African Journal of Business Management Vol.6 (22), pp. 6587-6596, 6 June, 2012 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM DOI: 10.5897/AJBM12.260 ISSN 1993-8233 ©2012 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Sustainability as a topic in business and management research: A bibliometric analysis Ana Lúcia Moura Novais, Belmiro N. João* and Francisco Antonio Serralvo Pontifical Catholic University (PUC/SP), São Paulo, Brazil. Accepted 9 March, 2012 Sustainability has been the subject of an intense debate in the academic literature. The concern on sustainability is associated with the way managers run companies, as well as the behavior of worldwide societies towards sustainable practices or actions. It involves an actual relationship among government, markets, corporations and sustainability, in which government exerts a major role, by the regulations and provisions of environmental standards. This study aims to identify the current academic literature on sustainability, as a topic in management and business research, using bibliometric analysis, in order to gather insight into such a body of knowledge, as well as to investigate which topics are associated with this subject and considered as the most relevant ones. Data analysis involved both qualitative and quantitative approaches. In terms of qualitative research, subjects were dealt with aspects regarding their content, keywords and subject relevance. Concerning quantitative data, the following variables were adopted: total number of publications, authors, subject areas, document sources, titles, publishing years, institutions, languages and countries. The methodology in this paper involves extracting data from the ISI web of science, description of predominant journals and their impact factor are also mentioned, by checking those at Journal Citation Report (JCR). It is possible to verify the most prolific authors and their impact, as well as the frequency the researched articles have been cited. Finally, deriving from such analyses, conclusions and research opportunities for further studies are displayed. Key words: Sustainability, management, business, bibliometric analysis. INTRODUCTION According to the Brundtland Report, sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability reporting examines the sustainability performance or the social, economic and environmental impacts made by a country, a city, a community or an organization. Sustai- nability reporting allows the reporting unit to measure discloses and be accountable for its performance *Corresponding author. E-mail: bjoao@pucsp.br. Tel: +55-11- 3670-8513. towards the goal of sustainable development. Sustainability has been the subject of an intense debate in the academic literature. The concern on sus- tainability reflects the way managers run the companies, as well as the behavior of worldwide societies towards sustainable practices or actions. Wilkinson and Hill (2007) claim there is an actual relationship among government, markets, corporations and sustainability, in which government exerts a major role in sustainability, by regulations and provisions of environmental standards. Most of the articles related to sustainability, whose references are available in ISI web of science, somehow deal with such kind of argument establishing a strong relationship among governments, markets, corporations