Corporate environmental responsibility: focus, orientation and salience in the natural resources sector

This article investigates the current status of studies into corporate environmental responsibility in the natural resources sector within the academic literature on management. In particular, we examine studies with a focus on industry and geography, the orientation of research methods and the salience of corporate environmental responsibility. We present empirical evidence based on publication and citation analyses of research published from 1995 to 2014. Our findings show that for the natural resources sector, the degree of salience in leading management journals seems rather weak, and that most of the corporate environmental responsibility articles are dominated geographically by developed countries. Our study also shows that the majority of research methods are qualitative and are based on secondary data. The only theory which is seen to be consistently used as a theoretical framework is stakeholder theory. The significance of the findings is important as they present clear guidance for future research into corporate environmental responsibility in the natural resources sector.