Uncovering the research field of corporate social responsibility in family firms: a citation analysis

Abstract

Purpose Inspired by increasing public interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the intensified focus of research on family firms (FFs) over the past few decades, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the existing literature on CSR in FF through a citation analysis. Design/methodology/approach This paper overviews the structure of research on CSR in FF, identifying influential publications, authors, and key lines of discussion. The authors identified the underlying sample through a systematic, keyword-based literature search of seven databases. Starting with this sample, the authors analyzed a database of 4,342 references of 3,025 different sources cited in the 63 articles. Findings The findings show that the cited literature on CSR in FF is widespread, confirming that the research field has great heterogeneity. The authors identified the most-cited researcher as Luis R. Gómez-Mejía (University of Notre Dame, USA), with 93 citations. The average author in the group of the 22 most-cited authors (with a three-way tie for 20th-most-cited author) counts 45.45 citations in the sample of 13.95 different sources. Because the citations mostly refer to journal articles, the authors further investigated the particular journals of publication. The 20 most-influential journals cover 45.28 percent of all citations, with the Journal of Business Ethics being the most influential (6.38 percent of all citations). Within the 3,025 different sources cited in the whole sample, the publication by Dyer and Whetten (2006), which is titled “Family firms and social responsibility: preliminary evidence from the S&P 500,” is the most-cited (29 citations in 46.03 percent of the analyzed 63 peer-reviewed journal articles). Originality/value The authors conclude with a call for more research on CSR in FF (especially qualitative case studies). Moreover, as scholars of North America and Western Europe dominate the current landscape of research, the authors would like to encourage scholars from other countries and cultures to provide insights from their countries.

The Romanian Family Businesses Philosophy for Performance and Sustainability

“…The most noticeable indicator is charitable contributions, which are given to various social actions, sports, culture and health. Therefore, the family businesses included in the sample engaged in this activity; the correlation between the family business characteristics and SR are in accordance with previous studies [68,69], but unexpectedly, the correlation of management with the SR was not identified, knowing that M is mandate to carry out the expenditure.…”

“…Even if many family businesses do not have an extended corporate governance structure, most family members have decided to be socially responsible. The relationship between CSR and family firms was studied in many research papers, and the results were heterogeneous [68] and highly segmented and unstructured [69].…”

Corporate social responsibility in Austrian family firms: socioemotional wealth and stewardship insights from a qualitative approach

“…Thus, different scholars have called for further CSR research within family firms under different focal points (e.g. Berrone et al, 2010;Van Gils et al, 2014;Preslmayer et al, 2018).…”

Corporate Social Responsibility in Family Firms: Status and Future Directions of a Research Field

“…Research on CSR in family firms has increased significantly over the last few years, and the related research field is growing (Faller and zu Knyphausen-Aufseß, 2018 ; Kuttner & Feldbauer-Durstmüller, 2018 ; Mariani et al, 2021 ; Preslmayer et al, 2018 ). Due to the variety of studies, the opportunity has come to synthesize the current state of research so that future research can depart from a common understanding.…”

“…Secondly, the literature shows that current research often suffers from a misalignment between empirical research and theory. The prevailing assumption is that family objectives drive family firm CSR activities (Preslmayer et al, 2018 ), thereby obtaining family and firm outcomes, whereas family firm CSR outcome-related studies only examine firm outcomes, not family and firm outcomes. Although there is much theorizing about family outcomes playing a significant role in family firm management, we could not identify any empirically-related findings.…”