Socially responsible investments: A retrospective review and future research agenda

Abstract Socially responsible investments (SRIs) have occupied the center stage of discussion in the finance and social discourses. This study aims to unravel the intellectual structure of the research on SRI. At present, SRI is undertheorized, and the extant literature is divided into multiple fragments. Existing review studies on SRI suffer from limitations related to definitions and methods. We organize the theoretical lines of extant research and tie them up with empirical studies in the field by using systematic literature review and bibliometric techniques on a corpus of as large as 976 research articles. Our study describes the current dynamics of the SRI field, clusters the fragments of research into meaningful themes, highlights the impediments to current research, and also proposes an agenda for future research. Although research on SRI occurs globally, the lack of academic collaboration among scholars and undertheorization are two major challenges of the field. Future research could examine ESG‐based asset pricing models, sustainable factor investing, and measures to tackle greenwashing.