A bibliometric review of the gender diversity and ESG nexus in sustainability transformation

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The current study describes the scientific discourse around the interrelatedness of board gender diversity, environmental, social and governance (ESG) outcomes and corporate sustainability. It distinguishes ESG performance from ESG disclosure and explores the connections between those variables and sustainability transformation. The literature review covers 142 scientific papers, indexed in Scopus, published during 2016–2025. In addition to conventional narrative content analysis, this review utilizes bibliometric analysis, bibliographic coupling and keyword co-occurrence analysis. Document-level bibliographic coupling yielded six clusters among 128 interrelated documents, 14 documents being disconnected from the connected component. In a different set of analysis, an examination of 51 retained keywords yielded five clusters. The mapped literature covers topics of ESG performance and disclosure, governance and board oversight, legitimacy of stakeholders, sustainability and financial outcomes and institutional context. The reviewed studies frequently report positive associations between board gender diversity and ESG-related outcomes, although findings vary with outcome measurement, institutional setting, industry and research design. The study contributes through an integrated research map, clearer distinctions among sustainability-related constructs, and a cluster-linked research agenda.