Corporate social responsibility and exporting: a review and future research agenda

Abstract

Although many studies have examined the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business performance, evidence linking CSR to exporting is theoretically fragmented and empirically concentrated in Western contexts. Consequently, existing findings are context-specific and at times inconsistent, limiting theoretical development. To address this, we conduct a review using bibliographic coupling and keyword co-occurrence analyses to identify the core intellectual structure of the CSR–exporting literature, map its thematic clusters, trace their evolution, and outline an integrated research agenda. Our dataset, sourced from the Web of Science, comprises 196 journal articles published between 1991 and 2024. We reveal the circular evolution in the CSR–exporting relationship and identify four clusters representing current research themes in the domain, along with five key directions for advancing the field. Theoretically, the review advances the existing literature by highlighting alternative theoretical perspectives, such as the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities theory, signalling theory, and social network theory, to link CSR to exporting and capture its strategic nature.

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ORCID for Carmen Lopez: orcid.org/0000-0002-5510-1920

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