This study maps the intellectual structure and thematic evolution of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Corporate Governance research through a bibliometric analysis of 1,826 Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 2016 and 2025. Using VOSviewer, the study analyzes publication trends, leading authors, highly cited articles, and keyword co-occurrence through network, overlay, and density visualizations. The findings show a significant increase in publications, particularly after 2022, reflecting growing interest in ESG-related governance issues. ESG performance emerged as the dominant theme, closely linked to board characteristics, ESG disclosure, innovation, and sustainable development. Six major thematic clusters were identified, revealing a shift toward digital transformation, green innovation, responsible investment, and ethical issues such as greenwashing and tax avoidance. These findings offer insights into current trends and future directions for ESG and Corporate Governance research.
Penelitian ini bertujuan memetakan struktur intelektual dan perkembangan tematik kajian Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) dan Corporate Governance melalui analisis bibliometrik terhadap 1.826 artikel jurnal terindeks Scopus yang diterbitkan pada periode 2016–2025. Analisis dilakukan menggunakan VOSviewer untuk mengkaji tren publikasi, penulis terproduktif, artikel dengan sitasi tertinggi, serta kemunculan kata kunci melalui visualisasi network, overlay, dan density. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan peningkatan publikasi yang signifikan, terutama setelah tahun 2022, yang mencerminkan meningkatnya perhatian terhadap isu ESG dan tata kelola perusahaan. ESG performance muncul sebagai tema penelitian yang paling dominan dan berkaitan erat dengan karakteristik dewan, pengungkapan ESG, inovasi, dan pembangunan berkelanjutan. Analisis juga mengidentifikasi enam klaster tematik utama yang menunjukkan pergeseran fokus menuju transformasi digital, green innovation, responsible investment, serta isu etis seperti greenwashing dan tax avoidance. Temuan ini memberikan wawasan mengenai tren penelitian terkini dan arah pengembangan studi ESG dan Corporate Governance di masa mendatang.
This study aims to examine the development and integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) into financial statement analysis using a hybrid approach that combines bibliometric analysis and a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The study analyzes Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 2015 and 2025 to map publication trends, dominant themes, the intellectual structure, and the evolving direction of ESG research. The findings reveal that ESG research has grown significantly and become increasingly integrated into mainstream accounting and finance literature. The major research themes include ESG reporting, non-financial disclosure, IFRS, assurance, risk management, and corporate value creation. The SLR findings indicate that ESG is no longer regarded as supplementary information but has evolved into an analytical dimension that enhances the assessment of corporate performance, risk, reporting quality, and sustainability. ESG integration is driven by regulatory pressure, reporting standardization, governance quality, information credibility, and the growing demand from stakeholders for transparent information. This study contributes conceptually by emphasizing the importance of an integrated financial statement analysis framework that combines financial and non-financial information to support higher-quality decision-making.
Gregorius Jeandry, Zainuddin Zainuddin, Amin Dara et al.· EKUITAS (Jurnal Ekonomi dan...· 0 citations
Purpose: This study maps the intellectual structure of corporate governance (CG) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) research between 1976 and 2025, identifies the conditional mechanisms through which governance affects firm outcomes across institutional settings, and derives a comparative research agenda for transition and resource-dependent economies, using Mongolia as a focal case.
Design/Methodology/Approach: Following the PRISMA 2020 protocol, the review employs a three-tier corpus architecture. A mapping corpus of ⟨D1⟩ indexed records retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, Dimensions and EBSCO Business Source is analysed with dedicated bibliometric software (Bibliometrix/biblioshiny in R and VOSviewer) to generate co-authorship networks, keyword co-occurrence maps, co-citation and bibliographic-coupling clusters, and thematic-evolution trajectories. A stratified depth-coded corpus of ⟨D2⟩ works is then coded manually on six dimensions — journal ranking, citation impact, region, methodology, variable selection and theoretical foundation — by two independent coders (Cohen’s κ = ⟨D4⟩). A separately reported supplementary tier of ⟨D3⟩ Mongolian grey and local-language sources supports the country-level gap analysis and is excluded from all citation-impact metrics.
Findings: Agency theory remains the dominant primary framework (37.9% of depth-coded studies), but stakeholder, institutional, resource-dependence and legitimacy theories have grown rapidly since 2018, and 13.8% of studies now combine two or more frameworks explicitly. Panel regression remains the leading method (50.7% of method codes), while quasi-experimental designs (PSM+DiD, event studies, natural experiments) are expanding. The empirical frontier has shifted from the United States and Western Europe toward emerging and frontier markets, which jointly exceed 40% of the corpus. Science mapping confirms ⟨D11⟩ distinct thematic clusters and a keyword trajectory moving from board structure–agency cost toward ESG disclosure–assurance–sustainability committee. Mongolia-focused research reveals a formal legal framework with weak enforcement, a narrow set of measurement constructs, and very limited presence in the international citation network.
Conclusion: CG research is shifting from a single-theory paradigm toward multi-theory, ESG-oriented frameworks that require credible causal identification. Governance effects are conditional on legal origin, ownership concentration and enforcement capacity, so evidence generated in developed markets cannot be transferred uncritically to transition economies.
Practical Implications: The findings inform securities regulators, stock exchanges and listed firms in transition and resource-dependent economies — and in Mongolia specifically — on the design of audit and sustainability committees, ESG disclosure rules aligned with GRI and IFRS S1/S2, and resource-governance transparency mechanisms.
Originality: The study combines PRISMA-based systematic screening with software-based science mapping, and it is the first review to position Mongolia explicitly within a comparative class of transition, resource-dependent, thin-market economies rather than treating it as an isolated national case.
Chinzorig Chuluun, O. Gotov· International journal of res...· 0 citations
This study investigates the evolution and intellectual structure of research linking corporate social responsibility (CSR), environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices, financial performance and financial analyst behavior. It aims to identify influential contributions, thematic clusters, and emerging trends in this interdisciplinary field.
A bibliometric analysis was conducted using data retrieved from the Scopus database covering the period 1993–2023. The final dataset included 568 documents. Biblioshiny (R package Bibliometrix) was used for descriptive statistics, while VOSviewer was employed for science mapping, including co-citation, co-word, and collaboration networks. Thematic evolution was also examined across two time periods to capture the dynamics of the field.
Results reveal that while CSR, ESG, financial performance, and analyst coverage are increasingly studied, the literature remains fragmented. Dominant research streams focus on firm value implications of CSR, ESG disclosure practices and the role of financial analysts in shaping corporate sustainability. Emerging areas include ESG assurance and analyst bias.
This study is the first to apply bibliometric methods to examine the intersection of sustainability, financial performance, and analyst behavior. It provides a structured overview of the field, identifies knowledge gaps and proposes a research agenda for scholars, investors and regulators.
Nesrine Bedoui, Ayman Ajina· EuroMed Journal of Business· 0 citations
Purpose: This study aims to map the evolution, influential sources, dominant themes, mechanisms, and future research directions of Scopus-indexed studies examining the relationship between green innovation and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance during 2015–2025.Research Methodology: This study employed a PRISMA-guided bibliometric systematic review approach using Scopus-indexed journal articles. A total of 22 eligible articles were identified and analyzed through VOSviewer-based bibliometric mapping and thematic synthesis to reveal publication trends, intellectual structures, and emerging research themes.Results: The findings indicate that GI–ESG research has experienced significant growth after 2022, with increasing attention to the roles of green finance, digital transformation, disclosure quality, governance mechanisms, and institutional support. The synthesis demonstrates that green innovation contributes more effectively to ESG performance when supported by organizational capabilities and contextual factors.Conclusions: Green innovation has evolved into a strategic mechanism that enables firms to transform sustainability initiatives into measurable ESG outcomes.Limitations: This study is limited to Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 2015 and 2025 and includes only 22 studies, which may exclude relevant evidence from other sources.Contributions: This study contributes by integrating bibliometric analysis and thematic synthesis to develop a mechanism-oriented framework explaining how digital capability, governance, disclosure, and green finance strengthen the role of green innovation in improving ESG performance.
Erna Wati, Y. Masnita, H. Yusran et al.· Jurnal Akuntansi Keuangan da...· 0 citations
Internal control has become increasingly important as organizations integrate governance, enterprise risk management, and digital transformation into organizational decision making. The COSO Integrated Framework establishes internal control as the foundation of governance and risk management, while digital transformation has fundamentally reshaped organizational processes and control systems (COSO, 2013 ; Vial, 2019). This study maps the global development of internal control research using a bibliometric approach based on Scopus-indexed publications from 2022 to 2025. Data were analyzed using Biblioshiny after a systematic screening process that resulted in 934 eligible articles in the Business, Management and Accounting subject area. The analysis examined publication growth, influential authors, source journals, country collaboration, citation performance, and keyword evolution. The findings reveal a substantial increase in global research productivity during the study period, accompanied by stronger international collaboration and the emergence of new thematic areas. China emerged as the leading contributor to global internal control research, while corporate governance, digital transformation, risk management, audit quality, environmental, social and governance (ESG), and artificial intelligence emerged as the dominant research themes. The bibliometric evidence further demonstrates a clear shift from conventional internal control systems toward digitally enabled governance and intelligent control mechanisms. This study contributes by providing a comprehensive knowledge map of recent internal control research, identifying emerging research directions, and offering practical references for researchers interested in governance, auditing, and organizational control systems.
Dodi Dahyawan, Fitriana Dachlan, Rachmat Agus Santoso· Golden Ratio of Mapping Idea...· 0 citations
This study analyses the development, conceptual foundations, and emerging directions of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) research, with particular emphasis on its contribution to business sustainability and financial performance. It aims to map the dominant research themes in the ESG literature, examine the contributions of prominent authors, institutions, journals, and countries, and identify promising avenues for future research. The study adopts a quantitative bibliometric approach based on secondary data drawn from the Scopus database. A structured screening procedure was applied to peer reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, and review papers published in English between 2015 and 2025 that explicitly addressed ESG concepts, yielding a final sample of 2,878 publications from 607 journals. Bibliometric indicators, including authorship patterns, citation structures, institutional and country contributions, journal sources, and keyword co occurrences, were examined using VOSviewer and R Studio (Biblioshiny). The findings indicate significant expansion and diversification of ESG research over the study period, organised around six core thematic clusters: sustainable development, business values, corporate social responsibility, ESG disclosure, ESG investment, and corporate strategy. The study identifies the most influential contributors and sources shaping ESG scholarship and points to growing research opportunities in the strategic and financial integration of ESG factors.
Abhishek Jain, Prabhat Kumar Sharma, Alok Mishra et al.· International journal of bus...· 0 citations
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