Influence of sustainability reports on social and environmental issues: Bibliometric analysis and the word cloud approach

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to analyze how corporate sustainability reports address socio-environmental issues and business development through bibliometric analysis. The search led to 53 articles indexed in the ScienceDirect database between 2012 and 2017. A bibliometric analysis was applied to sustainability reports and to several topics, namely: “sustainability report” (SR) and “corporate sustainability” (CS), triple bottom line (TBL), eco-innovation in business (ECO), and “global reporting initiative” (GRI). The word cloud approach was applied to each keyword in the quantitative analysis. Annual publication frequency was applied to identify the year accounting for the largest number of publications. The target of the descriptive analysis applied to the sample was determined; it consists in metrically determining the frequency of each variable. The inferential analysis compared the means recorded for the subsets of the sample; it is a technique commonly used to investigate data. Friedman’s test was used to compare the behavior of the research groups. The keywords sustainability, business, reporting, environment, social, and performance were found. These words appeared in most of the analyzed articles; they represented the conceptual core of each topic involved in the “sustainability report” (SR). Based on the selected articles, companies surveyed over the years have incorporated sustainability concepts into their strategic planning to ensure the satisfaction and needs of future generations. The disclosure of information available in sustainability reports has become a marketing instrument that may clearly provide evidence of business activities or inactivity.