The Social Dimension of Corporate Sustainability: Review of an Evolving Research Field

Abstract

The social dimension of corporate sustainability has received increasing scholarly attention, especially during the last two decades. As a result, the research field is growing and evolving in different directions, yet currently missing a structured overview. The purpose of the present paper is to close this shortcoming by means of a scoping review of the relevant literature. A total of 53 papers have been identified for review through systematic database search. The research contributes to the academic discussion by providing the following key results: (1) an overview on the conceptual approach, definitions and industry/region-wise coverage of corporate social sustainability research; (2) a review and discussion of the key elements of the concept and (3) the identification and discussion of gaps and avenues to systematically develop the research field further. The results indicate a need for joint empirical and theoretical development, especially with stronger theoretical/conceptual discussions also from empirical research.