Mapping Research on Corporate Social Responsibility and Innovation

Sustainable development and innovation represent a challenge for all firms. Although innovation is a crucial means for achieving corporate social responsibility (CSR), existing literature lacks providing a comprehensive examination of the relationship between CSR and innovation. Using a co-citation analysis and examining 28 years of research at the intersection of these two broad domains, this paper aims at mapping and visualizing the latent intellectual structure, highlighting the different groups of thought and focal streams. Our results show that CSR-innovation field is fragmented with a few overlaps between papers; the intellectual structure is polycentric with a star-shaped network. Five research groups emerge (1) Strategy and competitiveness, (2) Performance models, (3) Cross-sector alliances for social innovation, (4) Managing sustainable development, and (5) Intangible assets. This study contributes to both innovation and CSR literature by providing more accurate knowledge of the structural foundations and presenting the main research subfields.