Challenges and trends in sustainable corporate finance : a bibliometric systematic review

Sustainable corporate finance is an attractive field of study in sustainability literature; however, the literature lacks systematic bibliometric analysis that provides a comprehensive review to clarify state-of-the-art sustainable corporate finance and that discusses new opportunities and potential instructions for further studies. To address this gap, this study adopts a literature review, bibliometric analysis, network analysis and co-wording technique to systematically investigate the Scopus database. In total, 30 keywords listed at least three times are used and are divided into six clusters considering six fields of research, namely, corporate finance in corporate sustainability, sustainable competitive advantages, sustainable stakeholder engagement, circular economy, sustainable corporate finance innovation and risk management and sustainable supply chain ethics. This study contributes to examining the sustainable corporate finance bibliometric status to provide directions for future studies and practical accomplishment. The sustainable corporate finance knowledge gaps are (1) corporate finance in sustainability; (2) sustainable competitive advantages; (3) sustainable stakeholder engagement; (4) circular economy; (5) sustainable corporate finance innovation and risk management; and (6) sustainable supply chain ethics. The knowledge gaps and future directions are also discussed.