The development of research on environmental, social, and governance (ESG): A bibliometric analysis

Figures & data

Figure 1. Yearly and cumulative number of publications on ESG from 2006 to 2021.

Table 1. Categorization of articles into document types—number of publications, percentage of publications, and number of citations received

Document Type	Number of Publications	Percentage of Publications	Number of Citations
Article	818	83.38	20,040
Book Chapter	61	6.22	188
Conference Paper	49	4.99	116
Review	39	3.98	584
Book	5	0.51	32
Editorial	4	0.41	250
Note	3	0.31	8
Conference Review	2	0.20	0

Figure 2. Trends in the relation between the average number of citations per publication and publication life.

Table 2. Ten most prominent Scopus subject areas with the number of publications received

Subject Area	Number of Articles	Percentage of Articles out of the Total 981	Number of Journals
Business, Management, and Accounting	589	60.04	138
Economics, Econometrics, and Finance	433	44.14	141
Social Sciences	345	35.17	80
Environmental Science	283	28.85	41
Energy	183	18.65	15
Decision Sciences	61	6.22	28
Engineering	61	6.22	26
Arts and Humanities	47	4.79	15
Computer Science	35	3.57	19
Earth and Planetary Sciences	19	1.94	8

Table 3. Ten most prominent journals, based on the distribution of the highest number of articles

Journal	Number of Articles	Impact Factor 2020	Reference	Scopus Categories
Sustainability	116	3.25	Web of Science	Energy
				Environmental Science
				Social Science
Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment	47	2.08	Web of Science	Business, Management, and Accounting
				Economics, Econometrics, and Finance
Business Strategy and the Environment	36	10.3	Academic Accelerator	Business, Management, and Accounting
				Environmental Science
				Social Science
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management	27	8.74	Web of Science	Business, Management, and Accounting
				Environmental Science
				Social Science
Journal of Business Ethics	25	6.43	Web of Science	Business, Management, and Accounting
				Economics, Econometrics, and Finance
				Social Science
				Arts and Humanities
Journal of Portfolio Management	23	0.71(2019)	Web of Science	Business, Management, and Accounting
				Economics, Econometrics, and Finance
Journal of Cleaner Production	22	9.29	Web of Science	Business, Management, and Accounting
				Environmental Science
				Energy
				Engineering
Critical Studies on Corporate Responsibility Governance and Sustainability	12	0.6	Academic Accelerator	Business, Management, and Accounting
Finance Research Letters	12	5.59	Web of Science	Economics, Econometrics, and Finance
Sustainability Accounting Management and Policy Journal	11	3.35	Web of Science	Business, Management, and Accounting
				Energy

Figure 3. Co-citation network for the cited sources using VOSviewer.

Table 4. Environmental, social, and governance articles categorized by affiliation

University/Institute	Number of Publications	Percentage of the Total 981 Articles	Inter-Institutionally Collaborative Articles	Percentage of Inter-Institutionally Collaborative Articles
Sapienza Università di Roma	16	1.64	10	62.5
Universidad de Zaragoza	11	1.12	5	45.5
University of Oxford	11	1.12	9	81.8
Ahlia University	10	1.02	10	100
Bucharest University of Economic Studies	10	1.02	4	40
Brunel University London	9	0.92	8	88.9
University of Cambridge	9	0.92	7	77.8
Universidad Jaume I	8	0.82	2	25
Universiti Teknologi MARA	8	0.82	6	75
Carleton University	8	0.82	4	50

Table 5. Top ten most productive authors in the environmental, social, and governance field

Author	Number of Publications	Number of First Author Articles	Number of Corresponding Author Articles	Number of Single-Authored Articles	Author Affiliation	h-index
Hebb, Tessa (Canada)	9	6	5	3	Carleton University, Canada	13
Buallay, Amina (Bahrain)	7	7	6	3	Ministry of Education, Bahrain	10
Escrig-Olmedo, E. (Spain)	7	3	4	0	Jaume I University, Spain	8
Dorfleitner, Gregor (Germany)	6	5	5	0	University of Regensburg, Germany	16
Kocmanova, Alena (Czech Republic)	6	6	2	0	Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic	9
Lee, Jeong Hwang (S. Korea)	6	1	4	0	Hanyang University, South Korea	4
Muñoz-Torres, Maria Jesus (Spain)	6	1	0	0	Jaume I University, Spain	17
Trenz, Oldrich (Czech Republic)	6	0	0	0	Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic	7
Rezaee, Zabiholla (USA)	5	2	4	0	The University of Memphis, USA	23
Uyar Ali (France)	5	2	3	0	Excelia Business School, France	16

Table 6. Top ten most frequently cited articles

Title	Corresponding Author	Country	Number of Citations	Journal	Reference
Corporate social responsibility and access to finance	Serafeim, G.	USA	872	Strategic Management Journal	Cheng et al. (2014)
ESG and financial performance: Aggregated evidence from more than 2000 empirical studies	Busch, T.	Germany	328	Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment	Friede et al. (2015)
Socially responsible funds and market crises	Varma, A.	USA	146	Journal of Banking and Finance	Nofsinger and Varma (2014)
Corporate social responsibility governance, outcomes, and financial performance	Wang, Z.	USA	133	Journal of Cleaner Production	Wang and Sarkis (2017)
Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: A non-linear and disaggregated approach	Oikonomou, I.	USA	125	Economic Modelling	Nollet et al. (2016)
The effects of environmental, social and governance disclosures and performance on firm value: A review of the literature in accounting and finance	Mitrokostas, E.	UK	124	British Accounting Review	Brooks andOikonomou (2018)
Investigating the relationship of sustainable supply chain management with corporate financial performance	Wang, Z.	USA	124	International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management	Wang et al. (2013)
Integrated reporting in South Africa in 2012: Perspectives from South African institutional investors	Maroun, W.	South Africa	119	Meditari Accountancy Research	Atkins and Maroun (2015)
ESG performance and firm value: The moderating role of disclosure	Fatemi, A.	USA	115	Global Finance Journal	Fatemi et al. (2018)
Diversity of board of directors and environmental social governance: Evidence from Italian listed companies	Cucari, N.	Italy	112	Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management	Cucari et al. (2018)

Figure 4. Visual representation of the cited authors’ co-citation network using VOSviewer.

Table 7. Top ten countries by number of publications

Country	Number of Publications	Number of Highly Cited Articles in the Top 5%
United States	172	10
United Kingdom	120	10
Italy	76	2
Germany	67	11
Spain	67	2
Australia	58	8
France	48	3
Canada	47	2
China	39	0
India	35	0

Figure 5. Network analysis of co-authorship based on countries.

Figure 6. Co-occurrence analysis of author keywords.

Cheng, B., Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2014). Corporate social responsibility and access to finance. Strategic Management Journal, 35(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2131

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Friede, G., Busch, T., & Bassen, A. (2015). ESG and financial performance: Aggregated evidence from more than 2000 empirical studies. Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment, 5(4), 210–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/20430795.2015.1118917

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Nofsinger, J., & Varma, A. (2014). Socially responsible funds and market crises. Journal of Banking and Finance, 48(C), 180–193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2013.12.016

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Wang, Z., & Sarkis, J. (2017). Corporate social responsibility governance, outcomes, and financial performance. Journal of Cleaner Production, 162, 1607–1616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.142

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Nollet, J., Filis, G., & Mitrokostas, E. (2016). Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: A non-linear and disaggregated approach. Economic Modelling, 52(B), 400–407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2015.09.019

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Brooks, C., & Oikonomou, I. (2018). The effects of environmental, social and governance disclosures and performance on firm value: A review of the literature in accounting and finance. British Accounting Review, 50(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2017.11.005

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Wang, Z., Sarkis, J., & D. Huaccho Huatuco, Jairo Rafael Mo, L. (2013). Investigating the relationship of sustainable supply chain management with corporate financial performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 62(8), 871–888. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-03-2013-0033

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Atkins, J., & Maroun, W. (2015). Integrated reporting in South Africa in 2012: Perspectives from South African institutional investors. Meditari Accountancy Research, 23(2), 197–221. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEDAR-07-2014-0047

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Fatemi, A., Glaum, M., & Kaiser, S. (2018). ESG performance and firm value: The moderating role of disclosure. Global Finance Journal, 38(C), 45–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfj.2017.03.001

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Cucari, N., Esposito De Falco, S., & Orlando, B. (2018). Diversity of board of directors and environmental social governance: Evidence from Italian listed companies. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 25(3), 250–266. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1452

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Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article itself. The raw data, whereas are deposited with Mendeley Data, V1, doi: 10.17632/hsdgt7rbk7.1. https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/hsdgt7rbk7