Environmental, social and governance and earnings management research: current trends and future research

Waleed M. Alahdal, Dharen Kumar Pandey, Muskan Sahu, Tam Nguyen and Hafiza Aishah Hashim

Accounting Research Journal, 2025, vol. 38, issue 3-4, 527-550

Abstract: PurposeThe study aims to identify and discuss how the literature on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Earnings management (EM) has evolved, indicating key streams, keywords, authors, journals, countries, publication and citation trends, and thematic evolution. The study also constructs agendas for future research on ESG and EM.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the bibliometric review and content analysis approach on a corpus of 50 documents from Scopus until early 2024.FindingsThe study identifies distinct clusters based on bibliographic coupling: (1) ESG and EM in developed countries; (2) Institutional drivers in ESG-EM relationship; (3) ESG and EM in emerging countries; and (4) ESG integration in corporate practices. The research presents several key findings, including the most influential articles, top productive and impactful journals, and publication and citation trends. Additionally, it conducts network analysis encompassing author keyword co-occurrences and co-citation networks of journals. Furthermore, the present work explores bibliographic coupling among countries and documents. Finally, it proposes a framework for future research based on the research gaps identified in this review.Research limitations/implicationsThis study assists practitioners, policymakers and academics, including researchers and journal editors, in comprehensively understanding the relationship between ESG and EM and appropriately evaluating ESG performance and earnings quality.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the extant accounting literature by systematically exploring prior studies on the relationship between ESG and EM. It also constructs a future agenda for ESG and EM literature.

Keywords: ESG; Earnings management; Corporate social responsibility; Bibliometric analysis; Systematic review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:arjpps:arj-05-2024-0174

DOI: 10.1108/ARJ-05-2024-0174

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