A bibliometric analysis of state-owned enterprises’ governance and performance: Trends and perspectives in the field

Abstract

In the context of recent reforms affecting the public sector, maximizing good governance and performance of state-owned enterprises is a major challenge for governments. The aim of the study is to provide a systematic and holistic review of the literature related to corporate governance and performance of state-owned enterprises, to highlight and clarify the evolutionary trajectory of the field. To achieve the research objective, 409 publications that mention the term state-owned enterprises and performance, indexed in the Web of Science database between 1997 and 2022 were analyzed by applying multiple bibliometric analysis methods and content analysis. The citation and co-citation analysis results offer an outline of the most influential articles and journals, and links between authors, and provides a thematic classification. Through keyword co-occurrence analysis, the paper highlights the research trends in the literature concerning state-owned enterprises and proposes future research directions.