Mapping the Intellectual Landscape of Corporate Social Irresponsibility: A Bibliometric Review and Future Research Agenda

Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSI) has emerged as a critical research domain because of its adverse social, environmental, and economic impacts on affected stakeholders. The increasing prevalence of corporate scandals and irresponsible practices in recent decades has raised concerns among academics, policymakers, and the public, creating the need for a systematic understanding of CSI as a field of study. Despite this growing interest, the intellectual landscape of CSI research remains fragmented and lacks a consolidated thematic framework. This study conducts a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 945 Scopus-indexed publications published between 2015 and 2024 to map publication trends, identify influential authors and articles, and uncover thematic clusters and emerging directions in CSI scholarship. Using visualization tools such as VOSviewer and the Bibliometrix R package, the study traces the semantic and structural evolution of CSI research. The findings provide a systematic overview of how CSI scholarship has evolved, highlight its current thematic structure, and suggest promising avenues for future investigation. By consolidating dispersed knowledge, this review advances theoretical development in the field and provides a roadmap for future research, particularly in relation to stakeholder engagement, consumer perception, and regulatory responses to corporate irresponsibility.