Transforming Entrepreneurship for Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Entrepreneurship is undergoing significant change as societies, markets, and institutions increasingly focus on sustainability, resilience, and long-term value. The Special Issue "Transforming Entrepreneurship for Sustainability" in Administrative Sciences seeks to deepen understanding of how entrepreneurial processes, innovation practices, and ecosystems are adapting. This Special Issue examines how these shifts address major sustainability challenges, including climate change, inequality, digital disruption, and sustainable development (Abbas & Bulut, 2024; Petersen et al., 2023). The theme builds on research in sustainable entrepreneurship, open and collaborative innovation, and the evolving role of entrepreneurial ecosystems in supporting sustainability transitions (Rosário & Raimundo, 2024; Karami & Parackal, 2024).

Entrepreneurship is increasingly expected to play a transformative role in addressing grand societal challenges such as climate change, resource depletion, inequality, geopolitical instability, and digital disruption. While sustainable entrepreneurship research has expanded significantly over the past decade, the field remains theoretically fragmented and conceptually diffuse.

Three dominant streams have evolved:

1. Sustainable and social entrepreneurship focused on environmental and social value creation.
2. Sustainable business model innovation and dynamic capabilities.
3. Ecosystem and open innovation approaches to sustainability transitions.

In parallel, digital transformation and internationalization processes are reshaping how ventures create and scale sustainable value. However, these streams often develop in isolation, producing conceptual overlap but limited theoretical integration.

Key Gaps in Current Literature

Despite rapid growth, several limitations persist:

• Conceptual ambiguity: The notion of “transformation” in entrepreneurial contexts is underdefined. Many studies examine sustainability adoption rather than systemic entrepreneurial transformation.
• Level fragmentation: Research often centers on individual firms or entrepreneurs, lacking integration of broader ecosystem, institutional, and international dynamics.
• Skewed geographic focus: Most sustainable entrepreneurship research remains in advanced economies, with less attention to emerging contexts.
• Under-theorized governance mechanisms: Institutional frameworks and policy architectures enabling sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems remain insufficiently analyzed.

These gaps highlight a persistent focus on single-level studies and traditional methodologies, with less exploration of longitudinal, multi-level, or configurational perspectives.

Building on these limitations, previous Special Issues in sustainability-oriented journals have addressed innovation and environmental performance. However, fewer contributions explicitly examine how entrepreneurial systems themselves must be structurally and institutionally transformed to enable sustainability transitions—particularly in international and cross-country contexts.

We invite you to share your research and insights to help advance the discussion on transforming entrepreneurship for sustainability.

Focus, Scope, and Purpose of the Special Issue

a. Focus. This Special Issue explores how entrepreneurship can drive sustainability by integrating sustainability principles into innovation, dynamic capabilities, and stakeholder collaboration. Key topics include sustainable and social entrepreneurship models, circular and regenerative business practices, sustainable business model innovation, sustainability-oriented open innovation, and digital transformation for sustainable value creation (Petersen et al., 2023; Petković et al. 2025a; Andjelković et al., 2025). This Special Issue seeks to advance a more integrative understanding of entrepreneurial transformation for sustainability as a multi-level and international phenomenon. We conceptualize entrepreneurial transformation as a structural, cognitive, and institutional shift in how opportunities are recognized, resources are mobilized, value is created, and ecosystems are governed in the pursuit of sustainable development. Aligned with the scope of Administrative Sciences, we particularly encourage contributions that connect the following:

• Entrepreneurship and governance
• Strategy and sustainability transitions
• Organizational adaptation and institutional change
• Internationalization and cross-border ecosystem development
• Innovation management and sustainability performance measurement

Both conceptual and empirical manuscripts are welcome, employing diverse methodologies including multi-level modeling, panel data, experiments, comparative international studies, and configurational approaches.

b. Scope. We welcome conceptual, empirical, and methodological contributions from diverse theoretical perspectives, such as systems theory, institutional theory, and stakeholder theory, and at various levels of analysis, including individual, firm, network, regional, and global. Relevant topics include sustainability-oriented opportunity recognition, collaborative networks for systemic change, digitalization and sustainability transitions, policy and institutional frameworks, and metrics for assessing entrepreneurial sustainability performance (Huang & Zhou, 2025; Anton et al., 2024; Petković et al., 2025b).

The objectives of this Special Issue are as follows:

• Integrate disparate theoretical streams to establish a unified perspective on transformation.
• Enhance the international and comparative dimensions of research on sustainable entrepreneurship.
• Advance scholarship on governance and policy within the context of entrepreneurial sustainability.
• Promote both methodological rigor and diversity in research approaches.
• Clarify the conceptual boundaries and underlying mechanisms of entrepreneurial transformation.
• By integrating entrepreneurship, innovation management, institutional theory, and sustainability transitions, this Special Issue aims to make a substantive contribution to strategic and organizational debates within Administrative Sciences.
• Scholars from diverse disciplines and regions are encouraged to contribute to the development of a more integrated research agenda focused on transforming entrepreneurship for sustainability.

c. Purpose. This Special Issue seeks to advance theoretical understanding and provide strong empirical evidence on transforming entrepreneurial action and innovation to support sustainability transitions. Through interdisciplinary inquiry and cross-sector dialogue, we aim to inform scholars, policymakers, educators, and practitioners about how entrepreneurial innovation and collaboration can foster inclusive, resilient, and sustainable development (Anton et al., 2024; Petković & Radicic, 2026; Tišma et al., 2024).

We welcome submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following ten complementary research directions:

1. Conceptualizing Entrepreneurial Transformation

What theoretical criteria distinguish incremental sustainability integration from genuine entrepreneurial transformation?

2. Sustainability-Oriented Opportunity Recognition

In what ways do cognitive frames and institutional logics influence the identification of sustainable opportunities across different countries?

3. Reconfiguring Business Models Toward Circular and Regenerative Systems

Which mechanisms facilitate the transition from linear to circular and regenerative value logics?

4. Open Innovation as a Driver of Sustainability Transitions

How do inbound, outbound, and coupled open innovation strategies contribute to the acceleration of sustainable value creation?

5. Digital Technologies and Green Internationalization

In what ways do artificial intelligence, digital platforms, Industry 4.0, and data ecosystems facilitate the cross-border scaling of sustainable ventures?

6. Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Institutional Complementarities

How do regional and international entrepreneurial ecosystems enable or constrain sustainability transformation?

7. Policy, Regulation, and Sustainable Venture Formation

Which policy instruments and governance structures most effectively stimulate sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship?

8. Measuring and Governing Sustainability Impact

What approaches can be used to operationalize sustainability performance within entrepreneurial firms and ecosystems?

9. Sustainable Entrepreneurship in Emerging and Transition Economies

Which structural constraints and institutional voids influence sustainability transformation in developing and transition economies?

10. Resilience, Crisis, and Systemic Adaptation

How do sustainability-oriented ventures and ecosystems adapt to geopolitical instability, climate shocks, and disruptions in global supply chains?

Contribution to and Relationship with Existing Literature

Over the past decade, research on sustainable entrepreneurship has grown, providing key insights into how entrepreneurs generate environmental and social value (Rosário & Raimundo, 2024). However, much of this research remains fragmented across disciplines and often focuses on descriptive or isolated case studies rather than integrative frameworks (Abbas & Bulut, 2024). Studies on sustainable business model innovation and dynamic capabilities emphasize the need for clearer concepts and consistent definitions of sustainability in entrepreneurial contexts (Campos-Climent et al., 2024). Recent work in Sustainability and related MDPI Special Issues has also explored how digitalization, funding, and policy environments affect sustainable ventures (Tekala et al., 2024; Anton et al., 2024).

Integrating sustainability with open and collaborative innovation advances the field by highlighting the growing importance of external knowledge and stakeholder engagement across ecosystems (Huang & Zhou, 2025). This Special Issue contributes by (1) emphasizing transformation through shifts in entrepreneurial mindsets and processes toward sustainability, (2) linking sustainable entrepreneurship with open innovation, digitalization, and collaborative governance, and (3) promoting cross-level and interdisciplinary analyses that connect entrepreneurial action with broader sustainability transitions (Karami & Parackal, 2024; Sustainability Special Issue on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2024). These efforts consolidate current knowledge and identify new directions for future research.

We request, prior to submitting a manuscript, that the interested authors first submit a proposed title and an abstract of 250–300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors Saša Petković (sasa.petkovic@ef.unibl.org), Marija Radosavljević (marija.radosavljevic@eknfak.ni.ac.rs), Stojan Debarliev (stojan.debarliev@eccf.ukim.edu.mk), Aleksandra Janeska Iliev (aleksandra.janeska-iliev@eccf.ukim.edu.mk), or to the Administrative Sciences Editorial Office (admsci@mdpi.com) before [May 31st, 2026]. Full manuscripts will then undergo double-blind peer review once they have been submitted. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purpose of ensuring their proper fit within the purview of the Special Issue. Notification of abstract acceptance will be given by [June 30th, 2026].

We look forward to your contributions and to advancing the conversation on how entrepreneurship can be transformed to support sustainability in theory and practice.

References

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Anton, C. E., Zamfirache, A., Albu, R., Suciu, T., & Sofian, S. M. (2024). Sustainable entrepreneurship: Romanian entrepreneurs’ funding sources in the present-day context of sustainability. Sustainability, 16, 654. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16020654.

Andjelković, A., Janković Milić, V., Radosavljević, M., Petković, S., Kule, D., & Debarliev, S. (2025). Sustainable Entrepreneurship in the Western Balkan Countries: Key Constraints. Sustainability, 17(21), 9406. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17219406.

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Prof. Dr. Saša Petković
Prof. Dr. Marija Radosavljević
Prof. Dr. Stojan Debarliev
Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Janeska-Iliev
Guest Editors

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• sustainable entrepreneurship
• innovation ecosystems
• digital transformation
• business model innovation
• sustainability transitions
• open innovation
• circular economy