A bibliometric analysis on the role of corporate governance in micro, small and medium enterprises

Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyse the existing research on the significance of corporate governance in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to identify significant contributors, emerging trends and prospective future research areas. Design/methodology/approach The authors perform a bibliometric analysis using a data set of 343 papers extracted from the Scopus database. R-studio software was used for performance analysis, while VOSviewer software was used for scientific mapping. Findings The study’s findings demonstrate that the research has attracted the attention of academics, which has led to a major rise in research over the previous two decades. “Corporate Ownership and Control” is the top contributing journal with the publication of 16 articles. The USA and UK are the top most productive countries. Simon Fraser University of Canada is the most contributing institution. Moreover, this study has identified four major themes: corporate governance assistance to small and medium enterprises, the role of corporate governance in society and management, family ownership and its importance in entrepreneurship, corporate governance issues, family firms and firm performance. Furthermore, the paper also defines the future research scope in each theme. Originality/value This study serves as a guide by mapping and analysing the intellectual structure of the corporate governance of MSMEs’ publications. Through this research, the authors better understand the academicians, managers, entrepreneurs and regulators about the condition of entrepreneurship and how they help businesses improve their performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to thoroughly analyse the literature on the role of corporate governance in MSMEs using bibliometrics.