What Drives Social Accounting Research? Insights From a Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

With the increasing importance of sustainability and corporate social responsibility across the globe, social accounting practices are being accepted worldwide; however, the rate of acceptance varies. By analyzing trends, patterns, and future areas of social accounting research, this study aims to address the gap in systematic analysis in this area of research. In the present study, social accounting literature is reviewed through bibliometric techniques, and the vast body of research associated with social accounting is systematized to identify major trends, the most successful authors, methodological variety, and topic relevance. Bibliographic data are retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science databases. Data analysis is performed using Biblioshiny R and Python programming languages. The corpus includes publications from 1946 to March 2024, and 2286 publications remain in the final sample. The results indicate a 6.2% growth rate per year, and the leading contributing country is the UK, followed by Australia, Italy, and the USA. Methodological diversity analysis shows a commitment to empirical research, in which surveys and quantitative research dominate. The topic analysis identified 10 major topics. The studie's innovation lies in the comprehensive nature of bibliometric analysis, which provides insights into the growth, development, and diversity of social accounting research. The implications are related to the increasing importance of sustainability and environmental, social, and governance performance areas, while future research opportunities include the use of digital technologies to achieve improved transparency and stakeholder engagement.