Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility : Mapping the Conceptual Structure of Research

Purpose: The aim of the study is to identify, with the use of co-word analysis, and explore leading thematic areas in research investigating intersections between leadership and corporate social responsibility. The research process is focused around the following study questions: (1) What are the leading thematic areas in research on intersections between leadership and corporate social responsibility?, (2) Are there similarities and differences between leading topics identified through co-word analysis with the findings from previous studies employing systematic literature review and research topic profiling methodologies? (3) What is the usefulness of co-word analysis for mapping leading thematic areas comparing to systematic literature reviews and research topic profiling? Design/methodology/approach: The study employs the method of keywords co-occurrence analysis, which is a type of co-word analysis, categorized among science mapping methods. The bibliometric data for analysis are retrieved from Scopus. The analysis and visualization of keywords co-occurrence is supported by VOSviewer software. Findings: The four following thematic areas have been identified in research production on intersections between leadership and corporate social responsibility: (1) sustainable strategy and sustainable development, (2) leadership and ethics, (3) humans in the organisational context, and (4) responsible leaders in sustainable and responsible organisations. Thematic areas identified through co-word analysis show similarities with the findings from previous mapping studies conducted with the use of systematic literature review and research topic profiling. More similarity is visible in the case of research topic profiling, which likewise co-word analysis is categorized among bibliometric methods. As a method used for mapping thematic structure of a research field, co-word analysis is found to show more advantages than research topic profiling and systematic literature reviews. Research and methodological implications: The study contributes to the body of knowledge through identifying leading thematic areas in research on intersections between leadership and corporate social responsibility. It is also valuable from the methodological point of view as it gives the chance to discuss advantages and disadvantages of various research methods employed for mapping the conceptual structure of a research field. Originality/value: The added value of the study is mostly of theoretical and methodological character. The study seems to be the first attempt to map the conceptual structure of the analysed research field with the use of keywords co-occurrence analysis. It also compares and contrasts the findings from various methods used for mapping the conceptual structure of the field. Paper type: Review.