Aug 2026· Frontiers in Environmental Science· 0 citations· 107 references
Abstract
The credibility of environmental, social and governance (ESG) information is increasingly regarded as the cornerstone of sustainable financial and corporate environmental accountability. However, the academic picture of linking the audit mechanism with ESG research is still fragmented and lacks systematic integration. Based on 369 documents retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), PubMed, and Scopus spanning 2015 to 2025, this study uses CiteSpace for knowledge mapping and visualization analysis, and conducts a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the intersection of audit and ESG, addressing a gap that existing reviews have not yet systematically filled. The results show that this field has changed from the marginal exploration stage (2015–2019) to the rapid expansion stage (2020-present). The main drivers include the increasing regulatory pressure on ESG information disclosure and the growing demand of investors for reliable environmental reports. The cooperation network presents a model of “micro-closed and macro-open”: cooperation at the author and institutional levels is still highly dispersed, while China has become a major contributor in a relatively integrated international network. Thematic analysis identified 11 research clusters, among which ESG information disclosure has become the most prominent core topic, and two competing research paths have been formed around it: one focuses on the economic consequences of disclosure on capital market pricing, and the other focuses on the inherent credibility challenges of ESG reports themselves. The key finding is that audit does not constitute an independent sub-domain in this field; on the contrary, it penetrates into multiple ESG research clusters through three mechanisms: information credit enhancement, governance substitution and risk transmission. These findings systematically reveal how audit, as a key governance tool, ensures the quality of environmental and sustainable development information that investors, regulators and policymakers rely on.
This study aims to examine the development and integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) into financial statement analysis using a hybrid approach that combines bibliometric analysis and a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The study analyzes Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 2015 and 2025 to map publication trends, dominant themes, the intellectual structure, and the evolving direction of ESG research. The findings reveal that ESG research has grown significantly and become increasingly integrated into mainstream accounting and finance literature. The major research themes include ESG reporting, non-financial disclosure, IFRS, assurance, risk management, and corporate value creation. The SLR findings indicate that ESG is no longer regarded as supplementary information but has evolved into an analytical dimension that enhances the assessment of corporate performance, risk, reporting quality, and sustainability. ESG integration is driven by regulatory pressure, reporting standardization, governance quality, information credibility, and the growing demand from stakeholders for transparent information. This study contributes conceptually by emphasizing the importance of an integrated financial statement analysis framework that combines financial and non-financial information to support higher-quality decision-making.
Gregorius Jeandry, Zainuddin Zainuddin, Amin Dara et al.· EKUITAS (Jurnal Ekonomi dan...· 0 citations
The United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda, bringing the concept of sustainability into the global economic discourse. Thus, the concept of sustainability and ESG metrics has become essential in corporate development strategies. The current research performs a bibliometric study of scientific publications dated from 2015 to 2026, with the aim of highlighting the evolution and the main trends and directions of development in the field. The study relies on a set of 9,460 documents indexed in the Web of Science database. Data analysis was conducted using the Bibliometrix software package (Biblioshiny interface), applying techniques for analyzing scientific output, thematic evolution, and strategic keyword mapping. The findings demonstrate an exponential growth in scientific production beginning in the 2021-2022 period. The research shows the high level of academic interest in general notion of social responsibility, its technical aspects, and quantifiable indicators, with reference to ESG performance, ESG scores, or risk. The study proves that the sustainability research field is gradually matured, and its key factors include the development of performance metrics. The study provides a reference framework for economic stakeholders as well as the academic community, emphasizing that the 2030 Agenda has succeeded in transforming sustainability from an ethical choice for companies into a measurable strategic objective.
Dumitrita Gîrla· Development Through Research...· 0 citations
The relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and financial performance has generated one of the largest empirical literatures in management research, and a steady supply of reviews summarising it. This study audits that literature rather than summarising it. Search strings are treated as measurement instruments: calibrated in stages, diagnosed for precision and recall, and reported with their failures intact. The resulting corpus of 2,923 documents is mapped along four dimensions: conceptual, thematic, intellectual and social structure.Three findings converge from independent evidence. The conceptual core occupies the basic quadrant of the thematic map: connected to everything, internally coherent with almost nothing. The citation base has bifurcated, with a contemporary ESG measurement school of 22 works forming separately from the corporate social performance tradition rather than absorbing it. The social structure fragments into 221 components, the largest holding nine of 6,600 authors, with productivity departing sharply from Lotka’s law. The literature grows without integrating. Its vocabulary has also turned over almost completely, and a direct test shows this was displacement rather than relabelling: the co-word neighbourhood of ESG performance today overlaps that of corporate social responsibility before 2015 by only 11 per cent.Two methodological findings follow. Keyword screening reproduced manual inclusion decisions at 95.4 per cent raw agreement but a Cohen’s kappa of 0.297, because unit of analysis is a property of research design rather than of vocabulary. And because Scopus uses one delimiter between references and between authors, naive parsing silently returns the final author of each cited work.
Kanchan Rani, Satnam Singh, Prakhar Wadhwa· International journal of com...· 0 citations
Over recent decades, an increasing number of studies have examined the intersections among digitalization, auditing and corporate performance. However, an integrated and systematic analysis of the literature simultaneously addressing digitalization, auditing and performance remains scarce. This study aims to fill this gap by proposing a bibliometric review of the existing literature and identifying the main research themes likely to advance the field.
This research was conducted in accordance with a rigorous dual methodological protocol based on the SPAR-4-SLR framework (Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews) and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses reporting guidelines, ensuring transparency, reproducibility and full traceability of the literature selection process. Bibliometric methods were then used to analyze the scientific evolution and to map the intellectual structure of research on digitalization, auditing and performance over the period 2016–2025. The bibliographic data were extracted from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, which provided comprehensive and representative coverage of the field under study.
The results highlight the main trends and dynamics of research related to digitalization, auditing and performance. Three major thematic clusters emerge: the conceptual foundations of digital transformation and its consequences for auditing practices; organizational capabilities, audit quality and performance; and the integration of digital technologies and management practices. These findings help structure the field and outline future research avenues, particularly those related to emerging technologies, organizational transformations and managerial strategies.
By identifying dominant, emerging and fragmented research streams, this study structures the literature on digitalization, auditing and performance and thus contributes to a better understanding of the intellectual dynamics of the field. It also highlights key managerial and regulatory implications, emphasizing the need to strengthen auditors’ digital skills, integrate digitalization into sustainable performance strategies and adapt regulatory frameworks to digital transformation.
This study contributes to the literature by proposing an in-depth bibliometric mapping of research on digitalization, auditing and performance. It systematically identifies and analyzes the main thematic clusters while highlighting persistent theoretical and empirical gaps.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure now sits at the centre of how capital is allocated, yet the spread of corporate greenwashing puts the credibility of that system at risk. This paper maps the greenwashing and ESG disclosure literature through a bibliometric analysis of 4,162 articles retrieved from Scopus and processed in VOSviewer for the period 2015 to 2026. Annual output rose from 32 articles in 2015 to 768 in 2024 and has continued to climb; the corpus carries an h-index of 151 and total citations above 114,000. China, the United States and the United Kingdom lead by volume. The keyword analysis of the full corpus produces four research clusters: ESG governance and reporting; environmental policy and green finance; consumer behaviour and greenwashing detection; and ESG rating divergence and environmental impact. Two further analyses sharpen the picture. A recency cut covering 2024 to 2026 shows newer terms moving to the front of the field, among them greenhushing, brownwashing, double materiality and the CSRD. A top-cited cut applying a threshold of 100 citations reveals a foundation built on legitimacy, institutional, signalling and stakeholder theory. The bibliometric work is read alongside a critical review of recent high-impact studies covering greenwashing typology, the ESG rating paradox, market consequences and governance. The paper identifies where the evidence is thin, in particular the field’s heavy reliance on proxy measures of greenwashing and proposes a research agenda built around verified-incident data, second-generation greenwashing under mandatory disclosure, and the redesign of rating methodologies.
Robert-Daniel Oprescu, Eugenia Busmachiu, Iulia Maria Apostu et al.· Managing Sustainable Develop...· 0 citations
Against the backdrop of increasingly stringent European regulation on sustainability, non-financial reporting has become a critical tool for companies and for corporate transparency. This study examines the role of company size as a determinant of the quality of ESG reporting and examines the interdependencies between financial performance indicators and transparency. This aim is to identify the intellectual structure, chronological development, and main thematic group that define this field within the Web of Science database. This study adopts a bibliometric analysis of a composite sample of primary research articles. The analysis was conducted using keywords co-occurrence and network analysis techniques with the help of Vosviewer. The data was segmented to highlight the distribution across Web of Science and the trends in the number of publications from 2020 to 2026. We conducted a systematic search of the Web of Science database using the following keywords: "sustainability reporting," "size," and "firm size", resulting in 469 articles. As a result, the temporal analysis indicates an exponential increase in interest. The bibliometric mapping also reveals several thematic clusters focused on ESG disclosure, corporate governance, transparency, and firm characteristics, highlighting the increasing importance of company size as a determinant of sustainability reporting practices. This article provided an overview of the intellectual structure of literature on sustainability reporting, highlighting the critical role that firm size plays in ensuring the quality and transparency of non-financial information.
Simona-Elena Dragoiu, Mihail Bărănescu, Daniel Melinte· Development Through Research...· 0 citations