Critical Themes in Business Ethics Research: A Citation/Co-citation Analysis

This study examined the status of contemporary business ethic research in the new century. With citation data of SSCI from the top two business ethics journals, Journal of Business Ethics and Business Ethics Quarterly, this study used citation and co-citation analysis to identify the most important publications, scholars, and research themes in business ethics area, and then mapped the intellectual structure of business ethics studies. The results suggest that the contemporary business ethics research is organized along different concentrations of interests: social contract theory, ethical decision making, corporate social responsibility, and stakeholder theory, with some discussions on business ethics development.