Entrepreneurship and MSMEs’ financial performance: A bibliometric analysis and future research avenues

Objective: The objective of this study is to observe the interest of researchers regarding the association between financial performance with ESG and SDG. Theoretical Framework: Although the association between financial performance and ESG and SDG is a widely debated topic in the specialized literature, to our knowledge, there is a gap concerning the comparative assessment of interest among academics, regarding the relationship between financial performance and ESG, respectively financial performance and SDG. Method: The aim of this research is accomplished by conducting a bibliometric analysis, using VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel. The final sample for the research consists of 1025 papers for Panel A (financial performance - ESG) and 201 papers for Panel B (financial performance - SDG) extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) database. Results and Discussion: The findings of this study include the number of publications over the years, a journals activity analysis, a countries activity analysis, a co-authorship analysis, the most cited articles and citation trends, and a representation of the most used keywords. The overall conclusion is that the relationship between financial performance with ESG and SDG is emphasized in the published articles. Research Implications: The main contribution of this research resides in filling the studies on the association between financial performance in relation to ESG and SDG. Originality/Value: This research contributes to the development of ESG disclosure and research and the achievement of SDG.

The financial services industry is experiencing a paradigm shift due to the proliferation of fintech advancements. These innovations span sectors such as mobile payments, blockchain technology and robo-advisors and promise to enhance efficiency, accessibility and financial inclusion. This study investigates the impact of fintech innovation on financial performance and stability. It uses a combined approach of systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis. This study aims to (a) determine the state of the art of the impact of fintech innovation on financial performance and stability, (b) identify gaps in the research and (c) identify challenges and trends for future research potential. This analysis provides valuable insights for researchers, practitioners and policymakers. It sheds light on the current knowledge base, highlights emerging research areas and emphasizes the need for further investigation into the complex relationship between Fintech innovation, financial performance and stability.

Examining the topic of Islamic Social Reporting and Financial Performance from previous research can provide opportunities for further research that is more diverse and innovative. So, to support this research, then mapping is done by analyzing previous research with identifying and analyzing similar research that is relevant in the field of sharia accounting, which discusses the topic of Islamic Social Reporting and Financial Performance. The aim of this research is to map research that is related to the field of sharia accounting. for publication in indexed journals. Scopus, Sinta 1, Sinta 2, Sinta 3, Sinta 4, Sinta 5, Sinta 6, Garuda, and DOAJ. This research uses a type of desk research, using bibliometric analysis methods. It was found that research on Islamic social reporting and financial performance had appeared since 2012. There are 35 articles that discuss topics related to Islamic Social Reporting and Financial Performance, these 35 articles are then explained in this study. 2019 was the peak of the number of published articles related to the topic of Islamic social reporting and financial performance with the highest number of 8 articles. Based on the results of the mapping and analysis of this research, it is concluded that Islamic social reporting and financial performance research has begun to be widely studied from year to year and can be developed into topics related to sharia banking, Islamic banking, profit sharing ratios, Islamic corporate governance, and sharia compliance.

This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of the relationship between ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) factors and financial performance. The purpose is to gather bibliometric data on citations, scientific publications, authors, sources, affiliations, contributions from different nations, keywords, trending aspects, and potential future research fields. The study collects data from the Scopus research database covering the period from 2013 to 20th May 2023. Biblioshiny in R Studio is used for data evaluation. The analysis includes annual publication output, average citations, influential authors and institutions, commonly used keywords, and country-wise research output. The analysis reveals a consistent and growing interest in ESG and financial performance research, with a significant increase in scientific articles over time. Earlier publications have higher average citations, indicating their impact, while recent ones show lower citation rates. Key focal points include "financial performance" and "ESG." Noteworthy institutions such as the University of Zaragoza, Nord University, New York University, and the Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment demonstrate high overall impact. The study emphasizes the ongoing research interest in the relationship between financial performance and ESG and the growing importance of sustainability and corporate social responsibility in corporate practices. The findings indicate a recent emphasis on ESG, financial performance, CSR, sustainability, and corporate governance within environmental studies.

Companies engaged in ESG practices to enhance financial performance and demonstrate a commitment to sustainable development. However, the relationship between ESG and financial performance remained unclear, as prior studies were replete with contradictory paradoxes. This study aimed to comprehensively analyze the evolution of ESG practices and their impact on financial performance by comparing English, Chinese, and Korean papers. This study employed a mixed-methods approach and conducted a bibliometric analysis on 2659 ESG-related papers to unveil temporal trends and conduct a meta-analysis. Stratifying by language, linguistic and cultural nuances influencing the relationship were identified. The bibliometric analysis revealed a significant turning point in ESG research around 2019, marked by a surge in publications across languages. Keyword co-occurrence networks highlighted distinct focal points, with financial performance appearing in all the research themes. The meta-analysis indicated a low overall positive correlation between ESG and financial performance. However, Chinese and Korean papers demonstrated a moderate correlation, while English papers showed no significant correlation. This study informed scholarly, managerial, and policy discourse on sustainable business practices, contributing to the evolving ESG landscape.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) affects the financial aspects of the company in this case is closely related to the company's financial performance. This study aims to describe the status and trends in research on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) with financial performance. Data collection uses journals published from 2020 to 2024. The sample of this study includes data from 822 journal documents obtained from the Scopus database by entering the keywords Environmental, Social, Governance, Financial and Performance. The analysis used is quantitative bibliometric analysis and Vos Viewer. This analysis evaluates research elements that have ESG and financial performance topics over time, the largest number of publications, productive such as authors, citations, countries, and themes. The results show that the number of publications on this topic increases every year and more than doubled in 2022 after the pandemic and the most in 2024. The most citations were found in 2024 as many as 9,768 citations and Buallay, A became the most productive author during that period with 9 studies. Firms and Social Responsibility: a Review of ESG and CSR Research in Corporate Finance is the most cited study with a total of 1,254 citations, written by Gillan, S.L. India is the country with the most publications with 102 documents, and the subject themes studied related to the concept of ESG and financial performance consist of 4 clusters using Vos Viewer. With this high increase in the number of publications, the world is expected to give greater consideration to the concept of ESG and financial performance. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis related to the development of Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) and Financial Performance over time.

Supply chain management (SCM) makes positive contributions to financial performance, although there has been little research on bibliometrics. The purpose of this study is to analyze and map the financial impacts of supply chain management through bibliometric analysis. We used the Scopus database for this research. Several bibliometric methodologies, including research trends, productive contributors, collaboration networks, and research focus areas, are integrated with topics to create an overview. The findings reveal that the literature on supply chain management and financial performance has grown significantly over the past few decades. The contributions of researchers worldwide represent interests that cross geographical boundaries and provide an overview of the global challenges. Mapping the financial impacts of supply chain management using network visualization reveals four clusters of current hot issues. The red cluster primarily focuses on green supply chain management. The light green cluster emphasizes practical implications, while the dark green cluster is dedicated to business improvement. The blue cluster is centered around organizational performance. These findings offer valuable insights into current research trajectories and opportunities for optimizing supply chain management to enhance financial performance.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained attention over past few decades. Substantial number of studies have been conducted to explore the relationship between CSR and financial performance. However, no conclusive results have been reported. This paper attempts to explore present literature review and adopts bibliometric analysis to depict the literature review in quantitatively structured manner. For this study, Scopus database is used in order extract articles published over past 30 years (1991-2021). The analysis is conducted over 3076 peer-reviewed articles identified with proper selection procedure. Bibliometric analysis is conducted through Bibexcel software and VOSviewer software. Citation analysis as well as visualization of results was performed through VOSviewer software. The findings of the study suggests that CSR and financial performance has gained more attention over the past decade (2009 onwards). Moreover, the USA and United Kingdom are leading countries contributing to research on this topic.

Corporate failure suggests that weak corporate governance leads to frail institutions and exposes them to severe crises. Asian countries have faced financial crises in three different periods, most recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A crisis will trigger structural changes in corporate governance to enable firms to either respond to, or prevent, the reoccurrence of potentially similar events. The characteristic of corporate governance practice in Asian countries are also unique due to some institutional and informal factors. These will alter direction and future trend of research in corporate governance in Asian region. The objective of this study is to utilize a bibliometric analysis which focuses on research trends and themes, and citations (with additional inclusive visualization) and perform in-depth content analysis to trace the evolution and identify knowledge of corporate governance in Asian countries from 2001 to 2021. Following bibliometric analysis, a sample of 656 articles on corporate governance in Asian countries has been extracted and analyzed from the Scopus database. The results indicate that there is a growing of interest in corporate governance in Asian countries from 2001 to 2021. Eight major themes have been recognized: corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and financial performance, corporate strategy and performance, agency theory, corporate sustainability, audit and agency problems, firm size, and business ethics. Major findings, shortcomings, and directions for future research are also discussed in this study. In general, most cited articles related to corporate governance theme explain the importance of corporate governance in companies with the focus on preventing financial fraud, impact on earnings management, and cost of equity capital in the market and reporting methods.

PurposeThe Journal of Intellectual Capital (JIC) celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020. Therefore, the present study aims to provide a general overview of the history and key trends in this journal during 2000–2019.Design/methodology/approachTwo types of citation and textual data during a 20-year journal period were retrieved from the Scopus database. The citation structures and contents were explored based on a combination of bibliometric analysis, altmetric analysis and text mining. The journal themes and trends of their changes were analyzed through citation bursts, mapping and topic modeling. To make a better comparison, the text mining process for the topic modeling of the IC field was performed in addition to the topic modeling of JIC.FindingsBibliometric analysis indicated that JIC has experienced a remarkable growth in terms of the number of publications and citations over the last 20 years. The results indicated that JIC plays a significant role among IC researchers. Additionally, a large number of researchers, institutes and countries have made contributions to this journal and cited its research papers. Altmetric analysis showed that JIC has been shared in different social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Mendeley, Citeulike, news and blogs. Text mining abstract of JIC articles indicated that “measurement,” “financial performance” and “IC reporting” have the relative prevalence with increasing trends over the past 20 years. In addition, “research trends” and “national and international studies” had a stable trend with low thematic share.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings have important implications for the JIC editorial team in order to make informed decisions about the further development of JIC as well as for IC researchers and practitioners to make more valuable contributions to the journal.Originality/valueUsing bibliometric analysis, altmetric analysis and text mining, this study provided a systematic and comprehensive analysis of JIC. The simultaneous use of these methods provides an interesting, unique and suitable capacity to analyze the journals by considering their various aspects.

The correlation between performance and entrepreneurship is researched in a large number of studies over the years. The research is analysing multiple aspects: the position of corporate entrepreneurship in gaining financial performance and also its position next to the other drivers and how corporate entrepreneurship is interconditioned with the others. The research results indicate the strong influence on the financial performance of the corporate entrepreneurship among the major drivers (human resources management, economic environment and digitalization), has confirmed our theory of their interconnectivity and has led us to the conclusion that entrepreneurial orientation includes corporate entrepreneurship, organisational culture, managerial tools in future research can be approached as a single element. In the development of this study, the authors used two methods of analysis (bibliometric analysis and systematic review) to synthesize and evaluate all published studies collected from the database Web of Science through a planned and structured approach. By realizing a quantitative analysis of the 317 papers using bibliometric analysis and the qualitative one carried out by filtering the papers with systematic review and resulting in a more in-depth analysis of 39 papers, the authors want to contribute to the improvement of literature for future research that can help increase the financial income of European entrepreneurs.

This study explores the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance through a bibliometrics analysis. This study analyses 501 English-language documents published between 2010 and 2023, sourced from the Scopus database .Using the Biblioshiny in R package software, conducted various bibliometrics analyses, including publication trends, author productivity, co-authorship networks, etc. The finding reveals that the United Kingdom is the most cited country. Sustainable development, CSR, and sustainability are the most frequently used words. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Business Strategy and the Environment, Journal of Business Ethics are the most cited journals. The most cited authors are Garcia-Sánchez I-M, Velte P, Adomako S, Chen L, and Elamer Aa. The study findings provide researchers and practitioners with insights into the current state of CSR research and emerging trends.

The relationship between green technology innovation and corporate financial performance has gained considerable traction in academics and businesses. However, there is limited overall bibliometric analysis on this topic. To meet the research need, this study, using Citespace (Citespace5.8r3 version, ChaomMei Chen, Philadelphia), performed the bibliometric analysis of the relationship between green technology innovation and corporate financial performance from 2007 to 2021, with 251 academic papers published in the Web of Science databases being analyzed, thus identifying the research hotspots and trends. The results showed that: (i) the number of publications has moved from slow to rapid growth and is expected to ramp up further; (ii) only a small collaboration network has been formed among the authors; (iii) institutions’ work operates relatively independently. There is still more room for inter-institutional or cross-discipline cooperation against geographical regions. However, there is a strong network of cooperation among countries. China performs best in this research area, followed by Spain and the UK; (iv) several significant co-citation relationships are also formed in the literature network. The burst literature on green innovation, product innovation, and financial performance is considered a research hotspot; and (v) “green innovation”, “corporate performance”, “legitimacy”, “environmental disclosure”, and “corporate sustainability” have become trends in research. Our results provide academics and practitioners with a robust roadmap on the relationship between green technology innovation and corporate financial performance.

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to undertake a bibliometric analysis of financial performance research in of higher education sector. The study examines papers over the last 2 decades and performed performance analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling and scientific mapping.Design/methodology/approachThe study examines 616 documents retrieved from the Scopus database using bibliometric analysis, performance analysis and thematic clustering. The study looked at the scientific productivity of papers, prolific authors, most influencing papers, institutions and nations, keyword cooccurrence, thematic mapping, co-citations and authorship and country collaborations. VOS viewer was employed as a tool in the research to conduct the performance analysis and thematic clustering.FindingsThis study delves into the recent advancements in financial performance research within higher education, focusing particularly on the year 2023, characterized by a peak of productivity with 46 significant articles. Notable institutions contributing substantially to this discourse include the University of Sussex (UK), and Ratio Institute Stockholm (Sweden), each referenced 227 times. The United Kingdom has emerged as a leader in financial performance research, amassing 3,850 citations from 92 publications. Key journals driving this conversation include “Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice” and “The British Journal of Political Science.” The most cited study examines the impact of business-university partnerships on innovation and financial outcomes.”Originality/valueThis is the first study that provides a performance analysis and scientific mapping of the financial performance literature in the higher education sector. In addition, this study is the initial one to do a thorough analysis and organized representation of financial performance in the higher education sector, providing an unparalleled understanding of a hitherto uninvestigated area of academic research.

Background and Purpose: In recent years, governments and corporations have increasingly recognised the importance of sustainable development. This study examines research on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in business studies to reveal current trends, leading contributors, highly cited documents, and the primary themes in this SDGs and business research. Methodology: A bibliometric analysis was conducted on 448 publications in Scopus-indexed journals between 2016 and 2024, using Bibliomagika, OpenRefine, Microsoft Excel, and VOSviewer. Findings: The study revealed an increasing trend of SDG in business research publications from 2016 to 2023. The study also revealed statistics on the top 20 prolific contributors to SDGs and business studies, highlighting key authors, institutions, countries, and source titles. The study proposed six primary themes based on the similarity in author keywords. This includes corporate sustainability strategies, stakeholder engagement, SDG compass and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Framework, innovation and circular business models, the synergy between SDGs, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), financial performance, and private sector contributions to Agenda 2030. The study also discovered that the emerging research topic trends were related to SDG reporting, disclosure, stakeholders, circular economy, and financial performance. Contributions: This study contributes to the SDG-business field, assisting scholars in identifying key trends, contributors, and thematic areas for further investigation. Additionally, this finding offers guidance for the ongoing development of SDGs and business-related research. Keywords: SDGs, business, bibliometric analysis, VOSviewer, Scopus.