ESG and corporate governance in credit ratings: a bibliometric analysis

Purpose This study aims to explore the intellectual structure and research evolution connecting Corporate Governance (CG), Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) practices and Credit Ratings. This is done to identify emerging themes, collaboration networks and research gaps in the domain. Design/methodology/approach From the Web of Science data bank, 284 papers were selected. Bibliometric and network analysis techniques like Biblioshiny and VOSviewer were employed to examine the dynamics, influential authors, major journals, participating institutions and thematic structure of the literature. Findings The findings show that there is an evident increase in the volume of studies since 2019. China was found to have the highest output and citation performance, followed by the US, Italy, Spain and the UK. Key topics revolve around sustainability, ESG reporting and CSR while the emerging topics include climate change, sustainable infrastructure development and higher education. The keyword co-occurrence shows that divergent opinions exist concerning ESG ratings, governance efficiency and information asymmetry. Research limitations/implications The present analysis is confined to the Web of Science database, but it might be useful to include other databases such as Scopus in the future review process. Web of Science may not capture all the studies indexed somewhere else. Practical implications The current research can provide practical insights to credit analysts, ESG raters, investors and regulatory authorities in terms of the importance of ESG rating models and cooperation for incorporating governance and sustainability aspects into financial risk assessment processes. Originality/value The current paper is one of the pioneering attempts in conducting bibliometric mapping in the field of the CG–ESG– Credit rating nexus. It provides a conceptual framework for future research direction in this domain.