The dissemination of corporate social responsibility into the intellectual structure of strategic management

This research explores corporate social responsibility's (CSR) dissemination into the intellectual structure of strategic management via employing a citation and co-citation analysis via network analysis. We collected data from the SCOPUS online database and selected 101 highly cited CSR articles for analysis. We identified four CSR clusters associated with strategic management research: 'corporate environmental responsiveness,' 'corporate social responsibility and corporate performance,' 'environmental accounting and reporting,' and 'pollution and firm value.' Our implications considered three pivotal stakeholders. For scholars, we suggest that CSR largely linked with the resource-based view of the firm and stakeholder theory, and we call for more attention to the significance of the triple bottom line. We suggest that private firms respond proactively to governmental regulations and distinguish between CSR and corporate sustainability. We outline research opportunities that explore essential dimensions of CSR related to strategic management but often overlooked.