Gender equality and women’s empowerment: A bibliometric review of the literature on SDG 5 through the management lens

Abstract

Despite similarities in the leadership styles of men and women, gender segregation at the highest levels of management is still widespread in many firms. The management literature on the key areas of Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) – that is, gender equality and women’s empowerment – has grown rapidly in recent years. With the launch of the SDGs in 2015 and the increasing research on their targets, it has become imperative to organise the extant literature and identify areas for future research. While previous reviews have focused on a particular SDG or the progress of overall SDGs, we make a novel attempt to analyse the research on SDG 5 from a managerial perspective using bibliometric and systematic review techniques on 1,713 research articles from the Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection database. Our review sheds light on the leading authors, institutions, outlets, articles and themes. The publications have mostly been contributed since 2016, and the geographical focus of the research has been limited to USA, UK and Australia. Three main topics were identified: board diversity, financial performance and firm value; women on boards and CSR strategies; and demographic diversity of corporate boards. An integrated framework, impediments to research and future research directions are also discussed.