Sustainable Governance in the Digital Era: From ESG Adoption to Strategic Value Creation
A special issue of Administrative Sciences (ISSN 2076-3387).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 November 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: management; marketing; marketing research; logistics, sustainability; ESG; environmental responsibility; entrepreneurship; sustainable entrepreneurship; consumer behavior
Interests: sustainable governance; digital transformation; organizational maturity; artificial intelligence in business sentiment-analysis for decision-making; user experience optimization; e-commerce behaviour analysis; digital divide reduction; EU sustainable development policies; strategic impact of technology adoption
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The Special Issue titled “Sustainable Governance in the Digital Era: From ESG Adoption to Strategic Value Creation” aims to explore how organizations navigate the intersections of digital transformation, sustainability imperatives, and evolving governance models. Triggered by the acceleration of technological innovation and heightened global attention on environmental, social, and governance, named as ESG standards, this issue seeks to examine how digital technologies can support, strengthen, or challenge corporate sustainability commitments and organizational accountability across sectors. This Special Issue focuses on understanding how ESG adoption, digital governance architecture, and responsible innovation can strategically contribute to long-term value creation for stakeholders, organizations, and society (Eccles et al., 2014). It investigates the complex dynamics shaping organizations as they integrate AI-enabled decision-making, real-time ESG data reporting, digital ethics, and impact assessment, while responding to the growing demand for transparency, inclusiveness, and responsible business practices. The scope includes both theoretical and empirical contributions that assess the emerging capabilities, performance outcomes, and organizational maturity required to transition from ESG compliance to sustainable, digitally empowered strategic advantage (Friede, et al., 2015). The purpose of this Special Issue is to contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on how sustainable governance can evolve in tandem with rapid technological developments. It builds on and extends the current literature in areas such as corporate sustainability, responsible innovation, digital transformation, and strategic management, while emphasizing comparative, cross-sectoral, and multi-level insights. In particular, the issue will shed light on how organizations deploy digital tools to improve ESG performance, support stakeholder engagement, reduce inequalities, and foster inclusive, ethical, and resilient business ecosystems. It seeks to enrich the academic dialogue by bridging management, public policy, sustainability studies, information systems, and corporate governance.
We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 300–500 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors, Dr. Zamfirache (alexandra.zamfirache@unitbv.ro) and Dr. Ciobanu (eliza.nichifor@unitbv.ro) before [1 March 2026]. 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 [15 March 2026]. Full manuscripts will then undergo double-blind peer review once they have been submitted.
References
Eccles, R. G., Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2014). The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Processes and Performance. Management Science, 60(11), 2835–2857.
Friede, G., Busch, T., & Bassen, A. (2015). ESG and Financial Performance: Aggregated Evidence from More than 2,000 Empirical Studies. Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, 5(4), 210–233.
Dr. Alexandra Zamfirache
Dr. Eliza Ciobanu
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Administrative Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- sustainable governance ESG
- digital transformation
- strategic value creation
- organizational performance
- stakeholder engagement
- corporate sustainability
- responsible innovation data driven decision-making
- AI and digital technologies in governance sustainability
- reporting ESG metrics and impact assessment
- digital ethics and accountability sustainable business models
- organizational maturity in ESG
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