IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jjrfmx/v17y2024i10p460-d1495783.html

ESG in Business Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Evangelos Chytis

    (Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Ioannina, 48100 Preveza, Greece)

  • Nikolaos Eriotis

    (Department of Business Administration, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece)

  • Maria Mitroulia

    (Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Ioannina, 48100 Preveza, Greece)

Abstract

A company’s “value” is increasingly influenced by three criteria: the way it acts to protect the environment, its attitude towards society and the principles of corporate governance it has adopted. That is the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) acronym, and it has substantial impact on company value. To further understand the ESG landscape in business research, this article aims to analyze the existing literature and present the current state of knowledge, main trends, and future perspectives. Through the Scopus database, the authors examine a sample of 1034 articles spanning from 2006 to 2022. VOSviewer and Biblioshiny packages are used for performance analysis and visualization of the publication trends, the conceptual structure of the field and the research collaborations. The results suggest that the publication and citation trends of ESG register an upward trend over time. In terms of research institutions, most of the influential ones emanate from the US, while a significant percentage of articles were published in top-tier financial journals. Science mapping via co-authorship analysis bifurcates the sample into six clusters and reveals the major themes and their evolution. Keyword analysis unfolds emerging trends that could be further explored. Given the breadth of the sustainability field and the ever-changing business environment, this paper is of great practical importance in motivating companies to engage in ESG activities. To the authors’ knowledge, no other study has attempted a comprehensive and detailed BA covering multiple aspects and dimensions of ESG in the corporate research field. The theoretical framework of this paper fills this gap and offers an in-depth synthesis of all published papers, providing invaluable insights to scholars, the business community and regulatory authorities, and creating alternative research paths for aspiring researchers.

Suggested Citation

  • Evangelos Chytis & Nikolaos Eriotis & Maria Mitroulia, 2024. "ESG in Business Research: A Bibliometric Analysis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-25, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:17:y:2024:i:10:p:460-:d:1495783
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/17/10/460/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/17/10/460/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nollet, Joscha & Filis, George & Mitrokostas, Evangelos, 2016. "Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: A non-linear and disaggregated approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 400-407.
    2. repec:ehu:cuader:55446 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Xingjian Liu & F. Benjamin Zhan & Song Hong & Beibei Niu & Yaolin Liu, 2012. "A bibliometric study of earthquake research: 1900–2010," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(3), pages 747-765, September.
    4. Amir Amel-Zadeh & George Serafeim, 2018. "Why and How Investors Use ESG Information: Evidence from a Global Survey," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 74(3), pages 87-103, July.
    5. Dan Daugaard, 2020. "Emerging new themes in environmental, social and governance investing: a systematic literature review," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(2), pages 1501-1530, June.
    6. Lu, Jing & Wang, Jun, 2021. "Corporate governance, law, culture, environmental performance and CSR disclosure: A global perspective," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Mehmet Ali Koseoglu, 2016. "Mapping the institutional collaboration network of strategic management research: 1980–2014," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(1), pages 203-226, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Davidescu Adriana Anamaria & Bîrlan Ioana & Manta Eduard Mihai & Geambaşu Cristina Maria, 2025. "Artificial Intelligence in ESG and Sustainable Finance: A Bibliometric Analysis of Research Trends," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Paradigm, vol. 19(1), pages 1506-1517.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pruthiranjan Dwibedi & Debasis Pahi & Antarjyami Sahu, 2024. "Mapping the landscape of environmental, social and governance research: A bibliometric analysis," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 3745-3767, September.
    2. Meng Li & Kezhi Liao & Yue Qi & Tongyang Liu, 2022. "Constructing Multiple‐Objective Portfolio Selection for Green Innovation and Dominating Green Innovation Indexes," Complexity, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2022(1).
    3. Zhenghao Chang, 2026. "Using Machine Learning To Decode the Impact of Financial Performance on ESG: Evidence from China," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 68(2), pages 1845-1870, August.
    4. Tesfaye T. Lemma & Mohammad Tavakolifar & Lan Anh Nguyen, 2025. "Accounting Values and Corporate Environmental Disclosures: Some International Evidence," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(8), pages 11036-11059, December.
    5. Zain Ul Abideen, 2025. "The moderating role of investor sentiments between sustainability reporting and firm reputation. Evidence from Chinese listed firms," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 138-159, January.
    6. Junjie Yin & Zhenxing Huang & Jiapeng Liu & WeiWei Li, 2026. "Does the green human capital of top management teams affect corporate environmental protection investment decisions?," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(1), pages 1-23, December.
    7. Koenigsmarck, Markus & Geissdoerfer, Martin, 2023. "Shifting the Focus to Measurement: A Review of Socially Responsible Investing and Sustainability Indicators," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 136617, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    8. Chau, Le & Anh, Le & Duc, Vo, 2025. "Valuing ESG: How financial markets respond to corporate sustainability," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(3).
    9. Alfonso Muñoz‐Acevedo & Francisco Seijo, 2025. "Stakeholder Misperceptions of ESG Investment Impacts on Business Financial and Organizational Performance Indicators," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(5), pages 6566-6585, September.
    10. Hyun-Jung Nam & Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin & Doojin Ryu, 2024. "Firm value, ownership structure, and strategic approaches to ESG activities," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 14(1), pages 187-226, March.
    11. Ed-Dafali, Slimane & Patel, Mitesh & Adardour, Zahra & Theodoraki, Christina, 2026. "Mapping ESG-Driven sustainable development: A retrospective review and future research agenda," Innovation and Green Development, Elsevier, vol. 5(1).
    12. Muhammad Sani Khamisu & Achuta Ratna Paluri, 2025. "What’s past is prologue: reminiscing research on environment social governance (ESG) disclosures," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(2), pages 320-340, June.
    13. Marie, Mohamed & Qi, Baolei & Elgammal, Mohammed & Elnahass, Marwa, 2024. "A more sustainable future: Can politically connected CEOs spur the nexus between ESG performance and firm financial performance?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    14. Carlos Estevez‐Mendoza & Juan Infante, 2025. "Evolution and relevance of research on Environmental, Social, and Governance factors," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(2), pages 1545-1566, March.
    15. Moch. Doddy Ariefianto & Fitriani Rahmansyah & Valencia Wijaya & Viary Audreane, 2025. "The Role of Environment Social and Governance (ESG) Score To Cost of Debt: Evidence From ASEAN Countries," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 3031-3043, July.
    16. Markus Koenigsmarck & Martin Geissdoerfer, 2023. "Shifting the Focus to Measurement: A Review of Socially Responsible Investing and Sustainability Indicators," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-24, January.
    17. Oehler, Andreas & Neuss, Charlotte, 2025. "ESG disclosure vs. ESG ratings: Consistent information value?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    18. Omaima A.G. Hassan & Peter Romilly, 2018. "Relations between corporate economic performance, environmental disclosure and greenhouse gas emissions: New insights," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 893-909, November.
    19. Elisa Bocchialini & Demetrio Miloslavo Bova & Ilaria Colivicchi & Federica Ielasi, 2024. "Environmental-, Social-, and Governance-Oriented Pension Funds for Young Contributors: A Win–Win Option," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-19, December.
    20. Mohamed Rashwan & Nardin Farouk & Rania Pasha, 2025. "Can ESG Strategies Drive Firm Value Growth in the MENA Region?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-30, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:17:y:2024:i:10:p:460-:d:1495783. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.