ESG and corporate governance in credit ratings: a bibliometric analysis

The current era is characterized by an increase in the importance of sustainability, transparency and accountability of firms' actions in the finance industry. For example, not only profitability but also sustainability, good governance and corporate social responsibility become increasingly important for investors, regulators, credit agencies and consumers. Nowadays, more emphasis is placed on a broad range of issues relating to the corporate management system, corporate relationships and environment and social factors associated with business activities. Thus, Corporate Governance (CG), Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices and Credit Rating have become a subject for discussion in various academic works and a significant issue from regulatory and practical perspectives. Generally, Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) use financial criteria, including leverage, liquidity and profitability, in the estimation of firms' capabilities regarding their credit payments.

Nevertheless, it is now believed that such an approach to risk assessment is not enough for capturing the full spectrum of risks associated with modern companies. For example, financial crises, scandals at major corporations and issues related to sustainability around the world show that qualitative non-financial factors need to be included in the process of evaluating the creditworthiness of organizations. Hence, CRAs began to introduce CG mechanisms and ESG into the credit scoring system as the most important elements in assessing creditworthiness (Li et al., 2022). Nevertheless, it is now believed that such an approach to risk assessment is not enough for capturing the full spectrum of risks associated with modern companies. For example, financial crises, scandals at major corporations and issues related to sustainability around the world show that qualitative non-financial factors need to be included in the process of evaluating the creditworthiness of organizations. Hence, CRAs began to introduce CG mechanisms and ESG into the credit scoring system as the most important elements in assessing creditworthiness (Roy, 2023). Therefore, the integration of CG, ESG and credit ratings can be seen as a more comprehensive way of measuring corporate risks and resilience. CG, in particular, plays an integral role in creating and strengthening the framework of a company's internal control system and mechanisms of accountability. The existence of effective CG structures – for example, having an independent board of directors, making financial reports publicly available and separating the roles of CEO and chairman- contributes to ensuring that management's activities comply with the interests of stakeholders and shareholders. These factors impact the way CRAs evaluate the behavior of firms and their financial sustainability. Specifically, firms with good governance tend to pose less default risk, which allows CRAs to give them higher credit ratings (Aroul and Rodriguez, 2024). On the other hand, governance risks, including concentrated ownership, may indicate increased risk, leading to the firm's rating being lowered. Nevertheless, ESG performance has become an important external factor for determining the sustainability of firms. Practices in environmental sustainability, such as lowering carbon emissions, using energy efficiently and managing resources, as well as indicators in social sustainability, such as the wellbeing of employees and engaging communities, have been supplemented by those concerning CG, including board diversity and compensation policy. The alignment of ESG factors with financial materiality has become apparent both in private and public companies through global initiatives, such as TCFD and SFDR. Nevertheless, the rise of ESG issues has brought about certain complications, the most prominent being the inconsistency of ESG scoring. Diverse approaches to ESG rating involve various frameworks and weighting schemes, different assumptions, sources of data and methodologies, all of which result in discrepancies in ESG scores awarded to one and the same company. Although ESG has been growing increasingly important in recent years, ESG rating has not received any universal approach that would allow for reliable results and make them consistent with credit risk analysis (Escrig-Olmedo et al., 2019). claim that the mentioned lack of uniformity raises questions regarding the credibility of those rating assessments (Chen et al., 2025). further add that businesses tend to exploit that fact by cherry-picking their best-looking ratings, thereby distorting the picture of reality. Those challenges have significant consequences. Specifically Bao et al. (2024), revealed that rating inconsistencies have a negative impact on companies' ability to attract financing. Similarly Gibson, Brandon et al. (2021), reported reduced stock performance associated with the aforementioned inconsistencies and, especially, with mismatches between ESG ratings and actual corporate behavior for companies characterized by relatively low transparency of operations. Such empirical findings suggest a serious need for the improvement of ESG rating frameworks. The connection between environmental, social and governance aspects and corporate creditworthiness is far from straightforward and follows a non-linear pattern. More specifically, the former factor's influence on the latter one is mediated by the quality of CG within an organization. The stronger the internal control system of an enterprise and the more transparent its governance structure is, the more efficiently it can translate its commitment to environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility into practice (Aroul and Rodriguez, 2024; Guotai et al., 2023). Although a considerable number of articles have been published examining the individual linkages between governance, ESG and credit ratings, research on this subject is still highly fragmented. Specifically, few works analyze the interconnection between CG, ESG and credit ratings by studying their triadic linkages. Furthermore, the area of research has undergone rapid development during the last 20 years; however, no attempts have been undertaken to track the evolution of the research area, identify key contributors, collaborations and topics. In this paper, bibliometric and network analysis of literature dedicated to CG, ESG and credit ratings is performed. Bibliometric analysis allows quantitatively analyzing publishing activity trends, most cited papers, top journals and influential scholars providing insights into productivity and impact. At the same time, network analysis allows building up maps of collaboration among scholars, co-authoring and thematic clusters helping trace knowledge production and exchange processes. This study contributes to an understanding of how interest in the topic of CG, ESG and credit ratings evolves over time. Through synthesis and discovery of gaps that can help guide further research, the goal of this paper is to provide a roadmap for future investigation in this area. This current study makes an innovative addition to literature by combining the areas of ESG, CG and credit ratings into one bibliometric model. Previous research has extensively analyzed each area independently, yet little attention has been paid to the interrelationship between them in terms of intellectual structure and thematic development. This study will bridge this knowledge gap by exploring important trends in publications, prominent researchers, co-authorship networks, topic clusters and future research prospects in this cross-disciplinary field. Additionally, this study will provide an overview of how sustainability and governance considerations are becoming integral to creditworthiness analysis and financial risk assessment in current studies.

Moreover, the findings from analysis of this topic will be beneficial to investors, regulators and other stakeholders in their endeavor to better incorporate governance and sustainability aspects into financial risk analysis. With the increase in international initiatives geared toward making financial systems more sustainable, it becomes all the more critical to investigate converging dynamics between CG, ESG and credit ratings.

This paper seeks to find answers to the following questions related to CG, ESG and Credit Ratings literature.

1. What is the publication trend in the field of CG, ESG and Credit Ratings?

2. What have been the key countries, publications, authors, institutional affiliations, networks and trends in the field of CG, ESG and Credit Ratings?

3. What are some commonly used keywords in literature on CG, ESG and Credit Ratings? What themes have emerged in literature on CG, ESG and Credit Ratings?

4. What are some top-cited papers in the field of CG, ESG and Credit Ratings? How many clusters can we form among those articles?

According to recent studies, the relevance of using credit ratings as indicators reflecting financial condition as well as CG and sustainability practices has been revealed. As Bereskin et al. (2015) note, in response to improved credit rating practices introduced in Korea after the financial crisis of 1997, firms increased their governance and managerial ownership along with use of finance instruments sensitive to credit ratings. Likewise, as reported by Aroul and Rodriguez (2024) market reactions to credit rating events in the REIT sector will be determined by firm past performance and governance. Currently, there is an attempt to include environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into credit rating systems. Research works of Li et al. (2022), Roy (2023) have proved that companies that exhibit high ESG performance have a higher degree of transparency and thus obtain better credit ratings owing to lower financial risk and enhanced investor confidence. To solve the problem of contradictory ESG scores, researchers such as Agosto et al. (2023), Nabeeh et al. (2021) suggest applying multi-ESG score rating with help of decision-making models. The environmental credit rating systems appear to be widely used in China for the purpose of fostering green innovation and sustainable development practices. In line with these trends, studies such as those by Wang et al. (2025), Zuo and Wu (2022) show that these systems foster greater environmental spending and patents among firms, especially for those operating in strictly regulated or developed regions. However, disparities in rating processes among institutions represent an obstacle to the success of ESG ratings. According to Arikawa et al. (2024), Escrig-Olmedo et al. (2019), there are cases where these agencies may have used divergent approaches in assessing ESG ratings based on various institutional and cultural aspects. The adverse effects of competition in the ESG rating market have also been noted by experts. For instance Chen et al. (2025), posit that competition in the market results in decreased rating quality, whereas Gibson Brandon et al. (2021) establish the fact that disagreement among rating agencies reduces the level of stock returns due to uncertainty. Nonetheless, the collapse of the ESG and CSR ratings is associated with greater investments, decreased credit risks and lower financial distress. Overall, the findings of the review support the idea that credit ratings are shifting towards more comprehensive assessments of firm performance.

Table 1 provides a detailed overview of selected bibliometric studies by summarizing their key focus areas along with the major research gaps identified in each study. It clearly highlights the fact that, although existing literature has explored ESG factors, credit risk, governance and rating mechanisms from different perspectives, there remains a significant lack of comprehensive research examining the integration of ESG factors within CRAs.

From the examination of existing bibliometric studies, one can see that there is a serious need for integrating ESG factors with the activities performed by CRAs in Table 1. Although previous studies have concentrated on such aspects as ESG risks, ESG rating and controversies, and on connections between ESG and CG and credit risk, they do not draw direct links between the ESG factors and the activities performed by CRAs. Moreover, some papers discuss either specific parts of ESG or do not consider ESG issues as primary areas of their research. Finally, in many cases, the sector under consideration was banking organizations. It becomes evident that although the problem of integrating ESG factors into CRAs' work remains topical for today, there is a lack of literature devoted to the issue. There is no comprehensive bibliometric study aimed at mapping the way of integration of ESG factors into credit rating procedures.

The study adopts an exhaustive bibliometric and network analysis framework aimed at analyzing the connection between CG and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices, as well as credit ratings, as shown in Figure 1. The data for this study were sourced from the Web of Science. Web of Science is updated regularly and provides extensive coverage of peer-reviewed academic journals across multiple disciplines. Its broad indexing and high-quality content make it a reliable source for bibliometric research (Widyantoro and Arief, 2022). The data retrieval process was carried out on 1 August 2025 using specific keywords: (“Credit Rating Agencies” or “Credit Rating”) And (“Board of directors” OR “shareholders” OR “CEO ownership” or ESG OR Environment” OR “Governance” OR “sustainability”). Boolean operators “AND” and “OR” were applied to enhance search precision. Only publications written in English and classified under Economics, Economics and Finance; Business Finance, Management and Social Sciences were considered. Furthermore, the search was limited to research articles published between 1992 and 2025. To ensure methodology transparency and reproducibility, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed (Page et al., 2021). In total, 284 documents were selected after going through the process of filtration and screening. The data were analyzed using a range of specialized tools:

Biblioshiny, an R-based interface, supported the core bibliometric analysis (Derviş, 2020).

VOSviewer was utilized to create a visual representation of co-authorship networks, keyword co-occurrences and thematic clusters. Its strength lies in producing clear, interpretable bibliometric maps (Eck and Waltman, 2009).

Table 2 shows a bibliometric summary of all the research data collected from 1992 to 2025 for your research field. The research came from 110 different sources (like journals, conferences, papers or books), and there are 284 documents in total. The research in this area is growing quickly about 13.98% more every year. In total, 860 authors have worked on these studies, but only 24 authors wrote papers entirely on their own without co-authors. About a quarter of these papers (25.35%) were written through international collaborations, and on average, each paper had just over three co-authors. Researchers used 994 different keywords to describe their work and cited a total of 11,755 references. The average age of documents was 3.8 years, and each paper has been cited about 24 times, which means the work is being noticed and used by other researchers.

Table 3 shows the dataset mostly consists of regular research articles (105), with a small number of early access articles published online before final issue assignment (3) and a few conference-based proceedings papers (5), showing that the majority of the research output comes from fully published journal articles, while conference and pre-issue publications make up a minor share.

Figure 2 shows the yearly trend in research article publications from 1992 to 2025. In the early years, from 1992 until about 2014, the number of articles remained quite low, generally fluctuating between zero and a few publications per year, indicating a slow pace of scholarly activity in the field. From around 2015 onwards, the trend started gaining momentum by recording an increasing tendency towards the publication number. In 2023 and 2024, the number of documents was very high. However, in 2025, the publication number gained its maximum point with 70+ publications.

Figure 3 depicts a bar graph showing the number of documents produced by the most relevant contributors in the database, demonstrating the unequal productivity of the researchers. Most productive contributor, producing a total of 5 documents, which means that this researcher made a considerable and continuous contribution to the field. Closely following this contributor are Liu et al. (2024), Manuel Diaz-Sarachaga et al. (2016) , who produced four documents each, meaning that they actively participated in researching the topic and had an ongoing output of research papers. Following these two contributors are Escrig-Olmedo et al. (2019), Tsang et al. (2024) who produced three documents each, which shows that they made a moderate contribution. The other authors (Balabel and Alwetaishi, 2021; Griffiths et al., 2019) have produced two documents each.

The bar graph in Figure 4 presents a clear picture about the distribution of research papers in different scholarly journals. It clearly shows that there are differences in publications in each of the journals considered. The journal Sustainability can be identified as the highest number of publications with 39 articles, which signifies the importance of this journal as an important publication platform for research works. Next is the journal of Finance Research Letters, which has published 24 research papers, thereby signifying its importance as a secondary source. Then comes the International Review of Financial Analysis, which has 16 research papers, thereby signifying that the journal has been popular among many financial scholars due to the analysis that it includes in its journal. The fourth journal considered is the Journal of Cleaner Production, which contains 13 research papers. This is followed by the journals of Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Environmental Development and Sustainability and Sustainable Cities and Society, all of which contain less than 10 research papers.

The selected papers are those that have been cited widely in the literature concerning sustainability, ESG ratings, environmental performance measurement and rating system within various industries, as presented in Table 4. Starting with the paper that has received the most citations, which is 489, there is the paper titled, “Sustainable investing with ESG rating uncertainty.” There are several other influential papers such as the one investigating the use of psychological measures of environmental restoration, cited 276 times; another one on “ESG rating disagreement and stock return,” cited 265 times, while another on “format as source credibility and belief in fake news on social media” gets 249 citations. In the field of construction, there are papers discussing sustainability assessment and rating systems for buildings with citation counts of 247 and 137, respectively. Further papers investigate the effect of ESG rating on the stock price crash risk in China (cited 230 times); the integration of sustainability principles in the rating process by rating agencies (197 citations) and finally, China's “green watch” – a program of environmental performance reporting (122 citations). Lastly, a comparison of social media review ratings versus traditional customer satisfaction in explaining hotel performance with 120 citations.

Figure 5 depicts six distinct thematic networks within ESG-related literature, with each network consisting of a series of interconnected ideas or concepts, and their analysis is done in Table 5. In particular, the red theme network has ESG as its central idea and is strongly connected with such concepts as ratings, environmental, sustainable finance and sustainable development. The research focus within this network concerns the link between ESG standards and sustainability, environmental awareness and the adoption of sustainable finance practices. The blue network revolves around the concept of ESG rating and includes concepts such as CG, credit rating, corporate social responsibility and ESG rating uncertainty. Within this network, research concentrates on the factors that affect the creation of ESG ratings, their use in assessing corporate credit worthiness, and the reliability of ESG rating given the existence of discrepancies. Finally, the green network consists of ideas such as ESG rating divergence and information asymmetry and includes such concepts as investor sentiment, China M&A and financing constraints. The yellow cluster is related to the theme of ESG rating dispute and is associated with topics such as ESG rating, green innovations and finance limitation. Within this cluster, research is carried out that examines the impact of disputes between ESG rating organizations on a company's ability to develop sustainably and raise funds. sustainability and the connection with the rating system and sustainable infrastructures constitute the light blue cluster. Research under this topic is focused on applying the sustainability paradigm to the infrastructure, often relying on rating systems that measure the impact on the environment and society. The purple cluster involves the problem of sustainable development within the context of ESG rating, environment and society.

Figure 6, which is the word cloud, presents the commonly used keywords in the dataset where the larger the word, the higher its occurrence. The domain-related concepts, including performance, social responsibility, sustainable disclosure, ESG rating and information, emphasize the principal topics of research, including measuring organizational performance, socially responsible behavior and sustainable disclosures. Some other frequently used concepts, including ESG rating divergence, risk, impact, governance and management, signify some other recurrent topics in the study that include issues related to measuring the ESG score, risks associated with ESG scores and decision-making under such conditions. However, some other minor keywords, including green innovation, environmental, market and reputation, suggest that the topics being studied may involve other specific issues related to the topic of corporate social responsibility and ESG score.

In Figure 7, named the Thematic Map, there are four clusters of research themes classified according to their development degree and relevance degree. Among the themes in the quadrant of motor themes (high relevance and development), such themes as Corporate Social Responsibility, ESG and Disclosure stand out, as they are highly developed and highly relevant, along with construction-related themes like buildings and rating system. Basic themes (high relevance, low development) are performance, impact, quality and concepts of sustainability (sustainable development, framework). These themes form the foundation for the research; however, more theoretical development is needed. Niche themes (high development, low relevance) deal with specialized issues of connectedness and pillars of ESG assessment. These themes have high cohesiveness among each other, although they have little connection with the rest of the thematic network. Finally, emerging or declining Themes (low development and relevance) are themes of climate change, corporate environmental performance, higher education and sustainable infrastructure.

Based on the analysis, Table 6 reveals that the most important framework in relation to ESG issues is the one offered by the Stakeholder Theory. As can be seen from the analysis, the majority of papers focus on how firms satisfy the demands of different stakeholders. It means that stakeholder perspectives have a dominant position in the field, as ESG issues are driven by the need to fulfill the expectations of investors, regulators and society. Secondly, the Sustainable Development Theory represents another important perspective related to ESG issues. Its importance lies in the fact that all the studies emphasize the importance of finding a balance between environmental and social aspects of sustainable development. The Decision Theory is also quite popular, particularly in technical and rating studies, where rational decisions can be made by means of various models and instruments. Likewise, the Systems Theory emphasizes the fact that organizations are interrelated systems, and ESG results will depend on the interaction of different internal and external components. Finally, according to the Legitimacy Theory, ESG mechanisms are employed to achieve social acceptance and enhance reputation, meaning that external perceptions are important for sustainability reporting. Besides, there are several other theories that can serve as the supporting frameworks. For instance, the Agency Theory addresses potential conflicts between managers and shareholders and demonstrates that ESG can contribute to the improvement of governance processes and interest alignment. The Signaling Theory pays attention to the role of ESG disclosure, which serves as an instrument to provide positive signals to stakeholders. Institutional Theory emphasizes that organizations pursue ESG because of certain regulatory and societal pressures. The Legal Origin Theory provides an explanation for different countries' ESG ratings owing to their distinctive legal framework. The Cost-Benefit Theory is relevant from the perspective of decision-making. The Triple Bottom Line Theory expands the evaluation of business performance to encompass the social and environmental elements along with profit. The Portfolio Theory can be applied in the context of ESG investment since sustainability criteria are considered during the risk and return trade-offs. The Information Asymmetry Theory helps to comprehend why ESG reporting helps to reduce information asymmetry between companies and their investors. Technical theories such as the Fuzzy Set Theory can help mitigate uncertainty in the measurement of sustainability indicators, whereas the Knowledge-Based Theory stresses the significance of knowledge and information within the sustainability system. The Human Capital Theory underlines the importance of education and training in the adoption of sustainable policies, while the Environmental Valuation Theory is concerned with the valuation of environmental assets.

Figure 8 shows the most relevant affiliations, based on the highest number of published articles, are led by Nanjing University of finance and economics with 14 articles, followed by the university of international business and economics with 12, Nankai University and university of Cantabria with 11each, Tianjin University with 10 articles and a cluster of institution with 9 publications each, including South China university of technology, TAIF university, university of Zurich and Zhejiang University of finance and economics. other prominent contributors with 8 publications are Jilin University, Shandong University and Shenzhen University, while several universities such as capital university of Economics and business, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Nanjing university of aeronautics and astronautics and Sun Yat-sen University each have seven articles, indicating strong research output from Chinese, European and Middle Eastern academic institutions in this field.

In Figure 9, titled Collaboration Network, each cluster of connected nodes represents a group of authors who often publish together. For instance, the blue cluster is based on the work of Li et al. (2024), Zhang et al. (2025). It indicates a highly cohesive research community where researchers collaborate with each other quite frequently. The green cluster, headed by Liu et al. (2024), Wang et al. (2024), represents yet another highly cohesive group of researchers, as thick lines between different researchers indicate a regular collaboration among them. In comparison, the red cluster, which includes the works of Chen et al. (2025), Li et al. (2023), has medium-level cohesion among themselves, but they rarely connect with researchers from other clusters. Thin connections between researchers from different clusters represent a few interdisciplinary connections.

Figure 10 ranks the countries according to the number of publications that they have engaged in within the international research community. China comes first, with a significant gap from others at 431 publications, followed by the USA at 67, Italy at 49, the UK at 47 and Spain at 38. It indicates the critical participation of these nations in international scholarly collaborations. Medium-level contributions come from Australia, which has 29 publications; Switzerland, with 27 publications; Canada, at 240; France, with 22 and Germany, with 18. Meanwhile, some countries, like India and New Zealand, have just seven publications. Several nations, such as Azerbaijan, Colombia, Ireland and Tunisia, contribute only one publication each. In all, the pattern shows an imbalanced distribution system, with very few research powerhouses and other nations contributing modestly.

Figure 11 shows the total number of citations from each country in the area of research. The country that receives the highest number of citations is China, with 1,623 citations, which significantly beats the number for the USA, which has 6,860 citations, and other countries such as Spain, with 635 citations, and Italy, which has 603 citations. Other countries that feature highly on the citation list include Israel, which has 497 citations, Norway, with 432 citations and Switzerland, which has 376 citations. The UK, France and Canada are other countries with citations. Some countries that do not appear on the list at all because their number of citations is zero include Austria, Cameroon and Morocco.

The chart in Figure 12 represents international research collaborations, showing the originating country, the partner country and the number of joint publications between them. It represents a country pair, with the collaboration strength- for instance, China and Australia collaborated seven times, China and Brunei twice and Australia and New Zealand twice, while many other pairs, such as Australia-India or China-France, collaborated only once. Overall, the data highlight which country pairs have stronger research ties and reveals China and Australia as particularly active collaborators in the network.

Cluster 1: ESG Fundamentals and Sustainability.

Theoretical Foundations: Stakeholder Theory, Sustainable Development Theory, Triple Bottom Line.

These theories address the rationale for ESG implementation based on stakeholder responsibility, sustainable development, and balanced economic-social-environmental performance.

Cluster 2: ESG Ratings Discrepancy and Market Problems.

Theoretical Foundations: Information Asymmetry Theory, Decision Theory, Cost–Benefit Theory.

These theories highlight the causes for divergent ESG ratings resulting from insufficient information, subjective decisions by rating agencies and diverse rating frameworks.

Cluster 3: ESG Performance and Credit Rating Relationship.

Theoretical Foundations: Agency Theory, Signaling Theory.

Agency theory highlights the significance of good governance in minimizing conflicts, while signaling theory clarifies the influence of ESG performance on credit ratings.

Cluster 4: ESG and Financial Constraints.

Theoretical Foundations: Portfolio Theory, Resource/ Knowledge-Based Theory, Human Capital Theory.

These theories discuss the effect of ESG performance on firm valuation, access to capital markets, innovations and internal competencies.

Cluster 5: ESG Components and Agencies.

Theoretical Foundations: Institutional Theory, Legitimacy Theory, Legal Origins Theory.

These theories explain the impact of external forces, regulation and institutions on ESG ratings and agency behavior.

Cluster 6: Sustainability Systems and Frameworks.

Theoretical Foundations: Systems Theory, Fuzzy Set Theory, Environmental Valuation Theory.

These theories can help in creating an effective system for measuring ESG issues or developing evaluation frameworks.

The proposed theoretical–cluster framework in Figure 13 highlights several avenues for future research. There is a pressing need for the development of standardized and transparent ESG rating methodologies to address inconsistencies across agencies. Future studies should focus on integrating ESG factors into traditional credit risk models to enhance their predictive relevance. Additionally, cross-country comparative analyses are required to understand the role of institutional and regulatory differences in shaping ESG practices. Further research may also explore the impact of ESG performance on firm-level financial outcomes and innovation, as well as the development of integrated, multi-dimensional evaluation frameworks using advanced analytical techniques.

This pattern of growth is attributed to an increase in attention towards sustainability, transparency and accountability in the financial systems around the world. In regard to productivity, China is ahead with the largest number of documents produced – 431 documents and a total number of citations of 1,623, while the rest of the leading countries such as the USA, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom are far behind in shaping the literature. Nonetheless, several nations – Austria, Morocco and Cameroon – do not have a significant citation impact, implying a wide gap in research influence across the world.

Regarding institutional affiliation, universities such as Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, University of International Business and Economics and Nankai University stand out for their high productivity. However, collaboration networks are fragmented as clusters such as those of Li (2018) and Zhang et al. (2025) or Wang et al. (2024) and Liu et al. (2024) have a high degree of interlinkages within themselves and almost no interconnections with other clusters. This implies that there is little interdisciplinary and international engagement. Thematic maps demonstrate that corporate social responsibility, ESG reporting and sustainability are developed research themes. On the contrary, climate change, higher education and sustainable infrastructure are nascent themes. Another indication of persistent issues within the research topic is provided through keyword co-occurrences, revealing that the most common concerns are associated with ESG rating divergence, information asymmetry and green innovation. It becomes clear that there remain significant gaps that require addressing in terms of developing a more consistent approach to rating methodology and information sharing.

Thus, the following topics can be considered priorities in future research:

1. Achieving standardization of ESG rating approaches and solving problems related to rating divergence revealed in findings;

2. Investigating the whole triad of concepts including CG, ESG and credit ratings rather than their separate relationships;

3. Supporting cross-country and cross-cluster collaboration to involve underrepresented countries in the existing research network;

4. Conducting comparative and longitudinal analyses of governance effects on the relationship between CG and ESG;

5. Pay more attention to emerging themes such as climate change, sustainable infrastructure and the role of higher education in governance.

The current findings show an impressively fast-growing and highly imbalanced area of research where only some nations and organizations play a dominant role. This work adds value to the existing body of knowledge through the provision of a detailed bibliometric analysis on the relationship between ESG, CG and credit ratings. The results indicate new emerging themes such as sustainability reporting, quality of governance, risk management and responsible finance, reflecting the increasing importance of consideration of nonfinancial information in credit evaluation processes. New insights offered by this study are highly relevant to scholars, decision-makers, investors and CRAs. Furthermore, future research directions are suggested within areas such as ESG integration, sustainable finance, credit assessment using AI and changes in the regulatory framework. It becomes evident that collaboration is still fragmented while research methodologies are not standardized yet.