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15 February 2026

Social Entrepreneurial Initiatives Supporting Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Scoping Review of Interventions and Outcomes

Department of Sociology, Social Work and Human Resources, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, 700506 Iași, Romania
Soc. Sci.2026, 15(2), 126;https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci15020126
This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Innovation: Local Solutions to Global Challenges
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Abstract

The potential of social entrepreneurship to address persistent social problems through innovative and sustainable solutions has been increasingly recognized in recent decades. While persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to face significant challenges related to social participation and educational and professional integration, there are social entrepreneurs that have developed initiatives to address their needs. This paper aims to identify and map such initiatives in order to emphasize the dimensions of the interventions and their outcomes. Our study is based on a scoping review and analysis of 41 articles published in international databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, ProQuest and Google Scholar. The findings reveal distinctive features of SEIs targeting people with ASD. Some positive outcomes of social enterprises (SEs) have been identified, including favorable effects on beneficiaries and significant social return on investment (SROI), but most research is limited to short-term results with relatively fragmented presentation of data. Considering the complexity of the issues addressed, further research on the impact of SEs and the extension of studies to long-term outcomes is essential for a better understanding of their sustainable social benefits. This study offers an overview of the existing literature in the area, identifies the gaps, and provides guidance for future research.

1. Introduction

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represents an increasingly prevalent condition (Seçer et al. 2025), “characterized by lifelong neurodevelopmental issues impacting social interaction and communication” (Bertelli et al. 2025, p. 1). It is estimated that currently “approximately 1% of the global population is affected by ASD” (Bertelli et al. 2025, p. 1); this disorder is present in persons of varied ethnic origins and socioeconomic status (Kohli et al. 2025).
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), ASD involves “persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, including deficits in social reciprocity, nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, and skills in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships”, as well as “restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities” (American Psychiatric Association 2013, p. 31).
People with ASD are more frequently exposed to stigma and social exclusion (Seçer et al. 2025), and face difficulties in securing independent living. Moreover, their “education and employment levels are low, even when general intelligence is within the normal range” (Barneveld et al. 2014, p. 302). Children with ASD are more likely to miss school and repeat a grade (Barneveld et al. 2014), while adults face an increased risk of adverse occupational outcomes and barriers to obtaining employment (Nicholas and Lau 2019; Dennis et al. 2024). Unemployment tends to be high among adults with ASD (Correia et al. 2025), which is associated with dependence on social services and a lower quality of life (Nicholas and Lau 2019). Studies indicate that this risk remains elevated even in adults with high levels of functioning and education (Barneveld et al. 2014).
Despite inclusive education policies, children with ASD continue to experience difficulties in school adjustment and access to education (McCabe and Deng 2018). In addition, policies meant to encourage employers to enter into employment contracts with people with disabilities tend to have a limited impact on job retention among persons with ASD (Schuurmans et al. 2024). Such persistent social challenges usually require innovative and sustainable approaches to support social inclusion and to improve the quality of life of people with ASD.
The potential of social entrepreneurial initiatives (SEIs) to address social problems mismanaged by traditional institutions is now widely recognized (Bornstein and Davis 2010). These initiatives “are often ascribed innovative roles for the public good” (Gawell 2013) and it is considered that “social innovation and social entrepreneurship initiatives can play a significant role in addressing the great challenges of the 21st century, including poverty alleviation, social inclusion and climate change mitigation” (Correia et al. 2025).
Although there is an expanding body of literature dedicated to social entrepreneurship, this concept and the related terms “are far from obvious and easy to specify” (Andersen et al. 2016, p. 2). Social entrepreneurship is “a generic term for initiatives that are innovative, cross cutting and often targeted at socially disadvantaged people. However, social entrepreneurship is also a phenomenon that contains considerable ambivalence stretched around the powerful dynamics of individualisation and collectivisation, between the social and the market, between marginality and mainstream and between neoliberalism and the solidarity economy” (Andersen et al. 2016, p. 1). Overall, this concept encompasses three key elements: “social innovation, accountability, and sustainability” (Kamaludin et al. 2024). In turn, the concept of social enterprise (SE) refers to “the tangible outcome of social entrepreneurship” (Mair and Martí 2006, p. 37). These entities present different forms of organization (Medeleanu 2013) and are constantly expanding “as they seek different forms of legitimacy both in the market-place and in the social communities which they serve” (Mitra 2019, p. 123).
The literature provides evidence of the significant contribution of social entrepreneurship in reducing social inequalities, including the social integration of disadvantaged groups (Fernández-Guadaño and Diez 2024; Turyakira et al. 2025). “Higher levels of social entrepreneurship are associated with higher growth rates of total employment and vulnerable worker employment” (Kim 2024, p. 1). SEs contribute to the socio-professional inclusion of vulnerable people by creating jobs (Rakar and Uršič 2025), providing an appropriate “stigma-free environment” (Lysaght et al. 2024, p. 42) and “economic empowerment” (Nuchian et al. 2024). This “economic empowerment” of vulnerable people takes on new dimensions in the context of SEIs that support the self-employment of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities by cultivating entrepreneurial skills among beneficiaries (Alborno and Kalaji 2024). A study published in 2024 shows that entrepreneurship offers important benefits to people with intellectual disabilities who present “high entrepreneurship tendency” by increasing quality of life as well as job and life satisfaction (Barba-Sánchez et al. 2024). Likewise, engaging people with autism in social entrepreneurial activities has the potential to provide benefits at the individual level (avoiding discrimination in the labor market, better control over the work environment by eliminating factors that can cause “distress” and involvement in attractive fields for people with ASD), at the community level (increasing awareness of ASD) and socially (creating more appropriate services for this category of beneficiaries and innovative responses to their needs) (Zivkovic 2024).
Even though there is increasing interest in social entrepreneurship and the expansion of initiatives addressing the needs of people with ASD in an innovative way, research in this area remains quite fragmented, especially when referring to this group of beneficiaries. A preliminary review of the literature conducted to gain insight into this topic revealed that most papers dedicated to analyzing SEIs that support people with ASD are either based on case studies or are theoretical articles that only mention these initiatives to support their hypotheses. However, based on the information we have, there are no comprehensive studies that provide evidence on the general features of the different initiatives and the impact they have on beneficiaries.

Aim, Objectives and Research Method

This study aims to address the gap identified by conducting a literature review with the purpose of identifying and mapping SEIs that support people with ASD, highlighting their key characteristics.
The objectives of the study focused on
(1)
Exploring the dimensions of social entrepreneurial interventions that address the needs of people with ASD and
(2)
Analyzing the outcomes of SEIs supporting persons with ASD.
To achieve the objectives, we carried out a scoping review, which constitutes a “‘mapping’, a process of summarizing a range of evidence in order to convey the breadth and depth of a field” (Levac et al. 2010, p. 1). In contrast to systematic reviews, which “are useful for answering clearly defined questions” scoping reviews answer “much broader questions” (Tricco et al. 2018, p. 1). Given the emerging nature of the topic analyzed, we appreciate that a scoping review best aligns with the objectives of this study.
The logic of the literature review, the process, and theoretical support for its implementation will be described in the next section dedicated to the methodological framework.

2. Materials and Methods

The research strategy is based on the methodology proposed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005), adjusted to align with the purpose of the present endeavor. This methodology is widely used for scoping studies, especially in the social sciences. It has been updated and revised by various authors (Daudt et al. 2013; Pham et al. 2014) and replicated in numerous studies (O’Flaherty and Phillips 2015; Thompson et al. 2018; Cubbon et al. 2021; Tan et al. 2021; Machado et al. 2022; Mariappan et al. 2022; Ratshidi et al. 2022; Deleu et al. 2023; Linjean et al. 2025), including in the field of social entrepreneurship (Burga and Rezania 2015; Turpin and Shier 2019; Hudson et al. 2022; Lysaght et al. 2022; Nagle et al. 2023; Tohit et al. 2025). Arksey and O’Malley (2005) proposed five steps to follow in preparing a scoping review that guided the entire process of collecting and presenting data. They begin with the formulation of the question that guides the research, continue with the identification and selection of relevant articles for the proposed study, and end with the organization and presentation of the results. The following section describes the details of the integration of these methodological benchmarks into our research. For reporting the review process, we followed the PRISMA-ScR guideline—“Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews” (Tricco et al. 2018).

2.1. Identifying the Research Question

This study starts with the following general research question:
RQ: 
What is known from the literature about SEIs that support people with ASD?
To better guide the research process, two specific questions were formulated, derived from the general question:
Q1. 
Which dimensions of social entrepreneurial interventions aimed at people with ASD are known in the literature?
Q2. 
What are the outcomes of SEIs that support people with ASD, as highlighted by research in the field?

2.2. Identifying Relevant Articles

At this stage, we selected key concepts and terms related to SEIs and their forms of implementation. Considering the fact that “the terms social entrepreneurship, social business, and SE tend to overlap because all of them refer to initiatives which have the explicit aim to generate social value” (Testi et al. 2018, p. 400), we focused on the following key concepts: “social entrepreneurship”, “social enterprise”, “social business” and “social venture”. Regarding ASD, we took the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as a reference. This manual integrates ASD into the category of “neurodevelopmental disorders” and brings together under the concept of ASD “disorders previously referred to as early infantile autism, childhood autism, Kanner’s autism, high-functioning autism, atypical autism, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, childhood disintegrative disorder, and Asperger’s disorder” (American Psychiatric Association 2013, 2022). Accordingly, we selected more comprehensive terms, including “autism spectrum disorder”, “autistic individuals”, “developmental disorder” and “developmental disability”, using the symbol “*” for databases to capture the variations of the key terms. Boolean operators (OR/AND) were applied to combine the key terms, resulting in the following strategy for searching databases:
All fields (selected from databases): “social entrepreneur*” OR “social business” OR “social venture” OR “social enterprise*” AND “autis*” OR “developmental dis*”
Three important electronic databases were selected for the theme analyzed: Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus and ProQuest. In choosing them, we took into account the criteria used by studies published in the field of social sciences with a scoping review focus, such as Deleu et al. (2023), which highlighted that Scopus and ProQuest are “databases concentrated on social sciences”. Web of Science offers an overview, covering “all scientific disciplines”. This benchmark is important in the context of our intention to review articles published in journals within the area of social sciences, without missing the opportunity to integrate the data obtained into a broader context offered by journals published in interdisciplinary domains. We also extended our searches with Google Scholar to obtain a greater variety of perspectives on the research topic.
A series of inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to refine the results. The included papers were limited to peer-reviewed journals and articles in English. Papers published in a language other than English, from non-peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, conference papers and editorial notes, were excluded. No limitations were applied regarding the year of publication, in order to have a more comprehensive study. The database research was completed on 26 September 2025.
While for the first three databases, the screening covered all articles that met the inclusion criteria, for Google Scholar we limited the searches to the first 140 records. The decision was taken because, as the other authors emphasized (Pham et al. 2014; Hudson et al. 2022), and our experience showed, there is little chance that it would still be possible to identify relevant articles after a certain number of results (usually 100 titles).

2.3. Article Selection

The use of key terms and the application of selection filters led to a result of 1109 titles from the first three databases, plus 140 items identified through the Google Scholar platform. From each database, lists of titles were extracted in Excel format and merged into a single document to identify duplicates. In the case of Google Scholar, titles were screened in accordance with eligibility criteria before being exported to Excel.
Following the PRISMA guidelines, we carried out the identification and elimination of duplicates, then screened the articles and removed those that did not meet certain criteria. The entire process of selecting articles is illustrated in Figure 1. The reasons for excluding certain papers from the review include the following: theoretical articles without references to empirical evidence of SEIs; articles describing SEIs for which people with ASD are not explicitly presented as a category of beneficiaries; insufficient or unclear data for the research topic.
Figure 1. PRISMA research design.

2.4. Charting the Data

The main data obtained from the review of the articles included in the qualitative analysis were organized in a “data charting form”, which recorded information on the SEIs identified and provided a brief description of them, the country in which they were launched, the categories of beneficiaries they targeted, and details regarding the articles presenting these SEIs, including authors and year of publication. A summary of this data is presented in Table A1.

2.5. Summarizing and Reporting the Results

In order to answer the research questions, we synthesized information from each article regarding the specifics of the interventions and the results of the SEIs, where these were evaluated, while paying attention to the research methods used by the authors. All these aspects are discussed in the next section.

3. Results

This scoping review includes 41 articles published between 2008 and 2025 in various journals. Of these, five appeared in the Social Enterprise Journal, three in Voluntas, two in Nonprofit Management and Leadership, two in Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, and the remaining 21 articles are published in other different journals. This heterogeneity of resources makes a valuable contribution to our analysis.
The SEIs described in the papers included in this review come from different areas of the globe, including Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and Australia. The most numerous initiatives analyzed come from the USA, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (see Table A1).
The results of our study highlight various characteristics of SEIs supporting people with ASD, with a predominant focus on the socio-professional inclusion of adults and an emphasis on leveraging their skills in the IT field. Most of the articles describe initiatives materialized through the establishment of SEs. They address various issues of people with ASD (from early diagnosis to providing care adapted to needs) and are aimed at different age groups.
Further, we will analyze the specifics of these social entrepreneurial interventions and highlight the outcomes they provide.

3.1. Social Entrepreneurial Interventions Aimed at People with ASD

Various dimensions of the interventions were captured (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Dimensions of interventions.

Employment Integration

According to the results of our study, most SEIs address the issue of unemployment among adults with ASD. In total, 30 out of 41 articles mention at least one such initiative, implemented through the creation of jobs within an SE or by facilitating access to the broader labor market (see Table A1). Certainly, most business models include more complex intervention strategies that combine job offers with professional training and coaching to enhance the employment chances for the target group.
The most frequently mentioned initiative, described for its innovative approach to leveraging the IT skills of persons with ASD, was implemented through the establishment of an SE in Denmark (Specialstern) and represents the first visible initiative in the literature (Wareham and Sonne 2008; Öztürk 2014; Hockerts 2015; Wolf and Mair 2019; Mauksch and Dey 2023; Lechterman and Mair 2024). Another SE, established in the UK (Auticon), presents a similar approach to harnessing the skills of young people with ASD in the IT field (Choi et al. 2020; Wolf and Mair 2019). Four other articles present SEIs focused on facilitating employment in the IT field for people with ASD: SE—ITvitae established in the Netherlands (Schuurmans et al. 2023), SE—Aspiritech from the USA (Gidron 2014), along with other SEIs implemented in Canada (Nicholas and Lau 2019) and the USA (Ballesteros-Sola et al. 2018). Another 19 articles mention SEIs that have contributed to the integration of people with ASD into the labor market (Owen et al. 2015; Moody et al. 2015; Colenbrander et al. 2017; English et al. 2017; Ouimette and Rammler 2017; Praszkier et al. 2017; Krátki and Szabó 2018; Backer 2019; Bonar and Karlsson 2019; Magomedova and Bastida-Vialcanet 2019; Choi et al. 2020; Csángó 2020; Meqdadi et al. 2020; Ávila et al. 2021; Kiss et al. 2021; Lipták et al. 2022; Kamaludin 2023; Hunt 2025; Widagdo et al. 2025).

Education and Vocational Training

Educational support for people with ASD is provided for various age stages. It starts with the support provided during childhood in terms of language development through adapted educational materials (Shpykuliak et al. 2024), continues with the support offered for integration into the school environment (Ávila et al. 2021; Hunt 2025) and ends with vocational training courses that increase the ability to meet labor market demands (Correia et al. 2025), sometimes complemented by courses that help develop autonomy in everyday life (Krátki and Szabó 2018).

Social and Health Services

The provision of social and health services is carried out either integrated with other types of activities (Kiss et al. 2021) or through distinct units that support the development of autonomy in people with ASD (Kao and Huang 2015). Certain initiatives focus on offering therapeutic programs and products for the target group (Kidd et al. 2016).

Family and Community Support

Some SEIs include indirect services for people with ASD in the form of support provided to their families remotely through telephone lines (Nouman and Cnaan 2021, 2022) or to the communities to which people with this disorder belong (Ávila et al. 2021), contributing to enhanced social integration.

Increasing Social Awareness

Certain SEIs pay increased attention to raising awareness among the general public about autism. For instance, the Symbiosis Foundation from Hungary includes “a wide range of social awareness-raising activities: providing national and international (EVS) volunteer service, public forums, street campaigns, classroom lessons and interactive integration programs with the involvement of the target group” (Lipták et al. 2022). Also, an advertising agency from Thailand launched activities aimed at disseminating information and raising public awareness about children with ASD (Natakun and Teerapong 2014), thus contributing to enhancing awareness of this disorder.

Research and Diagnostic Support

An article (Pepin 2021) presents the initiative of a British foundation supporting autism research, which, although not part of a formalized framework specific to SEs, uses the principles of social entrepreneurship to achieve social impact. This approach has enabled the support of important medical research projects in the field of ASD. Another article presents the initiative of a Polish foundation (Synapsis Foundation), which has SE status and has responded to the need for early diagnosis among children with ASD (Praszkier et al. 2017). Through its work, the foundation has supported the target group at all stages of diagnosis.

Neurodiverse Social Entrepreneurship Support

A paper by Zivkovic (2024), a social entrepreneur with autism, emphasizes the importance of adequate support for this form of entrepreneurship to mitigate unemployment among people with ASD. The author recalls her own experience in developing an SE that provides training programs for this category of beneficiaries and highlights the key elements that can contribute to strengthening the support ecosystem.

Advocacy

Among the articles analyzed, the voice of Thorkil Sonne, founder of the Specialisterne Company and parent of a young man with autism, stands out as he establishes the mission of his social business “to change the predominant view of ASD as a disorder; a language that is «off» and should somehow be «cured» back to normalcy” (Wareham and Sonne 2008). His influence seems to be quite strong, as there is an increase in the number of SEs with a similar approach and even a change in perspective regarding the contribution of people with ASD to society.
In summary, we find a predominant focus in the literature on the analysis of SEIs that support the socio-professional integration of people with ASD by establishing SEs that provide training, jobs, or facilitate access to employment. The IT sector is the most frequently mentioned field of activity, being seen as an opportunity to harness the special skills of these beneficiaries.

3.2. Outcomes

The evaluation of SEs’ results is heterogeneous and relatively fragmented. While we identified only 2 articles (Owen et al. 2015; Correia et al. 2025) that primarily aim to assess the impact of SEIs on beneficiaries, another 6 articles (Moody et al. 2015; Cheah and Ho 2019; Nicholas and Lau 2019; Kamaludin 2023; Schuurmans et al. 2023, 2024) present results that emerged as a secondary research dimension. The research methodology is predominantly qualitative (7 studies are based on a qualitative approach and only one article uses quantitative methods), as can be seen in Table 1. The focus is mainly on short-term outcomes, and only one article provides data on long-term results (Schuurmans et al. 2024).
Table 1. Methodological approach employed in assessing SE outcomes.
  • Implications for beneficiaries (persons with ASD)

Improving Skills and Employment Prospects

Four studies included in the review (Owen et al. 2015; Nicholas and Lau 2019; Schuurmans et al. 2023; Correia et al. 2025) present evidence of the positive effects of the support provided by SEs on beneficiaries’ confidence in their own professional abilities. Other effects associated with perceived support include “decreased sense of isolation and less uncertainty” and “decreased stress at times of uncertainty or other job-related difficulty” (Nicholas and Lau 2019, p. 198).
One of the articles (Schuurmans et al. 2023) shows an increase in the employment chances of beneficiaries following participation in SE programs. Approximately 92% of beneficiaries who took part in enterprise programs obtained a job shortly after completion. Moreover, most beneficiaries signed contracts for at least 32 h per week and a competitive salary. Another study (Schuurmans et al. 2024) in which two of the authors from the previous article were also involved, shows that although the employment rate is significant, the retention of these employees in the organizations where they were placed is influenced by the motivation of employers and the attention they pay to the abilities of people with ASD. This research captures the long-term effects of placing people with autism in organizations and is based on the results of interviews conducted with 16 people in leadership positions in the organizations. Study findings indicate that “companies prioritizing technical proficiency and actively seeking out autistic individuals for their unique abilities are more likely to establish a mutually beneficial scenario that enhances both employment opportunities and retention rates. Conversely, employers primarily driven by altruistic motives may unintentionally create impediments to employing and retaining autistic employees. In workplaces where meeting quotas supersedes other considerations in hiring practices, staff have witnessed injustices that are likely to undermine the establishment of a safe and inclusive work environment” (p. 12).

Enhancing the Quality of Life

One of the studies (Owen et al. 2015) presents results that highlight a positive impact of the social entrepreneurial strategy on the quality of life of beneficiaries. To measure quality of life, the authors of the study focus on three key factors: independence, social participation, and well-being. Regarding independence, an increase in “independence in travel and engagement in life choices” (p. 218) was identified. With respect to social participation, the following were noted: “developing new friendships within the enterprises”, “initiating social activities outside of work” and “awareness of personal rights” (p. 219). In terms of well-being, the results show “increased pride in accomplishment, empowerment”, “motivation, happiness, and selfexpression”, but also, for some beneficiaries, “improved health, such as weight loss and increased activity” and “the pride associated with having an income” (p. 219).
Similar results can be observed in the case of a quantitative study (Correia et al. 2025). Beneficiaries reported “an increase in their level of happiness”, “improvements in autonomy”, “physical health”, “more friends”, “enhancement of social skills”, and “heightened sense of purpose”, while their parents mentioned that “children were happier”, “showed better interactions within the family” and “coped better with changes”.
Other outcomes reported in the literature include fewer clinical visits, social cohesion, less clinical care, and lower medication dosages (Moody et al. 2015).
  • Impact on family members
A study (Owen et al. 2015) showed effects on the emotional well-being of family members by reducing stress, as it was no longer necessary to adjust the program once the person with ASD was involved in SE activities. For one of the respondents, effects on physical well-being were also highlighted as a result of stress reduction. Another study (Correia et al. 2025) reported the positive impact perceived by parents regarding free time, as well as the fact that they “felt more at ease at their children’s future” and experienced a decrease in financial concerns.
  • Social impact
One of the articles (Cheah and Ho 2019) underlines the important social impact created by an SE “with a range of therapeutic products for individuals with autism, stress or anxiety” due to their innovative nature. “Within the first year, Tware engaged more than twenty special needs schools, therapy centers and homes in Singapore, while their products had supported at least 600 beneficiaries and caregivers worldwide. By 2016, 1000 units were sold, with approximately half the buyers from Singapore and the remaining from over seven countries and territories, including Australia, Japan, Germany and Taiwan” (pp. 519–20).
  • Social Return on Investment (SROI)
Three of the articles included in the review present evidence of SROI. One of the studies (Owen et al. 2015) evaluated the results and impact of a social entrepreneurship program over a calendar year, reaching a ratio of 1.77:1. This means that for every dollar of resources invested by the enterprise to support beneficiaries, the return was 1.77 USD. According to the authors’ conclusions, being an NGO, “any value over zero demonstrates added value” (p. 224). Another qualitative study (Kamaludin 2023) highlights the SROI for 2 calendar years as USD 2.65 and 2.16 per dollar invested. A higher ratio between the value of the investment and the result obtained was emphasized by a third study (Correia et al. 2025), where a return of 4.02 euros for each euro invested was estimated.

Identified Gaps in the Literature

There is limited research focused on assessing the outcomes of SEs supporting persons with ASD. Moreover, this review reveals a paucity of studies based on quantitative or mixed approaches and oriented towards analyzing the long-term impact on SE beneficiaries.

4. Discussion

The present study sought to identify the characteristics of SEIs that address the needs of individuals with ASD and to synthesize the results of research analyzing their outcomes. Although we have 41 articles included in the final stage of review, only 8 articles focus on SEs’ effects, of which only 2 have as their main purpose the evaluation of SEs’ outcomes, and another 6 highlight these results as a secondary dimension of the research. The results of these analyses are based on predominantly qualitative research methods, with impact measurement mainly in the short term and a narrow, fragmented framework for data presentation (except for the first 2 articles mentioned), highlighting important gaps in this field.
The limitations regarding the assessment of the impact of SE are discussed by some authors (Moody et al. 2015; Owen et al. 2015) through the challenges that some entrepreneurs experience in carrying out such analyses, mainly caused by the lack of standardized methods and limited guidance (Mulloth and Rumi 2022). These issues have considerable implications for research in the field of social entrepreneurship. The findings align with observations in recent literature in the area of social entrepreneurship, which emphasize important challenges in measuring the impact of SEs associated with the complexity of the social problems addressed, the lack of standardized indicators and “considerations of long-term impact” (Ćwiklicki et al. 2025, p. 161).
The fact that this study managed to map initiatives launched across 5 continents and analyze papers published in 25 different journals provides a comprehensive overview of the topic. However, like any research, this study has some limitations.

4.1. Research Limitations

The study does not include a contextualized analysis of SEIs that takes into account the cultural particularities of the development of these initiatives or the legal regulations of the states in which the interventions were carried out. Given that the reviewed articles describe initiatives targeting people with ASD that resulted in the establishment of an SE, we did not carry out additional analyses to verify whether the classification complies with the legal regulations of the state in which it operates. The present study did not analyze the evolution of mapped SEIs beyond the reviewed literature. If some SEIs resulted in the establishment of SEs that are currently no longer active, they were not excluded from the analysis, as the intention was to illustrate the specificity of social entrepreneurial interventions addressed to people with ASD.

4.2. Research Recommendations

Even though research in the field of social entrepreneurship has increased in recent years, we still notice challenges in analyzing an important dimension for SEs represented by the measurement of social impact. The results of our study underscore the need to initiate and conduct rigorous studies based on quantitative methods or mixed approaches to shed light on the effects of SEIs on the quality of life of people with ASD. The few available studies indicate positive effects of SEs on beneficiaries’ quality of life, but assessing long-term impact is also important, with longitudinal studies needed to capture their long-term contribution to the social inclusion of people with ASD. Moreover, an impact assessment that takes into account elements such as “inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact” (Esposito et al. 2021, p. 16) would enable a deeper understanding of the social value created.

5. Conclusions

This paper brings attention to the diversity of SEIs that respond to the needs of people with ASD, emphasizing the complexity of the interventions and the depth of effects generated at the individual, family and community levels.
The results of our study capture distinctive features of SEIs focused on individuals with ASD. Social entrepreneurial interventions predominantly focused on supporting the socio-professional inclusion of adults with ASD were identified, with particular attention in many SEs to leveraging the special skills of people with ASD in the IT field. Other types of interventions observed cover the areas of socio-educational inclusion, ASD research and diagnosis, social and health services, family and community support, increasing public awareness and neurodiverse social entrepreneurship support.
Regarding the outcomes of SEs aimed at people with ASD, the articles reviewed indicate positive effects associated with a favorable impact on the beneficiaries’ quality of life and improvement in adults’ perception of their own abilities to find and maintain a job. However, the available studies are few and limited to short-term effects, pointing to a significant need to expand research to capture long-term effects.
Despite the persistent gaps identified in the current literature regarding the assessment of the contribution of SEIs to the medium and long-term well-being of people with ASD, the present work makes a contribution by providing an overview of the characteristics of SEIs that support the social inclusion of persons with ASD and underlines the challenges existent in the assessment of social outcomes. The study also has the potential to guide policies in the field, given that the educational and professional integration of these beneficiaries is a constant concern for institutions that strive to comply with the provisions of the “Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities”.
The main recommendations arising from the current research focus on supporting social entrepreneurs in identifying and using tools to measure the impact of SEs on beneficiaries. Evidence of the impact created can guide the activities carried out, provide a real picture of the efficiency of the entrepreneurial strategy used and strengthen the motivation of those involved in the SEs’ social mission.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

No new data were created for the scoping review.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript:
ASDAutism spectrum disorder
SESocial enterprise
SEISocial entrepreneurial initiative

Appendix A

Table A1. Overview of the SEIs identified through literature review.

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