Bibliometric analysis and systematic review of environmental, social, and governance disclosure papers: current topics and recommendations for future research

Abstract

This study analyzes the literature on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure by applying a bibliometric analysis of documents published in the Scopus database. Bibliometric analysis allows researchers to highlight the theoretical foundations of a specific research field, identify the main findings of previous studies, and determine future research ideas. This analysis was based on bibliometric authors’ citation analysis, bibliometric papers’ co-citation analysis, bibliometric references’ co-citation analysis, bibliometric journals’ co-citation analysis, co-occurrence keywords cartography analysis, trend and evolution analyses of ESG disclosure publications over the years, and qualitative content analysis. This study reviews 161 documents on ESG disclosure published in the Scopus database. Bibliometric analysis was conducted using VOSviewer, evolution analysis was performed using CiteSpace, and content analysis was performed using Wordstat. The study identified four major clusters: corporate social responsibility, corporate strategy, financial performance, and environmental economics. It also highlights the increasing number of citations and documents related to ESG disclosures. In addition, the journal of “Business Strategy and the Environment” significantly contributes to the ESG disclosure research field in terms of number of papers and citations. Additionally, this study highlights various future research opportunities in this field. The findings of this study have practical implications for ESG disclosure, such as the impact of integrating ESG into a company’s business strategy on corporate and financial policies. This study is the only one to review key topics on ESG disclosure that can be largely used for ESG practices. This study provides an overview of how the literature on ESG disclosure has developed, as well as a summary of the most influential authors along with countries, organizations, and journal sources. This offers the opportunity for future research to focus on this topic.

Fine-tuning ClimateBert transformer with ClimaText for the disclosure analysis of climate-related financial risks

“…They identify four most relevant areas in ESG disclosure research up to date: corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate strategy, financial performance and environmental economics. Our study and obtained results, to the extent that we make possible a better identification and analysis of the climate-related information disclosure, it will also allow advancing in the research on whether the quantity and quality of a company's ESG disclosure affects a great variety of this firm's variables included in these four big areas identified by Ellili et al [12]. Thus, we extend our paper's target audience to all these strands of the literature related to the ESG disclosure.…”

“…Various studies have analyzed various aspects of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure. We refer to Ellili et al [12] for a bibliometric and systematic review of this literature. They identify four most relevant areas in ESG disclosure research up to date: corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate strategy, financial performance and environmental economics.…”

A Review of CSR and ESG Disclosures Determinant Studies: Comparability and Ambiguities

“…Globally, numerous organizations have developed reporting frameworks focusing on assisting rms in managing their sustainability disclosures. These frameworks include the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (Ellili, 2022). While these frameworks are relevant and useful, they do not align directly with CSRD or ESGD.…”

“…In the past decade, numerous review studies have delved into CSRD and ESGD. These encompass diverse areas, including CSRD in Bangladesh (Mehjabeen & Bukth, 2020), the intersection of Islamic values and CSRD (Shu et al, 2021), the economic effects of CSRD (Christensen et al, 2021), the in uence of rm attributes on CSRD (Ali & Isa, 2018), the quality of CSRD and its impact on corporate reputation (Usman, 2020), ESGD and rm performance (Brooks & Oikonomou, 2018;Huang, 2021;Kengkathran, 2018;Khan, 2022;Singh et al, 2022), ESGD from a rm's perspective (Bax & Paterlini, 2022), and a comprehensive review of ESGD literature (Bosi et al, 2022;Ellili, 2022). Additionally, there are several articles focusing on the determinants of CSRD and ESGD.…”

Determinants of environmental, social, and governance disclosure: A systematic literature review

“…In the past decade, there are numerous review studies on ESGD, including ESGD literature review (Bosi et al, 2022; Ellili, 2022c), ESGD and firm performance (Brooks & Oikonomou, 2018; Huang, 2021; Kengkathran, 2018; Khan, 2022; Singh et al, 2022), and ESGD from a firm's perceptive (Bax & Paterlini, 2022). There are also review papers that focus on investigating the determinants of ESGD including corporate governance determinants of ESGD (Lagasio & Cucari, 2019) and institutional ownership of ESGD (Velte, 2020).…”