How Does Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Brand Equity? A Literature Review Using the Theory‐Context‐Characteristics‐Method Framework and Future Research Agenda

ABSTRACT Despite growing interest among scholars and practitioners in the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on brand equity (BE), there appears to be no comprehensive review that has yet applied the Theory‐Context‐Characteristics‐Method (TCCM) framework to provide systematic insights. This paper reviews CSR's impact on BE by combining performance analysis of 387 articles indexed in Scopus (2001–2025) with a TCCM‐based assessment of 120 studies published in A* and A‐ranked journals on the ABDC list of Australian Business Deans Council. The study uncovers several novel findings. Performance analysis shows substantial growth in publications over the past two decades and maps the contributions of different countries and regions. The TCCM analysis identifies 19 theories, with Stakeholder Theory and Signaling Theory dominating, yet highlights the lack of advanced perspectives to explain the complex CSR‐BE relationship in emerging contexts. From an industry perspective, hospitality, banking, and food and beverage are the most examined sectors, while others with major environmental and social impacts remain underexplored. Regarding characteristics, research continues to emphasize traditional CSR elements, with limited attention to digital CSR and BE in the era of digital transformation. Methodologically, quantitative and experimental designs dominate, while qualitative, mixed‐methods, and advanced approaches such as MCDM remain scarce. Building on these findings, the paper develops a concrete future research agenda grounded in the TCCM framework. This study contributes by offering both the breadth of performance analysis and the depth of content analysis, generating insights that can guide the advancement of CSR‐BE research.