International Journal of Information Science and Management

Vol. 21, No. 2, 2023, 103-125

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22034/ijism.2023.1977765.0 / DOR: https://dorl.net/dor/20.1001.1.20088302.2023.21.2.7.9

Original Research

A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field of Environment, Social and Governance
(ESG) Between 2004 and 2021

Guochao Wan Ahmad Yahya Dawod

Ph.D. Student, International College of Digital Lecturer, PhD, International College of Digital
Innovation, Chiang Mai University, Innovation, Chiang Mai University,
Chiang Mai, Thailand. Associate Prof., School of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Management, Chengdu University of Information [email protected]
Technology, Chengdu, China. ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1055-4037
Corresponding Author: [email protected]
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9865-2677

Nopasit Chakpitak
Professor, PhD, International College of Digital Innovation, Chiang Mai University,
Chiang Mai, Thailand.
[email protected]
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9498-5696

Received: 23 March 2022

Accepted: 02 July 2022

Abstract
Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) has attracted increasing research
interest in sustainable management and decision-making in recent years. To further
understand the research status and trend, the purpose of this study is to adopt
bibliometric and visual methods to analyze the knowledge structure and the
evolution path in the research field of ESG. Based on 1735 papers on ESG in the
Web of Science Collection database from 2004 to 2021, this study uses CiteSpace
and VOSviewer to present a bibliometric overview of publications, citation structure,
authors, universities, countries/regions, journals, and keywords that work on this
Topic. Results indicate that scholars increasingly regard ESG as an integrated
sustainability analysis framework and pay more attention to the connection among
its dimensions. According to the growth trend, ESG may remain a hot research topic
for the next few years. The USA is the most productive country, followed by England
and China. Journals on ESG research with higher effective factors have higher co-
citation frequency and publications. And Sustainable development, corporate
governance, corporate social responsibility, ESG, and ESG ratings as the research
hotspots are presented. Additionally, this study provides an overview of the ESG
research trends for future researchers. This may aid researchers in understanding
current patterns and future study paths, allowing future authors to perform their
studies more successfully.

Keywords: ESG, Bibliometric, Visual Analysis, Research Trends, Citespace, VOSviewer.

Introduction
Sustainable development is the general program leading the development of human society.
Enterprises are the backbone of sustainable development. However, the behavior of enterprises
pursuing profit maximization and reducing environmental and social benefits is increasingly
104 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

apparent (Blank, Sgambati & Truelson, 2016). Governments have called enterprises to pay
attention to the impact of the overall economy, society and environment while pursuing the
maximization of interests, thus providing a good market environment for the sustainable
development of society. After nearly 20 years of development, Environment, Social, and
Governance (ESG) has gradually become the analytical framework for evaluating the
sustainable development of enterprises. The ESG concept has attracted more academic and
practical attention in this context.
There is no clear academic definition of ESG. In the 1990s, as the public was concerned
about environmental deterioration, investors began considering environmental factors in their
investments. In 2001 and 2002, financial fraud scandals broke out in Enron and World Com,
which significantly damaged the interests of investors and made investors pay more attention
to corporate governance (Williams, 2008). 'Who Cares Wins', written by the United Nations
Global Compact, integrated the dimensions of Environmental, Social, and Governance and put
forward the ESG concept for the first time in 2004 (The Global Compact, 2004). In 2006, the
Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) required that ESG factors should not only be
included in investment decisions but also promote the ESG development of invested entities.
Since then, ESG has gradually spread to the world. Global Sustainable Investment Alliance
(GSIA) said ESG-related factors have increasingly influenced investors. These factors are not
included in traditional corporate financial statements but can affect future returns. The United
States and Europe have promulgated ESG-related regulations and policies in recent decades. It
puts forward higher standards and requirements for the ESG system to be included in
investment decision-making.
Gao, Meng, Gu, Liu & Farrukh (2021) have studied the ESG field using 690 articles from
the Scopus database and made profound progress. Aiming to find new pieces of evidence and
complement the research conducted by Gao et al. (2021), we further use new data to explore
the internal relationship between ESG research among publications, citation structure, authors,
universities, countries, journals, author keywords and research trends with bibliometric and
visual analysis. Different from the research of Gao et al. (2021), we use 1735 articles from the
Web of Science Collection database and employ CiteSpace and VOSviewer to understand the
research status and trends in the ESG field. Furthermore, we also get different findings which
are more helpful information for future researchers and policymakers. Moreover, ESG has
reached a certain level of development which can be seen from the fact that there are 438 articles
in 2020 only. It's necessary to identify new potential research trends.

Literature Review
The existing literature mainly studied the relationship between ESG and economic
consequences. ESG performance will affect the risks faced by enterprises (Starks, 2009). ESG
has an impact on the system risk of enterprises, and this impact is more significant in enterprises
with higher product differentiation. The better ESG performance, the lower the company risk
(Albuquerque, Koskinen & Zhang, 2017). Enterprises with higher ESG performance are more
flexible, and enterprises with higher ESG levels perform better in the 2008 financial crisis,
which shows that ESG performance can improve the anti-risk ability of enterprises (Lins,
Servaes & Tamayo, 2017). Some papers prove that higher ESG performance has wider
investors and will face lower lawsuit risks, eventually leading to lower capital costs (Hong &
Kacperczyk, 2009). The impact of ESG performance on the credit rating of corporate bonds

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 105

depends on the country where the enterprise is located and the importance it attaches to ESG
(Stellner, Klein & Zwergel, 2015). Companies with poor performance in the environment
generally have lower credit ratings and lower yields (Seltzer, Starks & Zhu, 2022). ESG can
reduce the specific legal risks of the company and have a higher market valuation (Hong &
Liskovich, 2015). In addition, some studies have found that ESG rating increases the specific
risks of enterprises. When enterprises improve their ESG rating, they lose flexibility, decreasing
stakeholder benefits (Becchetti, Ciciretti & Hasan, 2015). According to the different influences
of ESG components, the capital cost of enterprises with a poor environment is higher (Chava,
2014). Green enterprises have lower capital costs (Pástor, Stambaugh & Taylor, 2021). The
capital cost of green stocks depends on the wealth of unsuspecting investors (Pedersen,
Fitzgibbons & Pomorski, 2021). The capital cost of green projects has not decreased (Flammer,
2021).
The influence of ESG on company performance or value is widely researched. According
to different measures of performance or value, existing research conclusions mainly include the
positive and negative relationship between ESG and company performance or value. The choice
of rating agencies impacts portfolio performance constrained by ESG (Aich, Thakur, Nanda,
Tripathy & Kim 2021). Overall, the positive correlation between ESG and company
performance or value is the mainstream. The country's characteristics impact the ESG, and the
legal origin can predict the ESG performance of enterprises better than the political system,
social preference and financial performance of enterprises (Liang & Renneboog, 2017). When
the CEO of a company is married, it will increase the diversity of the company and the score of
employees, thus improving the ESG score of the company (Hegde & Mishra, 2019).
Regarding the influence of ESG on non-financial factors, it not only becomes the evaluation
index of financial investment and enterprise management but also displays enterprise
innovation, green governance, risk prevention and control. ESG also promotes the performance
of green innovation, which plays an intermediary role (Xu, Liu & Shang, 2021). Previous
literature is increasing regarding ESG as a sustainability analysis framework and paying more
attention to the connection among its dimensions.
As mentioned previously, the Topic of ESG has been studied in the context of bibliometric
analysis by Gao et al. (2021). Like other academic studies, the bibliometric analysis could get
different results for the data from a different database. Using different retrieval strategies could
get more related searches. Furthermore, more potential links could be found through different
threshold settings in keyword co-occurrence. Considering these factors, we use 1735 articles
from the Web of Science Collection database and employ CiteSpace and VOSviewer to take a
bibliometric and visual analysis of the ESG topic and to meet the gaps in the current article's
analysis.

Objectives and Contributions of this study

The main objective of this study is to investigate the performance and structure of the ESG
literature and aid researchers in understanding current patterns and future study paths. In this
regard, we pursue the following objectives: use more new data to reflect the characteristics of
the literature; employ Citespace and VOSviewer to present a bibliometric overview in the ESG
field; set the different thresholds to identify and describe the hotspots of the subject; find out
the transfer of research directions and look for future research opportunities; meet the gaps in
the current article's analysis.

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

106 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

Four contributions have been made to this study. First, we describe the evolution process
of ESG research and propose an analysis of the highly cited publications, citation structure,
authors, journals, universities, and countries. Second, we highlight the understanding of highly
cited publications and research hotspots issues in the ESG field, such as sustainable
development, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, ESG and ESG ratings.
Thirdly, the relevant papers are analyzed to trace the transfer of research directions and look
for future research opportunities. Fourthly, we present a visual analysis that provides a more
functional and valuable study for future studies on ESG research.

Materials and Methods

Bibliometric methods offer a convenient and nonreactive tool for studying collaboration in
research. Pritchard (1969) defines bibliometric analysis as applying mathematical and
communication methods to books and other media communication. A comprehensive statistical
review of a specific topic can help researchers to better understand the basic knowledge and the
knowledge structure within a subject field (Zhu, Tong & Song, 2021). A bibliometric study
mainly analyzes the information on the keywords, references, journals and even productivity of
authors, countries and institutions. Through bibliometric analysis, researchers can summarize
the current situation and development trends of research fields or specific diseases and provide
directions and ideas for future research (Lu et al., 2019). In the literature, many bibliometric
studies have been analyzed in finance, management and economics (Avilés-Ochoa, Flores-Sosa
& Merigó, 2021). CiteSpace and VOSviewer are the commonly used bibliometric visualization
tools for data analysis and visualization (Van Eck & Waltman, 2010). Our study uses CiteSpace
5.6. R4 and VOSviewer 1.6.11 as visual and analytic research tools. Besides, we used EXCEL
to make tables and conducted a detailed comparative analysis.
The publications were obtained from the Web of Science Collection database. Web of
Science is recommended as the preferred database website for citation spatial analysis and
contains citation information sources. ESG refers to how corporations and investors unite
environmental, social and governance concerns into their business structure (Gillan, Koch &
Starks, 2021). As noted, this study regards environmental, social, and governance. Considering
this factor, the retrieval strategy can be defined as Topic = (ESG) or ("Environment" and
"Social" and "Governance") AND included all languages. The span time was set from 2004 to
2021. 2004 is the starting point because "ESG" first appeared in 2004, while the search took
place in June 2022. The criteria for retaining documents are as follows: (1) Based on Web of
Science categories, relevant literature in non-economic and non-management fields were
excluded, and the categories of Business, Business Finance, Economics and Management
remained, (2) the analysis considered research articles. A total of 7174 publications were
obtained. After excluding 4788 non-economic and management categories, we retained 2386
publications. The strategy for retaining documents is shown in Figure 1. Finally, 1735 articles
were downloaded in the format of "Plain text" and "Full Record and Cited References" and then
exported into software for further analysis.

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 107

Web of Science Collection database

searching (n=7174)
categories of Business, Business
finance, Economics and Management
were remained
removed (n=4788)

records screened
(n=2386)
records excluded:
●proceedings papers (n=289)
●review papers (n=94)

eligible articles (n=2003)

●span time: 2004-2021
●eliminate duplicate literature and
missing keywords
●download time: June 2022

articles in analysis
(n=1735)

Figure 1: The diagram of including and excluding articles

We used a thesaurus file for the pre-processing phase to manage and clean the raw data
obtained to combine related terms. At this stage, some similar terminologies used
interchangeably by scholars in the ESG conception were merged to avoid duplication. Mainly
include: replacing "environment social government" and "environment social and government"
with ESG; replacing "Corporate social responsibility", "Corporate social and responsibility"
and "socially responsible" with CSR; replacing "Socially responsible investment" with SRI;
replacing "Ethics and compliance management" with ECM; replace "modern portfolio theory"
with MPT; replace "Corporate social responsibility disclosure" with CSRD.

Results
Analysis of publications
During 2004-2021, a large number of papers on ESG appeared. Figure 2 shows the number
of publications published every year, and it can be seen that this number has dramatically
increased, especially in the last four years. Moreover, the publication of the model fitting curve
shows exponential growth based on the annual article output (y = 0.2867 x 3 - 5.4977 x 2 +
32.883x - 37.637, and the degree of fitting: R 2 = 0.9934). Based on the cumulative number of
publications, we estimate 570 articles will be published in 2022.

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

108 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

300
270
240
210
180
150
120
90
60 19
30 7 12 14
0
0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

450 438
420
390 360
360
330
300 256
270
240
210 173
180 141
150
120 69
90
60
30
0
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

300
270
240
210
180
150
120
90 57
60 35 29 40 42
19 24
30
0
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

450
420
390 438
360 y = 0.2867x3 - 5.4977x2 + 32.883x - 37.637
330 360
R² = 0.9934
300
270
240
210 256
180
150 173
120 141
90
60
30 0 7 12 14 19 19 35 29 24 40 42 57 69
0

Figure 2: ESG papers published annually (2004-2021)

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 109

Analysis of citation structure

An analysis of citation structure can identify the key authors and articles contributing to
ESG research. Table 1 lists the twenty highly cited papers from 2004 to 2021. The most cited
paper is written by Carney, who identifies that family-controlled firms' competitive advantage
arises from their system of corporate governance, which gives advantages in a scarce
environment and facilitates the creation and utilization of social capital. The second most cited
paper belongs to Sheng, Zhou & Li (2011), who focus on an emerging country China to
distinguish social ties to change institutional and market environments. Marquis and Qian is
another influential work on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting in China.

Table 1
The top 20 most co-cited references regarding ESG from 2004 to 2021
R TC Title Author/s Year C/Y
Corporate governance and competitive
1 808 Carney, M 2005 50.50
advantage in family-controlled firms
The Effects of Business and Political
2 695 Ties on Firm Performance: Evidence Sheng, SB; Zhou, KZ; Li, JJ 2011 69.50
from China
Corporate Social Responsibility
3 609 Reporting in China: Symbol or Marquis, C; Qian, CL 2014 87.00
Substance?
Corporate Social Responsibility in
4 432 Western Europe: An Institutional Jackson, G; Apostolakou, A 2010 39.27
Mirror or Substitute?
Green Governance: Boards of
Directors' Composition and Post, C; Rahman, N; Rubow,
5 414 2011 41.40
Environmental Corporate Social E
Responsibility
The Causal Effect of Corporate
6 389 Governance on Corporate Social Jo, H; Harjoto, MA 2012 43.22
Responsibility
The Effect of Board Characteristics on de Villiers, C; Naiker, V;
7 369 2011 36.90
Firm Environmental Performance van Staden, CJ
Business Model Innovation for Evans, S; Vladimirova, D;
Sustainability: Towards a Unified Holgado, M; Van Fossen, K;
8 341 2017 85.25
Perspective for Creation of Sustainable Yang, MY; Silva, EA;
Business Models Barlow, CY
Determinants of the Adoption of
9 318 Sustainability Assurance Statements: Kolk, A; Perego, P 2010 28.91
An International Investigation
The Role of the Board in the Frias-Aceituno, JV;
10 301 Dissemination of Integrated Corporate Rodriguez-Ariza, L; Garcia- 2013 37.63
Social Reporting Sanchez, IM
The social responsibility of
international business: From ethics and
11 287 Kolk, A 2016 57.40
the environment to CSR and
sustainable development

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

110 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

R TC Title Author/s Year C/Y

The performance consequences of
ambidexterity in strategic alliance Lin, Z; Yang, HB;
12 278 2007 19.86
formations: Empirical investigation Demirkan, I
and computational theorizing
Do institutional investors drive
Dyck, A; Lins, KV; Roth, L; 132.5
13 265 corporate social responsibility? 2019
Wagner, HF 0
International evidence
Is Corporate Responsibility
Converging? A Comparison of
14 256 Chen, S; Bouvain, P 2009 21.33
Corporate Responsibility Reporting in
the USA, UK, Australia, and Germany
Towards a renaissance in international
business research? Big questions, Buckley, PJ; Doh, JP;
15 247 2017 61.75
grand challenges, and the future of IB Benischke, MH
scholarship
Stakeholder Engagement and
Prado-Lorenzo, JM;
Corporate Social Responsibility
16 245 Gallego-Alvarez, I; Garcia- 2009 20.42
Reporting: the Ownership Structure
Sanchez, IM
Effect
ESG performance and firm value: The Fatemi, A; Glaum, M;
17 240 2018 52.33
moderating role of disclosure Kaiser, S
Social Accountability: What Does the
18 225 Fox, JA 2015 37.50
Evidence Really Say?
The Influence of Governance Structure
and Strategic Corporate Social
19 225 Amran, A; Lee, SP; Devi, SS 2014 32.14
Responsibility Toward Sustainability
Reporting Quality
Public policies on corporate social
Albareda, L; Lozano, JM;
20 223 responsibility: The role of 2007 15.93
Ysa, T
governments in Europe
Abbreviations: R = Rank; C/Y = Citations per year; TC = Total citations

In addition, the citation structure was classified and counted, and the information was
presented from 2004 to 2021 Aich, S., Thakur, A., Nanda, D., Tripathy, S. & Kim as shown in
Table 2. Remarkably, the publications published from 2016 to 2019 were the most cited. Only
4.96% of the papers have more than one hundred citations, and 45.71% have more than ten
citations. At the same time, 85.99% of the papers regarding ESG have been cited at least once.
In addition, there are highly cited papers almost every year, and 2016 has the most cited papers
with more than one hundred citations.

Table 2
References citation structure from 2004 to 2021
Year TP TC ≥200 ≥100 ≥50 ≥20 ≥10 ≥5 ≥1
2004 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
2005 7 1174 1 2 4 5 6 7 7
2006 12 572 1 2 4 8 10 10 12

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 111

Year TP TC ≥200 ≥100 ≥50 ≥20 ≥10 ≥5 ≥1

2007 14 1078 3 4 5 9 11 12 14
2008 19 1092 1 3 9 12 14 16 18
2009 19 1192 2 4 7 10 15 15 18
2010 35 2545 2 8 15 27 31 32 35
2011 29 2421 3 5 9 19 22 23 29
2012 24 1700 1 5 12 17 23 23 24
2013 40 1944 1 6 10 25 37 38 40
2014 42 2655 3 9 16 24 29 34 41
2015 57 2620 1 6 19 40 49 53 57
2016 69 3256 1 11 25 44 56 64 69
2017 141 4459 2 8 27 65 91 109 141
2018 173 3709 0 7 17 49 104 141 170
2019 256 3637 1 3 11 50 116 157 207
2020 360 2911 0 2 4 45 121 198 298
2021 438 1980 0 1 5 23 58 154 312
% 1.33% 4.96% 11.47% 27.26% 45.71% 62.59% 85.99%
Abbreviations: TP and TC = Total papers and citations; ≥200, ≥100, ≥50, ≥20, ≥10, ≥5, ≥1 = number of papers
with equal or more than 200, 100, 50, 20, 10, 5 and 1 citations.

Analysis of authors
Table 3 shows the authors who contributed the most to ESG research in Business,
Management and economics. Isabel-Maria from the University of Salamanca is the most
productive author with ten publications, and she has been cited in three hundred and one papers.
In second place is Amina Buallay, with eight publications. Buallay (2019) believes that ESG
has a significant positive impact on corporate performance. Professor Collins Ntim mainly
studies accountability, ethics, sustainability, etc.; his research was cited at 61.43 per paper. The
list shows some authors are high C/P as Ans kolk, Paolo Perego, Rodriguez-Ariza and Giovanna
Michelon, with each publication cited more than 97 times on average. Other authors also have
made outstanding contributions. It has appeared that some researchers with high h-index such
as Isabel-Maria (h=65), Ans kolk (h=74), Khaled Hussainey (h=50), Chan (h=51), Scholtens
(h=50) and Shunsuke Managi (h=63). They are all active authors in the ESG field. Furthermore,
in recent years, more researchers have been focusing on ESG.

Table 3
Ranking of top 25 most published authors regarding ESG from 2004 to 2021
≥ ≥ ≥ ≥
R Author name University TP TC C/P H
200 100 50 20
Garcia-Sanchez,
1 Univ Salamanca 10 301 30.10 65 0 1 1 6
Isabel-Maria
2 Buallay, Amina Brunel Univ 8 130 16.25 18 0 0 0 4
3 Ntim, Collins G. Univ Southampton 7 430 61.43 44 0 3 3 5
Martinez-Ferrero,
4 Univ Salamanca 7 263 37.57 37 0 0 1 5
Jennifer
5 Kolk, Ans Univ Amsterdam 6 858 143.00 74 2 3 5 5
Gallego-Alvarez,
6 Univ Salamanca 6 358 59.67 38 1 1 2 3
Isabel
7 Eccles, Robert G. Harvard Univ 6 170 28.33 - 0 1 1 2

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

112 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

≥ ≥ ≥ ≥
R Author name University TP TC C/P H
200 100 50 20
La Rochelle Business
8 Uyar, Ali 6 112 18.67 35 0 0 0 2
Sch
Univ Roma La
9 Lombardi, Rosa 6 66 11.00 23 0 0 0 2
Sapienza
10 Perego, Paolo Erasmus Univ 5 487 97.40 19 1 2 2 3
11 Serafeim, George Harvard Univ 5 337 67.40 44 0 2 2 4
12 Li, Shaomin Old Dominion Univ 5 300 60.00 41 0 2 2 3
13 Crifo, Patricia Univ Paris West 5 160 32.00 21 0 0 0 5
14 Hussainey, Khaled Univ Portsmouth 5 116 23.20 50 0 0 0 2
Western Kentucky
15 Chan, Kam C. 5 97 19.40 51 0 0 1 2
Univ
16 Hamdan, Allam Ahlia Univ 5 81 16.20 27 0 0 0 2
Rodriguez-Ariza,
17 Univ Granada 4 539 134.75 35 2 2 2 3
Lazaro
18 Michelon, Giovanna Univ Padua 4 407 101.75 31 0 2 3 4
19 Scholtens, Bert Univ Groningen 4 258 64.50 50 0 2 2 3
20 Galbreath, Jeremy Curtin Univ 4 256 64.00 36 0 0 2 4
Jesus Munoz-Torres,
21 Jaume I Univ 4 206 51.50 28 0 0 2 4
Maria
22 Rezaee, Zabihollah Univ Memphis 4 202 50.50 46 0 1 2 3
23 Managi, Shunsuke Univ Michigan 4 169 42.25 63 0 1 1 2
Capelle-Blancard, Univ Paris 1
24 4 118 29.50 24 0 0 0 3
Gunther Pantheon Sorbonne
25 Kilic, Merve Samsun Univ 4 84 21.00 24 0 0 0 2
Abbreviations are available in Tables 1 and 2 except: C/P=Cites per paper; H = h-index

Analysis of universities and countries

Table 4 lists the top 20 universities where the most influential productions have been
published. As shown, Salamanca University was ranked first, with 22 publications, followed
by City university Hong Kong, with 17 publications and the total citations; the University of
Erasmus, Hong Kong Polytech University, Oxford University, and Macquarie University, with
15 publications. Six universities in the list are from England, accounting for 30%. It also
appeared that some universities with high C/P, such as City University Hong Kong, Erasmus
University, Concordia University and Amsterdam University.

Table 4
Ranking of top 20 universities regarding ESG from 2004 to 2021
R University Country TP TC C/P ≥200 ≥100 ≥50 ≥20
1 Univ Salamanca Spain 22 1084 49.27 2 3 5 13
2 City Univ Hong Kong China 17 2019 118.76 3 4 5 10
3 Erasmus Univ Netherlands 15 1027 68.47 2 4 5 7
4 Hong Kong Polytech Univ China 15 578 38.53 1 1 4 9
5 Univ Oxford England 15 456 30.40 0 2 2 4
6 Macquarie Univ Australia 15 394 26.27 1 1 1 4
7 Univ Birmingham England 14 567 40.50 0 2 4 7
8 Univ Portsmouth England 14 414 29.57 0 1 1 5
9 York Univ Canada 13 513 39.46 0 2 2 6

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 113

R University Country TP TC C/P ≥200 ≥100 ≥50 ≥20

10 Ahlia Univ Bahrain 13 194 14.92 0 0 0 4
11 Univ Cambridge England 12 467 38.92 1 1 1 4
12 Univ Manchester England 12 270 22.50 0 0 1 6
13 Univ Valencia Spain 12 261 21.75 0 1 1 3
14 NYU USA 12 229 19.08 0 0 2 3
15 Univ Sfax Tunisia 12 96 8.00 0 0 0 1
16 Concordia Univ Canada 11 1231 111.91 1 3 4 7
17 Univ Amsterdam Netherlands 11 1036 94.18 2 3 7 8
18 Univ Zurich Switzerland 11 305 27.73 0 0 3 5
19 Sapienza Univ Rome Italy 11 300 27.27 0 1 2 3
20 Massey Univ New Zealand 11 118 10.73 0 0 1 2
Abbreviations are available in Tables 1, 2 and 3

Table 5 shows the top 20 countries with the most productive and influential publications
on topics of ESG. The USA is the most active country publishing 438 papers, followed by
England and China, publishing 254 and 173 papers, respectively. Considering the number of
total cites, the most influential countries are the USA, England, China, Australia, Spain, and
Canada, with more than 3500 citations. Regarding C/P, Spain, Canada, Netherlands and
Scotland they exceeded 30 times. Overall, 22.03% of the publications are from the United
States, 12.81% are from England, and 8.72% are from China, specifically Hong Kong, China.

Table 5
Ranking of top 20 most productive countries regarding ESG from 2004 to 2021
R Country TP TC C/P ≥200 ≥100 ≥50 ≥20
1 USA 438 12512 28.57 10 31 63 126
2 England 254 6738 26.53 3 18 35 77
3 China 173 4603 26.61 4 9 21 46
4 Australia 140 3566 25.47 1 9 21 45
5 France 134 2693 20.10 0 3 13 45
6 Spain 117 3683 31.48 4 9 18 49
7 Italy 114 2731 23.96 1 7 15 40
8 Canada 110 3716 33.78 2 8 16 45
9 Germany 88 2636 29.95 0 10 17 28
10 Netherlands 63 2648 42.03 3 10 16 26
11 India 58 521 8.98 0 0 1 8
12 Malaysia 43 666 15.49 1 2 2 7
13 Brazil 39 565 14.49 1 1 3 6
14 South Africa 35 632 18.06 0 1 4 8
15 Sweden 33 723 21.91 0 1 5 11
16 South Korea 32 758 23.69 0 2 5 9
17 Switzerland 32 727 22.72 0 2 5 9
18 U Arab Emirates 27 420 15.56 0 2 2 5
19 Tunisia 27 291 10.78 0 0 0 4
20 Scotland 26 907 34.88 0 3 8 13
Abbreviations are available in Tables 1, 2 and 3

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

114 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

Bibliographic coupling is a measure to show how other countries use similar references in
their publications and focus on a similar point (Gu, Meng & Farrukh, 2021). In the results of
the bibliographic coupling of countries, each circle represents a country/region, and each color
represents a cluster. The results in figure 3 are based on the minimum 5 as a threshold value.
There are a total of five clusters in the results. It can be seen that countries of the same color
may be mainly concerned or face the same problems. For example, in the purple cluster, the
publications from the USA, China, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand cited each other
and were concerned about similar issues.

Figure 3: Bibliographic coupling of countries/regions

Furthermore, based on the number of clusters, it can be inferred that different countries
face differences in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. There are also extensive
collaborations between countries/Regions (Figure 4). We can also observe that universities in
the United States are the relative focus, connecting with most institutions.

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 115

Figure 4: Knowledge map of countries/regions and universities' cooperation network

Analysis of Journals
The number of ESG publications in the top 20 cited journals is shown in Table 6. The top
journal with the most significant number of papers is the Journal of Business Ethics, a key node
in the network with a total of 93. It is followed by Corporate Social Responsibility and
Environmental Management (91) and Business Strategy and The Environment (88). The ratio
of the top 20 cited journals to the total number of papers was 35.33%. Comparing the frequency
of citations, the Journal of Business Ethics (5185), Business Strategy and the Environment
(4174), and Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management (3606) have a
higher frequency. This shows the leading position of these three journals in the field of ESG.
Corporate Governance-an International Review (895) and Business & Society (697) also have
a high frequency. The citations of the top 20 journals accounted for 50.14% of the total citations.
Notably, the Journal of Business Ethics also has the highest number of citations per paper,
reaching 55.75. Among the journals mentioned above, Business Strategy and the Environment
has the highest impact factor of 10.8, followed by Corporate Social Responsibility and
Environmental Management (8.46) and Journal of Business Ethics (6.33).

Table 6
The top 20 most productive journals regarding ESG from 2004 to 2021
R Journal TP TC C/P
1 Journal of Business Ethics 93 5185 55.75
2 Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 91 3606 39.63
3 Business Strategy and The Environment 88 4174 47.43
4 Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment 53 333 6.28
5 Journal of Portfolio Management 33 156 4.73
6 Corporate Governance-an International Review 29 895 30.86
7 Sustainability Accounting Management and Policy Journal 23 393 17.09
8 Corporate Governance-the International Journal of Business in Society 23 227 9.87
9 Ecological Economics 19 584 30.74
10 Social Responsibility Journal 19 233 12.26

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

116 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

R Journal TP TC C/P
11 Finance Research Letters 16 224 14.00
12 Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 16 91 5.69
13 Energy Policy 15 273 18.20
14 Business & Society 14 697 49.79
15 Management Decision 14 320 22.86
16 Journal of Risk and Financial Management 14 111 7.93
17 Journal of Investing 14 39 2.79
18 World Development 13 537 41.31
19 Journal of Corporate Finance 13 425 32.69
20 Journal of Business Research 13 309 23.77
Abbreviations are available in Tables 1, 2 and 3

Analysis of keywords
The keywords analysis is a method to analyze the relationship between research topics by
counting the co-occurrence of keywords, which helps discover research hotspots and research
structure (Fabregat-Aibar, Barberà-Mariné, Terceño & Pié, 2019). Our study selects author
keywords as statistical objects for keyword analysis. Among all 4405 author keywords, we set
the author keywords that appear at least 14 times for analysis, and 54 author keywords meet the
threshold. The co-occurrence network of the significant author keywords cluster is shown in
Figure 5, and the top 20 author keyword occurrences are given in Table 7.

Table 7
Top 20 author keywords occurrences from 2004 to 2021
R Keyword Cluster Occurrence Total Link Strength
1 CSR 3 324 406
2 ESG 4 204 274
3 corporate governance 2 180 261
4 sustainability 3 118 166
5 sustainable development 1 74 130
6 SRI 4 68 89
7 environmental 1 65 127
8 institutional theory 5 50 57
9 financial performance 2 48 81
10 ESG investing 3 40 30
11 disclosure 1 37 66
12 sustainability reporting 1 37 65
13 stakeholder theory 5 36 65
14 China 2 36 33
15 integrated reporting 1 34 52
16 ESG performance 1 33 40
17 stakeholder engagement 1 31 65
18 firm value 1 28 42
19 ESG disclosure 1 27 49
20 covid-19 4 27 40
Abbreviations are available in Tables 1 and 2 except Occurrence=frequency of keyword occurrence;
Total Link Strength = total co-occurrence times of keywords with other keywords.

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 117

According to the significant author keywords, the main topics can be divided into five
aspects: sustainable development (red cluster), corporate governance (green cluster), corporate
social responsibility (blue cluster), ESG (yellow cluster), and ESG ratings (purple cluster).
Cluster 1: The theme proposed in this cluster (red cluster) mainly focuses on sustainable
development, including ESG reporting, integrated reporting, sustainability reporting, ESG
disclosure, ESG performance, ESG score, firm value and value relevance. ESG is an analytical
framework for corporate sustainability. Given the trend of sustainable development, which is
also the philosophy of ESG, the research on the relationship among the three dimensions of
ESG has attracted much attention to meet sustainability. Corporate governance researchers pay
more attention to firms' social and environmental performance (Walls, Berrone & Phan, 2012).
In this regard, the former includes corporate sustainability, environmental sustainability,
sustainable finance, and sustainable reporting. In addition, ESG choices mainly emphasized
ESG reporting, ESG disclosure and voluntary disclosure. ESG disclosure gets in touch with the
diversity of the board. In most research patterns, internal governance factors are usually
considered a key variable, which aims to reveal the complex internal process and psychological
mechanism of ESG.
Cluster 2: The theme proposed in this cluster (green cluster) mainly focuses on corporate
governance, including the board of directors, executive compensation, gender diversity,
environmental disclosure, social capital, financial performance, firm performance, innovation
and China. Corporate governance is the core and strategic cornerstone of ESG. By
strengthening corporate governance, firms can fundamentally promote the continuous
improvement of environmental and social benefits and achieve stable and long-term
performance. Enterprises implant ESG concepts into their strategies, clarify the board of
directors' responsibilities at the board level and establish a matching governance management
structure and mechanisms systems.
Cluster 3: The theme proposed in this cluster (blue cluster) mainly focuses on corporate
social responsibility (CSR), including ESG investing, sustainability, accountability,
institutional investors, portfolio construction, strategy, risk management and emerging market.
The European Union put forward the concept of CSR in 2001. ESG originated from CSR, which
is both related and different. Both emphasize that we should focus on the interests of
shareholders and other stakeholders at the same time. However, CSR is a concept put forward
from the perspective of enterprises, and its meaning is broader and challenging to measure. ESG
is a concept put forward from investors' perspective, so it is also called ESG Investment.
Compared with the broad connotation of CSR, ESG mainly measures the fulfilment of corporate
social responsibility from three aspects: environmental, social and governance. If investors
evaluate the company's ESG performance and make investment decisions based on it, it will
undoubtedly impact its ESG practice.
Cluster 4: The theme proposed in this cluster (yellow cluster) mainly focuses on ESG,
including Social Responsible Investment (ISR), sustainable investing, institutional ownership,
green bond, COVID-19, climate change and business ethics. In the context of the COVID-19
and climate change, demand for ISR is growing despite a weak global economy. Investing in
companies that integrate environment, society and governance and serve stakeholders, not just
short-term shareholders, is also more valuable. ESG system includes information disclosure,
performance rating and investment practice, which complement each other. When the enterprise
has made ESG disclosure, the agencies can evaluate the firms' ESG more accurately, and

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

118 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

investors can use ESG performance to guide practice more confidently. To expand the supply
and scale of ESG investment, improving the information disclosure and evaluation system and
promoting the system construction of rules, supervision, and self-discipline of ESG investment
is necessary. Portfolio theory will be widely used in ESG investment. The critical role of
portfolio construction in this domain is a hot research theme and will be so in the future.
Cluster 5: The theme proposed in this cluster (purple cluster) mainly focuses on ESG
ratings, including stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory, institutional theory, agency theory,
earning management, corporate financial performance, and corporate social performance. ESG
disclosure includes environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance
(Environment, Social and Governance, ESG) information. ESG ratings refer to the evaluation
of ESG disclosure by rating agencies. ESG ratings are also controversial. Even in countries
where ESG is relatively mature, the results of different rating agencies are very different. As
ESG ratings provide company-level information, studies on the influencing factors and
economic consequences of ESG ratings are becoming more and more abundant.

Figure 5: Co-occurrence network of major author keywords

Discussion
The purpose of analyzing the temporal characteristics is to reflect the origin and
development process of the research topic. In our study, 1735 articles related to ESG were
analyzed by a bibliometric method from 2004 to 2021. according to the growing trend, similar
to Gao et al.'s study (Gao et al., 2021). We divided the research period into three stages. The
first stage is the initial stage from 2004 to 2008. Before the ESG concept was established,
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was a more well-known concept. Due to the severe
challenges of climate and the environment, the environmental protection movement is also
rising. As a result of ESG, the report Who Cares Wins, written by the United Nations Global
Compact in 2004, first proposed the ESG concept. After that, the number of publications waved

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 119

from 2004 to 2008, with 0 papers in 2004, which increased to 19 papers in 2008. The research
mainly focused on corporate social responsibility, responsible investment, and public trust,
which focused on a particular dimension of ESG. The second stage is the steady growth from
2009 to 2015. After the Global Influential Investment Network launch in 2009, some influential
research institutions and scholars appeared. Their research mainly focused on the influence of
domestic market characteristics, country attributes, gender, and CEO characteristics on ESG.
The number of articles grew steadily, and more than 240 were published during this period. The
third stage is the rapid growth from 2016 to 2021. During this period, the total number of
publications was reached 1437, far higher than the other stages. These results show that the
concept of ESG is getting more and more attention and may remain a hot research topic for the
next few years.
According to the list of top-cited publications, we found that research content ranges from
the factors of ESG (political ties, board characteristics, business model innovation, institutional
investors, public policies) to utilizing ESG for the sustainable development of enterprises.
Besides, in the research on ESG's economic consequences, the article "ESG performance and
firm value: The moderating role of disclosure" has laid a good foundation. Like Gao et al.'s
study (Gao et al., 2021), many papers focus on a single country or region, such as China, the
USA, the UK, Australia, Germany and Europe. The citation structure result suggests that
scholars increasingly regard 'environment, society, and governance as an integrated
sustainability analysis framework and pay more attention to the connection among different
dimensions (E/S/G). Besides, masses of papers are increasingly focusing on the influence of
ESG on a firm's risk, performance, financial behaviour, report, and value.
Based on the analysis of universities and countries/regions, most universities are from
developed countries/regions. Few ESG research universities exist in emerging market countries
or regions such as mainland China, India, and Brazil. The reason may be that ESG research in
emerging market countries started later. This also highlights the natural driving characteristics
of ESG research in emerging countries or regions. Furthermore, as is common among the top
productive countries/regions, international collaboration is important for ESG development. In
a citation network, we found that the number of outputs is associated with the number of
research institutions, the development level of countries/regions, and the people who focus on
ESG issues.
Furthermore, according to the analysis of author keywords, CSR, ESG, corporate
governance and sustainability were frequent keywords. Based on the hotspot analysis and the
bursts shown in Table 8, some keywords that need further study are found, such as risk
management, institutional investors, sustainability reporting, corporate finance, etc. On this
basis, we propose four possible research trends about ESG for future researchers.
The first type of research is the impact of ESG performance on risk management. In recent
years, the global economy has been affected by COVID-19, and enterprise operations'
systematic and non-systematic risks have increased. Good ESG performance can help
enterprises establish a good corporate image and improve their reputation, thus affecting
enterprise risk management. Therefore, the impact of ESG performance on risk management is
a hot research topic. The risks that ESG may affect include stock price collapse, company
default, social trust, climate, and supply chain risks. ESG research on risk management can help
enterprises reduce risks and promote the smooth operation of enterprises.

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

120 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

The second kind of research is the interaction between ESG and institutional investors. On
the one hand, ESG performance, as the consideration factor of institutional investors, will affect
the investment choice of institutional investors and then affect their shareholding preference;
On the other hand, the shareholding preference of institutional investors will promote the
improvement of enterprise ESG behaviour and obtain higher ESG rating. Most of the existing
literature studies the impact of ESG and institutional investors unilaterally. The research on the
interaction between ESG and institutional investors can enrich the existing literature research
results to a certain extent.
The third is the ESG rating construction and investment strategies application. Many
international rating agencies have explored and formed ESG rating systems. Investment
institutions have formulated several investment strategies, including screening, integration,
shareholder proposition, sustainable investment, influence investment and theme investment,
combined with the ESG ratings. The future ESG ratings will be widely used in the investment
field. ESG performance may well affect the company's capital structure to some extent.
Meanwhile, more exploration will be made on the influence of ESG ratings on emerging capital
markets. Additionally, ESG rating standards will converge internationally and play an
important role in formulating sustainable financial reporting in the future.
The fourth type of research is the impact of ESG on corporate financial behaviour. As a
kind of non-financial information disclosure, ESG information will directly impact the
enterprise's accounting, audit, and sustainable development reports. In addition, this kind of
information disclosure has dramatically improved the transparency of enterprises, reduced the
degree of information asymmetry between enterprises and investors, management and
shareholders' meetings, and reduced agency costs, which has a far-reaching impact on
enterprise innovation activities, foreign direct investment, and other behaviours. In future
research, we can further study the impact of ESG on various financial behaviours of enterprises.
Furthermore, we can improve enterprises' understanding of ESG systems; on the other hand,
we can enrich the literature on the impact of ESG.

Table 8
Top 20 Keywords with the Strongest Citation Bursts
Keywords Year Strength Begin End 2005 - 2021
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
business 2004 5.38 2005 2016
▂▂▂▂▂
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
guanxi 2004 2.89 2005 2016
▂▂▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂
corporate governance 2004 4.91 2010 2015
▃▃▃▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂
shareholder activism 2004 2.87 2010 2016
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂
board of director 2004 3.34 2011 2018
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
collaboration 2004 2.97 2013 2016
▃▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▂

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 121

Keywords Year Strength Begin End 2005 - 2021

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
policy 2004 2.42 2013 2015
▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂
sustainability ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
2004 2.78 2014 2017
reporting ▃▃▃▃▂▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
strategy 2004 3.46 2015 2018
▃▃▃▃▂▂▂
stakeholder ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
2004 3.74 2016 2018
engagement ▃▃▃▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
SRI 2004 2.62 2016 2019
▃▃▃▃▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
integrated reporting 2004 2.49 2016 2017
▃▃▂▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
value creation 2004 2.88 2017 2018
▃▃▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
voluntary disclosure 2004 2.84 2017 2018
▃▃▂▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
board diversity 2004 3.84 2018 2019
▃▃▂▂
responsibility ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
2004 2.89 2018 2019
disclosure ▃▃▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
institutional investor 2004 2.55 2018 2020
▃▃▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
ESG rating 2004 2.47 2018 2021
▃▃▂▂
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
risk management 2004 2.97 2019 2021
▂▃▃▃
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
price 2004 2.74 2019 2021
▂▃▃▃
Abbreviations: Begin is when the keyword starts to mutate, End is the end time, the middle time difference is the
duration of the keyword mutation, and Strength represents the mutation strength.

Conclusions
The objective of this study was to present the development of ESG and discuss the research
related to ESG. Our study proposes a bibliometric and visual analysis of ESG research. Note
that the information was retrieved from the Web of Science Collection database. However, data
from other databases or collected at different times may have different findings. Bibliographic
coupling, keyword co-occurrence and co-citations can analyze clustering and future trends.
More relaxed threshold settings can be set in future work to identify potential connections
between subtopics.
According to the growth trend, ESG may remain a hot research topic for the next few
years. Citation structure suggests that scholars increasingly regard "environmental, social, and
governance" (ESG) as an integrated sustainability analysis framework and pay more attention

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

122 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

to the connection among different dimensions. The publications published from 2016 to 2019
were the most cited. Isabel-Maria from the University of Salamanca is the most productive
author with ten publications, and she has been cited in three hundred and one papers. In recent
years, more researchers have been focusing on ESG. Salamanca University was the most
influential institution regarding ESG. The USA is the most active country. Universities from
the USA were the relative focus, connecting with most institutions. The top journal with the
largest number of papers was the Journal of Business Ethics, a key node in the network. The
co-words analysis indicates that sustainable development, corporate governance, corporate
social responsibility, ESG, ESG ratings are the research hotspots. We also propose four possible
research trends about ESG for future researchers in the discussion section.

Limitations
As with other academic studies, our study also has some limitations. First, the analyzed
data in our study was downloaded from the Web of Science Collection database. Therefore,
data from other databases or collected at different times may have different results and
conclusions. In addition, our study is limited to Business, Business Finance, Economics and
Management. As a result, the analyses may not fully cover all available papers and may lead to
an incomplete list of articles related to the ESG field. Besides that, we used Topic (covering
titles, abstracts, or keywords) as a search range, which may lead to other findings. These
limitations can be addressed in future research by extending the coverage of databases and types
of documents and using similar terms. Also, future work could generate networks of
bibliography coupling and keyword co-occurrence with looser threshold settings to identify
more potential links between identified sub-themes. Thus, more promising fields of study could
be explored by associating relevant subtopics or from different grouping solutions of the
literature.

References
Aich, S., Thakur, A., Nanda, D., Tripathy, S. & Kim, H. C. (2021). Factors affecting esg
towards impact on investment: A structural approach. Sustainability, 13(19), 10868.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910868
Albuquerque, R., Koskinen, Y. & Zhang, C. (2017). Corporate social responsibility and firm
risk: Theory and empirical evidence. Management Science, 65(10), 4451-4469.
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3043
Albareda, L., Lozano, J. M. & Ysa, T. (2007). Public policies on corporate social responsibility:
The role of governments in Europe. Journal of Business Ethics, 74(4), 391-407.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-007-9514-1
Amran, A., Lee, S. P. & Devi, S. S. (2014). The influence of governance structure and strategic
corporate social responsibility toward sustainability reporting quality. Business Strategy
and the environment, 23(4), 217-235. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.1767
Avilés-Ochoa, E., Flores-Sosa, M. & Merigó, J. M. (2021). A bibliometric overview of
volatility. Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, 40(2), 1997-2009.
https://doi/10.3233/JIFS-189202
Becchetti, L., Ciciretti, R. & Hasan, I. (2015). Corporate social responsibility, stakeholder risk,
and idiosyncratic volatility. Journal of Corporate Finance, 35, 297-309.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2015.09.007

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 123

Blank, H., Sgambati, G. & Truelson, Z. (2016). Best practices in ESG investing. The Journal
of Investing, 25(2), 103-112. https://doi.org/10.3905/joi.2016.25.2.103
Buckley, P. J., Doh, J. P., & Benischke, M. H. (2017). Towards a renaissance in international
business research? Big questions, grand challenges, and the future of IB scholarship.
Journal of International Business Studies, 48, 1045-1064. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-
017-0102-z
Buallay, A. (2019). Is sustainability reporting (ESG) associated with performance? Evidence
from the European banking sector. Management of Environmental Quality: An
International Journal, 30(1), 98-115. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq-12-2017-0149
Carney, M. (2005). Corporate governance and competitive advantage in family–controlled
firms. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 29(3), 249-265.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2005.00081.x
Chava, S. (2014). Environmental externalities and cost of capital. Management science, 60(9),
2223-2247. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24550583
Chen, S., & Bouvain, P. (2009). Is corporate responsibility converging? A comparison of
corporate responsibility reporting in the USA, UK, Australia, and Germany. Journal of
business ethics, 87, 299-317. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9794-0
De Villiers, C., Naiker, V. & Van Staden, C. J. (2011). The effect of board characteristics on
firm environmental performance. Journal of Management, 37(6), 1636-1663.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311411506
Dyck, A., Lins, K. V., Roth, L. & Wagner, H. F. (2019). Do institutional investors drive
corporate social responsibility? International evidence. Journal of financial economics,
131(3), 693-714. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.08.013
Evans, S., Vladimirova, D., Holgado, M., Van Fossen, K., Yang, M., Silva, E. A., & Barlow,
C. Y. (2017). Business model innovation for sustainability: Towards a unified perspective
for creation of sustainable business models. Business strategy and the environment, 26(5),
597-608. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.1939
Fabregat-Aibar, L., Barberà-Mariné, M. G., Terceño, A. & Pié, L. (2019). A bibliometric and
visualization analysis of socially responsible funds. Sustainability, 11(9), 2526.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092526
Fatemi, A., Glaum, M. & Kaiser, S. (2018). ESG performance and firm value: The moderating
role of disclosure. Global finance journal, 38, 45-64.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfj.2017.03.001
Flammer, C. (2021). Corporate green bonds. Journal of Financial Economics, 142(2), 499-516.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.01.010
Fox, J. A. (2015). Social accountability: What does the evidence really say? World
Development, 72, 346-361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.03.011
Frias‐Aceituno, J. V., Rodriguez‐Ariza, L. & Garcia‐Sanchez, I. M. (2013). The role of the
board in the dissemination of integrated corporate social reporting. Corporate social
responsibility and environmental management, 20(4), 219-233.
https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1294
Gao, S., Meng, F., Gu, Z., Liu, Z. & Farrukh, M. (2021). Mapping and clustering analysis on
environmental, social and governance field a bibliometric analysis using
Scopus. Sustainability, 13(13), 7304. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137304

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

124 A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field …

Gillan, S. L., Koch, A. & Starks, L. T. (2021). Firms and social responsibility: A review of ESG
and CSR research in corporate finance. Journal of Corporate Finance, 66, 101889.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2021.101889
Gu, Z., Meng, F. & Farrukh, M. (2021). Mapping the research on knowledge transfer: A
scientometrics approach. IEEE Access, 9, 34647-34659. https://doi.org/
10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3061576
Hegde, S. P. & Mishra, D. R. (2019). Married CEOs and corporate social responsibility. Journal
of Corporate Finance, 58, 226-246. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3055306
Hong, H. & Kacperczyk, M. (2009). The price of sin: The effects of social norms on
markets. Journal of financial economics, 93(1), 15-36.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2008.09.001
Hong, H. & Liskovich, I. (2015). Crime, punishment and the halo effect of corporate social
responsibility. Working Paper 21215. National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved
from https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21215/w21215.pdf
Jackson, G. & Apostolakou, A. (2010). Corporate social responsibility in Western Europe: an
institutional mirror or substitute?. Journal of business ethics, 94(3), 371-394.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0269-8
Jo, H. & Harjoto, M. A. (2012). The causal effect of corporate governance on corporate social
responsibility. Journal of business ethics, 106, 53-72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-
1052-1
Kolk, A. (2016). The social responsibility of international business: From ethics and the
environment to CSR and sustainable development. Journal of World Business, 51(1), 23-
34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2015.08.010
Kolk, A. & Perego, P. (2010). Determinants of the adoption of sustainability assurance
statements: An international investigation. Business strategy and the environment, 19(3),
182-198. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.643
Liang, H. & Renneboog, L. (2017). On the foundations of corporate social responsibility. The
Journal of Finance, 72(2), 853-910. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12487
Lin, Z., Yang, H., & Demirkan, I. (2007). The performance consequences of ambidexterity in
strategic alliance formations: Empirical investigation and computational theorizing.
Management science, 53(10), 1645-1658. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1070.0712
Lins, K. V., Servaes, H. & Tamayo, A. (2017). Social capital, trust, and firm performance: The
value of corporate social responsibility during the financial crisis. Journal of
Finance, 72(4), 1785-1824. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12505
Lu, C., Bing, Z., Bi, Z., Liu, M., Lu, T., Xun, Y., Wei, Z. & Yang, K. (2019). Top-100 most
cited publications concerning network pharmacology: A bibliometric analysis. Evidence-
based complementary and alternative medicine, 1704816.
https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/1704816
Marquis, C., & Qian, C. (2014). Corporate social responsibility reporting in China: Symbol or
substance? Organization science, 25(1), 127-148. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2013.0837
Pástor, Ľ., Stambaugh, R. F. & Taylor, L. A. (2021). Sustainable investing in
equilibrium. Journal of Financial Economics, 142(2), 550-571.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2020.12.011

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

 Guochao Wan / Ahmad Yahya Dawod / Nopasit Chakpitak 125

Pedersen, L. H., Fitzgibbons, S. & Pomorski, L. (2021). Responsible investing: The ESG-
efficient frontier. Journal of Financial Economics, 142(2), 572-597.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2020.11.001
Post, C., Rahman, N. & Rubow, E. (2011). Green governance: Boards of directors' composition
and environmental corporate social responsibility. Business & society, 50(1), 189-223.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650310394642
Prado‐Lorenzo, J. M., Gallego‐Alvarez, I. & Garcia‐Sanchez, I. M. (2009). Stakeholder
engagement and corporate social responsibility reporting: the ownership structure effect.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 16(2), 94-107.
https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.189
Pritchard, A. (1969). Statistical bibliography or bibliometrics. Journal of documentation, 25(4),
348-349.
Seltzer, L. H., Starks, L. & Zhu, Q. (2022). Climate regulatory risk and corporate bonds (No.
1014). National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3563271
Starks, L. T. (2009). EFA keynote speech: "Corporate governance and corporate social
responsibility: What do investors care about? What should investors care
about?" Financial Review, 44(4), 461-468. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-
6288.2009.00225.x
Stellner, C., Klein, C. & Zwergel, B. (2015). Corporate social responsibility and Eurozone
corporate bonds: The moderating role of country sustainability. Journal of Banking &
Finance, 59, 538-549. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2015.04.032
Sheng, S., Zhou, K. Z. & Li, J. J. (2011). The effects of business and political ties on firm
performance: Evidence from China. Journal of Marketing, 75(1), 1-15.
https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.75.1.1
The Global Compact (2004). Who cares wins: connecting financial markets to a changing world
(English). Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. Retrieved from
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/280911488968799581/Who-cares-wins-
connecting-financial-markets-to-a-changing-world
Van Eck, N. & Waltman, L. (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for
bibliometric mapping. scientometrics, 84(2), 523-538. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-
009-0146-3
Williams, J. W. (2008). Out of place and out of line: Positioning the police in the regulation of
financial markets. Law & Policy, 30(3), 306-335. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-
9930.2008.00279.x
Walls, J. L., Berrone, P. & Phan, P. H. (2012). Corporate governance and environmental
performance: Is there really a link? Strategic management journal, 33(8), 885-913.
https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.1952
Xu, J., Liu, F. & Shang, Y. (2021). R&D investment, ESG performance and green innovation
performance: evidence from China. Kybernetes, 50(3), 737-756.
https://doi.org/10.1108/K-12-2019-0793
Zhu, C., Tong, P. & Song, Z. (2021). A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis of Environmental
Behavior Research. Sustainability, 13(18), 10338. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131810338

IJISM, Vol. 21, No. 2 April-June 2023

Copyright of International Journal of Information Science & Management is the property of
Regional Information Center for Science & Technology and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.