Civic wealth creation: A semi-structured literature review

Abstract

Although there has been an increase in the publications of societal impact, the research in civic wealth creation is still nascent and fragmented. Therefore, a semi-systematic literature review was conducted of 56 articles to understand the current state of the literature, where the construct originated, how the literature is developing and what future research will be related to how communities can benefit from these initiatives, which provides a new lens to view societal impact, from the period of 2003 to 2023. Achieving positive societal impact is a complex and collaborative process of multiple stakeholders aggregating resources and developing new capacities to account for social, economic, and communal endowments generated by local communities. Civic wealth creation brings a new dimension to wealth creation as it extends the notion of wealth to viewing tangible and intangible assets of a community by addressing social issues such as poverty and societal injustice. The conducted bibliometric and thematic analysis revealed that while the literature in civic wealth creation is nascent, the foundation of concepts which are multidisciplinary are based on theoretical research which is in the developed and mature stages. More empirical research is required in the field, and this should be focused on developing countries. There are also no measures of success within the community to assess the effective of the implementation beyond the initial intervention. The future research directions include the movement towards interdisciplinary research on the concepts and a focus on empirical studies on developing countries. This will shed light on the effectiveness of civic wealth creation which will enable academics, practitioners, and policy makers to make more informed decisions.