The Performance of Corporate Social Responsibility Communication in the Web2.0 Era: A Bibliometric Analysis of CSR Communication in Social Media Field

Abstract

With the advent of the web2.0 era, the role of CSR communication in social media has become a hot topic in research and business. However, research on the topic in this area is still relatively new and has not been fully researched. In this study, citespace software is used to analyze the performance of literature in this field. The main results show that the use of social media for CSR communication is a long-term and significant research topic. According to the analysis of 490 research articles in this field from 2007 to 2023, the research trend shows an increasing state year by year, and the explosive growth began in 2017. The United States, China and Spain are the countries that contribute the most in this field. Perez Andrea, Camilleri, Mark Anthony and others are among the most influential authors. The network of co-authors is decentralized, while transnational cooperation takes the form of institutions and groups. Twelve clusters of high concern were identified, with "institutional theory," "web," and "citizenship" having been around longer. The changes in 19 burst terms over 17 years (2007 to 2023) indicate the evolution of the research frontier in the field, with the earliest "institutional theory" moving to "web," "image," then "citizenship," "perspective," and more. "loyalty" and "satisfaction" etc. The evolution can be divided into three phases: the initial phase (2007-2011), the debate phase (2012-2017), and the research specialization phase (2018-2023). Finally, the contribution, limitation and further research direction of this paper are discussed.