Bibliometric analysis of sustainable business performance: where are we going? A science map of the field

Abstract

Sustainable business performance is a rapidly growing field of research that encompasses both academia and business. The purpose of this study is to identify current and emerging research trends and provide a comprehensive map of the knowledge structure in the field of sustainable business performance, consistent with recent developments in bibliometric research. Therefore, this article offers a comprehensive bibliometric analysis based on the performance analysis and science mapping of the academic literature related to sustainable business performance published between 1996 and 2021 in 807 publications on the Web of Science. By using two powerful bibliometric visual software tools, VosViewer and CiteSpace, and by applying various bibliometric analyses such as co-citation analysis, co-authorship analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-occurrence of keywords analysis, burst detection analysis, and timeline view analysis, this paper presents the fundamental characteristics of the body of knowledge in this research field, while identifying the most influential publications, institutions, source titles, countries, and authors, and the evolution of keywords these years. The paper concludes with a discussion of the most popular research topics and identification of emerging research pattern areas that should be on the future research agenda for researchers interested in sustainable business performance.