Yang, Zeyu, Ntim, Collins G., Zalata, Alaa and Li, Pingli (2025) Accounting and ESG: a systematic literature review and agenda for future research. The International Journal of Accounting. (In Press)
Abstract
The research problem: this paper conducts extensive systematic and bibliometric review of the existing literature that addresses environment, social and governance (ESG) issues within the accounting research setting, including their financial and non-financial trends, theoretical underpinnings, determinants, and consequences.
Motivation: ESG has emerged as a prominent and widely investigated topic in recent years within the academic accounting literature. However, the extant accounting research on ESG exhibits several methodological and theoretical limitations that have impeded the advancement of our current understanding. Therefore, a comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis is required in order to understand for current knowledge, scope and potential limitations of the ESG literature.
Target population: our target population comprises of published articles on accounting and ESG in top accounting and finance journals over the 2013–2023 period.
Adopted methodology: both systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis techniques are used in this study.
Analyses: we begin our SLR analysis by defining the scope of our literature collection, carefully selecting and excluding relevant literature that aligns with our research objectives. This initial phase involves formulating review questions, constructing keyword searches, identifying databases, conducting quality assessments, and establishing eligibility criteria. We, subsequently, perform keyword searches in the chosen databases and apply the predetermined quality assessment and eligibility criteria to extract the final set of 171 relevant ESG studies over the 2013 to 2023 period. Finally, we employ bibliometric analysis to portray the current research trends and distribution, address the research questions, pinpoint research gaps and limitations, and recommend future directions.
Research findings: first and through bibliometrics analysis, we found that the trend of ESG research has risen sharply in recent years. However, there is still an imbalance in regional development, where research outputs in developed countries are vertical, while research outputs in developing countries are not horizontal. Second, scholars usually adopt different research methods based on different research topics. Third, the latest hot research includes the contribution of female directors, the diversified impact of ESG practice, and the risks brought by COVID-19. Fourth, we also noticed that most studies lack theoretical application and have limitations in their study samples. Finally, we offer number of suggestions for future research.
Keywords: ESG, accounting, systematic literature review, bibliometric analysis, determinants, outcomes, theory, evidence
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