Corporate social responsibility in international business literature: results from text data mining of the Journal of International Business Studies

Abstract

Abstract Corporate social responsibility has been an important theme in management at least since the 1960s. International business became a recognized subfield in management around the same time. Logically, there might have been much dialogue about corporate social responsibility in international business research and publication, yet previous reviews of the literature indicate relatively little such research. This study complements previous literature reviews by employing text data mining to analyze a sample of 1188 articles published from 2000 to 2018 in the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS). Results show that from 2000 to 2018 only 35 CSR focused articles appeared. CSR research has increased over time, highly influenced by editorial specification of special issues. These documents can be grouped into seven CSR topics, with corruption and embeddedness being the most salient. Strategies are suggested for increasing research on CSR in international business.

Keywords

• Corporate social responsibility
• Historical review
• International business
• Social responsibility
• Text data mining