Review articles or literature reviews are a critical part of scientific research. While numerous guides on literature reviews exist, these are often limited to the philosophy of review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures, triggering non-parsimonious reporting and confusion due to overlapping similarities. To address the aforementioned limitations, we adopt a pragmatic approach to demystify and shape the academic practice of conducting literature reviews. We concentrate on the types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions of literature reviews as independent, standalone studies. As such, our article serves as an overview that scholars can rely upon to navigate the fundamental elements of literature reviews as standalone and independent studies, without getting entangled in the complexities of review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures.

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been gaining relevance in the academic, business, and political worlds, the relationship between CSR and performance remains unclear. This study provides a better understanding of the relationship between companies' financial performance and CSR activities. In other words, can the allocation of company resources to address social, environmental, and governance issues be a source of synergy to increase business value and improve financial performance for the benefit of the company and its stakeholders? To shed new light on this issue, we mapped this topic via a systematic review and content analysis of 53 articles identified in the confluence between CSR and financial performance from 1984 to 2021. Our study suggests that CSR directly impacts a company's financial performance, and this impact becomes more significant as the company's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores improve. Moreover, we must note that this is a comprehensive study whose results include analyses of companies from the world's largest stock market indices, mutual funds, sustainable portfolios, non‐sustainable portfolios, regions, asset classes for ESG investing, emerging markets, developed and developing countries, among others. Additionally, this study provides a path for future research.

A concern with the mitigation of climate change cuts a transversal line across economic agents, epitomized by two contradictory viewpoints. Some defend that green growth can be achieved without harming economic growth; others argue that it is not possible to respect sustainability if intensive consumption of goods continues to foster economic growth. Our research aims to analyze the role that sustainable technology transfer and sustainable innovations play in green growth and ascertain the impact of green growth on economic growth. We use aggregated country‐level data provided by the OECD, including national accounts, population, and environment statistics (including patents) between 1990 and 2013 for 32 countries, corresponding to an unbalanced panel of 591 observations. We estimate econometric models based on dynamic panel methodologies to capture differences that exist over time. The results show that sustainable technology transfer and sustainable innovation promote green growth, which in turn positively impacts economic growth. We contribute new insight to the green growth versus economic growth debate and provide several political and management implications.