Corporate Reputation in Industry 4.0: A Systematic Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Corporate reputation is the most prominent area in corporate studies, which signals the current and future corporate practices to pertinent stakeholders. In Industry 4.0 (I4.0), relying on traditional channels would be deemed unwise as corporate information transmitted through these channels is sluggish compared to the swift processes via social media. The study aims to explore and provide insight into corporate reputation in I4.0 by identifying trends in publication and research productivity. To achieve the study objectives, a systematic literature review (SLR) with a bibliometric analysis of past studies from 2010 to 2022 was performed to identify the emerging themes of corporate reputation in I4.0. Resultantly, an upward trend existed in publications and citations after 2011 when the United States of America (USA) and the Netherlands were demonstrated to be the most productive countries in corporate reputation research. The findings of the bibliometric analysis also postulated that crisis communication, engagement, and credibility, as well as the corporate image, could be emerging areas for further research. As such, this study provides valuable insights for academia and practitioners after discovering several potential themes to be further appraised regarding corporate reputation in I4.0 in future studies.