first set of literature focuses on social value in management and entrepreneurship literature (Schlütter et al.2023), the second set of literature is published industry social value reports (Ebrahim & Rangan,2014; Costa and Erica, 2014), and the third literature is in the international development domain (Wry & Haugh, 2018). Together, we identified 80 literary sources to explore the different research approaches used in studying social value. However, the critical examination of this literature reveals a dearth of detailed discussion regarding the research methodologies employed in SV studies. This gap stems from a disproportionate emphasis on measurement methodologies (Rawhouser et al.2019; Costa and Erica, 2014; Beer & Micheli,2018), leaving broader research approaches underexplored. This oversight is particularly noteworthy given the prevailing lack of justification provided for qualitative studies (Bals, 2023; Wojcik et al., 2022 ), quantitative studies (Rawhouser et al., 2019), and high preference for case study approaches (Beer et al., 2022), which may not always capture social value's full complexity and nuances.