Environmental, social and governance literature: a bibliometric analysis

This article aims to illustrate the evolution of academic research and future research goals in the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) domain of business and management. A quantitative systematic review was conducted using a contemporary technique, 'bibliometric analysis', in which the study examined the most significant articles, authors, journals, institutions, and nations in ESG research and identified current topics by reviewing publications on the Web of Science database. The findings reveal that ESG research has been steadily rising in recent years. Most of the study was conducted in industrialised nations such as the USA, the UK, and Australia. By separating research themes using a bibliographic coupling, this paper highlights future research agendas that research scholars may undertake in further studies. The contribution of this publication is to study the diffusion trend and map the intellectual structure of ESG research by bibliometric tools, which makes it unique.