Conclusions
In this paper, the proposed methodology can help to explore and identify the research trend of sustainable development. It can support clearer focus on identifying research gaps to give future research directions. We need to explore research trends and to identify clusters in order to strengthen research on sustainable development in the future through a bibliometric analysis. The results of science mapping show the relationship between cited articles with four separate clusters: sustainable supply chain and logistics management, sustainable assessment, sustainable modeling and manufacturing technology. Sustainable supply chain and logistics management is the largest cluster, and has a relationship between sustainable development and logistics management. Moreover, the lean concept as a lean tool is used to analyze and improve business processes via sustainable perspectives. However, a gap in research is found in that not all three sustainable perspectives are considered for business implementation. The science mapping based on the research articles also leads to the conclusion that the research on sustainable development is developing a research model via optimization and performance assessment for a sustainable path. The research does not point to only the economics dimension. To design a model for sustainability, there are both economic and environmental dimensions for implementation. The environmental dimension is examined together with the economics dimension via environmental practice, which highlights the environmental control measure and strategies. However, the social dimension of the research on sustainability concerns the social indicators that play a part in performance measurement. The social indicators are defined according to corporate social responsibility (CSR) to measure social responsibility of businesses. To implement social sustainability, the businesses highlight community investment to support community activities such as charity and philanthropy that are not directly business opportunities. It only builds the corporate image of their businesses, however; society cannot obtain the long-term benefits. The social dimension is related to employees, suppliers, community and customers. The social issue is less concentration overall of the stakeholder to business implementation for sustainability.
