The focus and frontier of corporate social responsibility: A co-word analysis of articles in SSCI, 2001-2014
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to help scholars know about the focus and frontier in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although related research in CSR started 60 years ago, there is not much systematical literature review on CSR in recent years. This paper applies scientometric method, especially co-word analysis, to explore the frontier and focus of CSR in the twenty-first century, based on the articles from 2001 to 2014 in SSCI database.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors first use the scientometric method and co-word analysis for keywords filtering and apply social network methodology to investigate the networks of high-frequency keywords and high-frequency authors.
Findings
The authors summarize the current state of CSR research in two aspects. By co-word analysis of high-frequency keywords, the findings show that the focus and frontier are highly related to CSR. Based on the findings of social network analysis, this paper concludes four important research directions and possible future research of CSR.
Originality/value
The findings in this paper will help scholars of CSR or other related fields to realize the focus and frontier of CSR and provide some guidance for their future research.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The helpful comments of one anonymous reviewer and editor Dr Dahui Li are gratefully acknowledged.
Citation
Qin, X., Wang, Z., Zhao, H. and Kaspersen, L.B. (2016), "The focus and frontier of corporate social responsibility: A co-word analysis of articles in SSCI, 2001-2014", Nankai Business Review International, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 130-149. https://doi.org/10.1108/NBRI-09-2015-0021
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited