Firm Performance in Business Environment: Revealing Determinants from a Scientific Production Perspective

The topic of specific determinants for a company's performance becomes salient in the current context of difficult times, of conflicts, pandemic situations or natural disasters. The article aims to analyse the scientific literature related to performance determinants in order to reveal factors of influence and highlight their variety and the impact they have on the activity of an organisation. The authors configured a research methodology, in five steps, after completing a comprehensive literature review that allowed for grouping factors into two categories: exogenous and endogenous. The analysis was constructed following two directions: one describing the scientific production in terms of metrics, journals, authors, and keywords analysis and the other one presenting trends or patterns in the scientific production (including the analysis of thematic evolution, thematic map construction, and citation burst analysis). Evidence is provided by the thematic map supporting "economic growth" and "customer satisfaction" themes behaving as niche themes while "consumer behavior" as an emerging or declining theme related to this field. The research also highlights the most preferred topics, as well as less approached themes, and reveals research trends.