The Academic Landscapes of Manufacturing Enterprise Performance and Environmental Sustainability: A Study of Commonalities and Differences

Abstract

This article reviews literature on manufacturing enterprise performance (MEP) and environmental sustainability (ES) to identify their commonalities and distinguishing factors; it is expected to help determine gaps and paths for future research. Topics are classified based on patterns in the citation networks of 7308 and 6275 MEP and ES articles, respectively. Additionally, a semantic linkage was computed to reveal overlap in vocabulary between the two topics. A total of 17 and 21 topics were found in MEP and ES, respectively, where the main shared theme was the green supply chain. However, research on biofuels is unique to ES, and privatization is unique to MEP, among others. The concept of “performance” has also been covered by MEP and ES researchers. This article provides an objective snapshot of current research trends based on quantitative data, and the findings may be used to guide future research directions at the intersection of MEP and ES.