The Outlook for Sustainable Development Goals in Business and Management: A Systematic Literature Review and Keyword Cluster Analysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper on the outlook of SDGs in business and management through the methods os systemic literature review and keyword cluster analysis, applied to a sample of publications.
I would suggest a better introduction to the selection of scientific field and publications. Why these journals and not others, such as journal of cleaner prodution, for example. See page 7.
Why have you chosen the 5 keywords?
The explanation of the results should be deeper, as well the ensuing discussion.
The explanation of the methods used could be a little more developped.
Finally a discussion of the limits of the research should be done.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
I would suggest a better introduction to selecting scientific fields and publications. Why these journals and not others, such as journals of cleaner production, for example. See page 7.
Thank you for your comments. We sorted articles with a social science citation index (SSCI) and a science citation index (SCI) focusing on sustainability and sustainable development goals. The Journal of Cleaner Production was included as it is indexed with the science citation index (SCI) and is highly focused on sustainability and sustainable development goals. To clarify the selection of scientific fields and publications, we explained the rationale and procedure on pages 3-4.
“The SLR procedure consists of three steps: 1) identifying the scope of analysis, 2) locating studies and filtering out “keywords, time, type of documents, and language,” and 3) selecting and evaluating the relevant studies (Figure 1). Therefore, this study chose to perform the keyword search using the Web of Science (WoS) database because WoS is known as the world's dominant and highest-level database of scientific information [25]. Thus, the keyword search terms “sustainable development goals” and “sustainability” were used for this study in March 2022. Keywords were used, such as “TS = (“sustainable development goals” AND “sustainability”), and a total of 8,032 articles were collected. To locate relevant topics, we searched for articles in the business and management disciplines and articles with a social science citation index (SSCI) and a science citation index (SCI). Peer-reviewed articles were included, while other documents such as proceedings papers and early access articles were excluded. Only articles written in English were included. The year of publication was restricted to articles published from 2015 to 2021 since the SDGs were initiated in 2015. Through this process, 237 articles were collected and used for bibliometric network analysis.”
Why have you chosen the 5 keywords?
Thank you for your comments. We explained how the five keywords were sorted out from the 72 keywords from 237 articles on pages 12-13.
“The VOSviewer clustering technique detected the 72 research keywords and categorized them into five clusters. Similar studies were grouped to determine the relatedness between various keywords based on the frequency with which they occurred together. Five clusters were classified as technology and innovation, education and human resource management, CSR and firm performance, governance, and business strategies and supply chains (Figure 10). The more significant the cluster, the greater the number of keywords, and the relatedness of keywords is displayed by different visualizations, such as the distance between keywords and the curved lines connecting them. Regarding citations, the distance between two keywords represents relationships in which they are near other keywords, and their citations are highly connected. The curving lines between the keywords depict the relationship between them, with the thickness of each line denoting the number of sources between each pair.”
The explanation of the results should be deeper, as well the ensuing discussion.
Thank you for your comments. We elaborated throughout the entire manuscript, providing more detailed information.
The explanation of the methods used could be a little more developed.
Thank you for your comments. We elaborated on our methods on page 3.
“The purpose of SLR is to find relevant research publications on a particular topic and to determine what can be reliably claimed based on these studies. SLR reveals the work that has already been accomplished in the subject area and the research approaches now being utilized [68]. Bibliometric networks demonstrate the relationships between publications, journals, researchers, and keywords. Common types of bibliometric network analysis are citation analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, and co-authorship networks analysis [69].”
Finally, a discussion of the limits of the research should be done.
Thank you for your comments. We included the conclusion and limitations on page 17.
“This study aims to understand the progress of Sustainable Development Goal studies in business and management by exploring the existing SDG studies from 2015 to 2021. By conducting a systematic literature network analysis, this study helps to understand the concentrated areas of SDG studies, such as technology and environment, education and human resource management, CSR and firm performance, governance and business strategies, and supply chains. Likewise, the findings of this study provide valuable insights to illustrate an overview of the extant SDG studies, but there are some limitations. This study only explored SDG studies in the business and management disciplines, which omits other aspects of SDG studies. To achieve the SDGs by 2030, many different industries and disciplines have put tremendous effort into exploring the SDGs. Therefore, future research can be expanded to more fields so that the 17 SDGs can be explored in biology, agriculture, agrobiology, and engineering Moreover, this study employed systematic literature network analysis, which collects and synthesizes articles that fit prespecified eligibility criteria. Future research can pursue a meta-analysis focusing on statistical methods to summarize the results of these studies. As this study only included articles from 2015 to 2022 due to the SDGs being established in 2015 by the UN, there is a limitation to understanding the overview of sustainability studies published earlier than 2015. Therefore, future research can expand into earlier years exploring sustainability to understand the overarching trends before the SDGs were established. Moreover, this study did not distinguish between business and management disciplines' public and private sectors. Therefore, future research can explore how SDG studies have investigated the differences between these sectors. “
Reviewer 2 Report
The publication very clearly describes the Systematic Literature Network Analysis procedure and its results. The authors analyze the publications from many perspectives. However, a more detailed statistical analysis of publications according to individual SDGs is lacking for the overall view.
Author Response
The publication very clearly describes the Systematic Literature Network Analysis procedure and its results. The authors analyze the publications from many perspectives. However, a more detailed statistical analysis of publications according to individual SDGs is lacking for the overall view.
Thank you for your comments. This study was designed to follow the systematic literature network analysis (Colicchia et al., 2018; Zeng et al., 2020), which is different from a meta-analysis. Previous literature has claimed that systematic literature network analysis replies to a defined research question by collecting and summarizing all articles that fit prespecified eligibility criteria. In contrast, a meta-analysis uses statistical methods to summarize the results of these studies (Akhter et al., 2019; Prince et al., 2020). Therefore, we suggested that a statistical analysis of publications can be explored in future studies in the limitations section on page 17.
Akhter, S., Pauyo, T., & Khan, M. (2019). What is the difference between a systematic review and a meta-analysis? Basic Methods Handbook for Clinical Orthopaedic Research,
Colicchia, C., Creazza, A., Noè, C., & Strozzi, F. (2018). Information sharing in supply chains: a review of risks and opportunities using the systematic literature network analysis (SLNA). Supply Chain Management: An International Journal.
Prince, S.A., Cardilli, L., Reed, J.L. et al. (2020). A comparison of self-reported and device measured sedentary behavior in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 17(31), https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-020-00938-3
Zeng, F., Lee, S. H. N., & Lo, C. K. Y. (2020). The role of information systems in the sustainable development of enterprises: A systematic literature network analysis. Sustainability, 12(8), 3337.
Reviewer 3 Report
(1) In the field of Business and Management, the SDGs represent a very timely and important research topic. Therefore, it is considered that there could have been more similar review papers in the literature. Authors should compare similar review papers and clarify differences.
(2) In the SDGs research field, it is necessary to clarify the difference between Business and Management studies and studies in the public sector more clearly.
(3) It is suggested to present the classification results by industry in the 237 articles to be analyzed. In addition, the research methods were broadly classified into four categories, and a more detailed and detailed explanation is required. What does 'analytics' mean in study methods?
(4) It is suggested that at least one of the clusters presented as an analysis result be named as an environment-related issue.
(5) Overall, the discussion and conclusions are insufficient. In particular, it is difficult to find insights and implications beyond that, only summarizing the results of some papers by cluster. In addition, please supplement the limitations and future research directions in the conclusion.
(6) Overall, the resolution of the presented picture is low and needs to be increased. Also, please edit according to the journal editorial guidelines.
Author Response
- In the field of Business and Management, the SDGs represent a very timely and important research topic. Therefore, it is considered that there could have been more similar review papers in the literature. Authors should compare similar review papers and clarify differences.
Thank you for your comments. As we believe that previous literature has predominately focused on the role of business in the SDGs and relationships of sustainable operations, our study is distinctive in exploring the current status of the SDGs and understanding SDGs’ progress. We included this on page 3:
“Previous studies in the systematic review predominately explored the role of business in the SDGs and focused on specific domains, such as B2B marketing, supply chain, and artificial intelligence [74, 75, 76, 77]. To assist businesses and firms in incorporating the SDGs into strategic management practices, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) have recently suggested that businesses “incorporate SDG reporting into their existing processes” [21]. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the overlooked areas of study among the 17 SDGs in the business and management discipline, as this will guide future studies. Thus, this study aims to: 1) explore the existing SDG studies in business and management and 2) identify the current stream of business and management studies that reflect SDGs. As this study is distinctive in providing an understanding of the current status of SDG progress, the findings of this study can provide future directions for SDG studies in business and management, which can fill a knowledge gap in these disciplines.”
(2) In the SDGs research field, it is necessary to clarify the difference between Business and Management studies and studies in the public sector more clearly.
Thank you for your comments. As we did not differentiate between private and public sectors, we added this to the limitations and future research section on page 18.
“Moreover, this study did not distinguish between business and management disciplines' public and private sectors. Therefore, future research can explore how SDG studies have investigated the differences between these sectors. “
(3) It is suggested to present the classification results by industry in the 237 articles to be analyzed. In addition, the research methods were broadly classified into four categories, and a more detailed and detailed explanation is required. What does 'analytics' mean in study methods?
Thank you for your comments. Articles reflecting industries were added on pages 8-9, and also in Table 2. We also added analytics into the quantitative research method and changed Figure 7 on page 8.
“Industries were classified into 24 areas (Table 2). Among the 237 articles, 93 (39.2%) were classified as general or/and non-specified, as these articles do not indicate a particular industry. Then, academia or education was reported, with 32 articles (13.5%) discussing the role of education and leadership in sustainable development. Followed by general and academia, 21 articles (8.9%) were related to the supply chain industry, and 20 articles (8.4%) were devoted to the energy industry. In addition, within the hospitality and tourism industry, the SDGs were the focus of 14 articles (5.9%).”
“Among the 237 articles, four qualitative, quantitative, conceptual, and mixed research approaches were identified (Figure 7). A total of 105 articles (44.3%) conducted qualitative research, followed by 90 quantitative articles (37.97 %), 29 conceptual articles (12.24%), and 13 mixed-methods research articles (5.49%). More specifically, among the 105 qualitative articles, different study methods were recognized, such as case study (39 articles), interview (22 articles), observation (4 articles), and focus group (4 articles) methods. The qualitative approach has been employed more frequently than the quantitative based on the ratio of study approaches. Among the quantitative articles, the most frequent study method used was a survey approach (48 articles). Quantitative studies are necessary to provide an effective framework and practical indicators. Without realistically measurable frameworks and indicators, it may be challenging to evaluate whether or not the SDGs have been met or need to be revisited. Through accurate measurement instruments, the UN’s 17 goals and 169 objectives can be achieved by 2030 as planned.”
(4) It is suggested that at least one of the clusters presented as an analysis result be named as an environment-related issue.
Thank you for your comments. We revised one of the cluster’s titles as “Technology and environment” from “Technology and innovation.” This cluster was further elaborated to focus on the environmental perspective.
(5) Overall, the discussion and conclusions are insufficient. In particular, it is difficult to find insights and implications beyond that, only summarizing the results of some papers by cluster. In addition, please supplement the limitations and future research directions in the conclusion.
Thank you for your comments. We included the conclusion and limitations on page 17.
“This study aims to understand the progress of Sustainable Development Goal studies in business and management by exploring the existing SDG studies from 2015 to 2021. By conducting a systematic literature network analysis, this study helps to understand the concentrated areas of SDG studies, such as technology and environment, education and human resource management, CSR and firm performance, governance and business strategies, and supply chains. Likewise, the findings of this study provide valuable insights to illustrate an overview of the extant SDG studies, but there are some limitations. This study only explored SDG studies in the business and management disciplines, which omits other aspects of SDG studies. To achieve the SDGs by 2030, many different industries and disciplines have put tremendous effort into exploring the SDGs. Therefore, future research can be expanded to more fields so that the 17 SDGs can be explored in biology, agriculture, agrobiology, and engineering Moreover, this study employed systematic literature network analysis, which collects and synthesizes articles that fit prespecified eligibility criteria. Future research can pursue a meta-analysis focusing on statistical methods to summarize the results of these studies. As this study only included articles from 2015 to 2022 due to the SDGs being established in 2015 by the UN, there is a limitation to understanding the overview of sustainability studies published earlier than 2015. Therefore, future research can expand into earlier years exploring sustainability to understand the overarching trends before the SDGs were established. Moreover, this study did not distinguish between business and management disciplines' public and private sectors. Therefore, future research can explore how SDG studies have investigated the differences between these sectors. “
(6) Overall, the resolution of the presented picture is low and needs to be increased. Also, please edit according to the journal editorial guidelines.
Thank you for your comments. We updated the resolution of the images according to the journal’s guidelines.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
It seems to be good for publication.
