Track: Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Abstract

The majority of the South Africans stay in the townships. Historically, townships have been segregated and reserved for blacks, Indians, and mixed-race. These areas were deliberately located far from economic activities such as shopping centres and other businesses. This gave birth to minibusses to transport township dwellers to work as they stayed far from work and mini shopping stores known as tuck shops. These townships have many other challenges that they face such as crime and poor economic activities with most of the businesses operating informally. This study aimed at outlining and understanding who are leading contributors to the township economy, the challenges faced by the township, and the opportunities they provide. In addressing this objective, this study followed a bibliometric analysis. The data that was collected was further analysed using the VOSviewer computer program. The research objectives were achieved in this study. About 688 publications for 64 years from the Scopus database were used in this study. The first publication was first recorded in 1959 to the last paper was recorded in 2023. It was found that China is the leading country in terms of publications and this is followed by South Africa. South Africa has more institutions that they are affiliated with for their research publications. Future research should focus on the importance of social entrepreneurship in addressing challenges faced by township dwellers.