The Publication Landscape of German Corporate Governance Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Although the importance and urgency of the corporate governance debate has increased in media, public and scientific literature after the financial crisis, there is no systematic and holistic approach to the phenomenon of corporate governance and the associated economic research in the German- speaking countries. Due to this, the literature on corporate governance research in the German- speaking area is examined by means of bibliometric methods and social network analysis in order to identify thematic clusters and the most influential documents and authors. Based on a co-citation analysis of over 10,000 references cited in 267 source documents, a map is constructed that depicts the landscape of corporate governance research in German-speaking countries. The analysis identifies a large body of accumulated corporate governance research, which is mostly based on the theoretical work from English-speaking scholars. Our findings and interpretations allow a new view on the German corporate governance research and on the particular understanding of corporate governance in the German-speaking research community. Today, around 10 years after the introduction of the German Corporate Governance Code, corporate governance research is a well-established segment of German business administration research characterized by diverse research focuses.