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Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development Goals
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Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development Goals

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2026) | Viewed by 5274

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Alexandros Sahinidis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Business Administration, University of West Attica, Agiou Spiridonos 28, 122 43 Egaleo, Greece
Interests: employee motivation; leadership; human resource management; organizational change; organizational culture; entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Panagiota Xanthopoulou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Business Administration, University of West Attica, Agiou Spiridonos 28, 122 43 Egaleo, Greece
Interests: public administration; entrepreneurial intention; entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship education; corporate social responsibility
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue explores the dynamic intersection of sustainable entrepreneurship, digital innovation, and strategic management, focusing on how these fields can collaboratively address pressing global challenges. It emphasizes the transformative potential of digital tools and innovative strategies in enabling businesses to align with the Sustainable Development Goals. By integrating sustainability into core business operations, this Special Issue seeks to showcase how organizations can balance economic viability with environmental stewardship and social responsibility.

The scope of this Special Issue includes contributions that investigate the integration of sustainability principles into entrepreneurial ventures; the application of digital technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and IoT for sustainable practices; and strategic management approaches that address sustainability challenges. Additionally, this Special Issue welcomes case studies, empirical research, and theoretical perspectives on fostering innovation within entrepreneurial ecosystems and the role of leadership in driving digital transformation for sustainable outcomes.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to address knowledge gaps by bridging interdisciplinary insights on sustainable entrepreneurship and digital innovation. It will provide a platform for the development of actionable frameworks and strategies that advance sustainability in business practices. By synthesizing the latest research and practical applications, this Special Issue will contribute to the academic and practical discourse on building resilient, sustainable enterprises.

Aligned with the journal's mission to address sustainability challenges, this Special Issue contributes to defining and quantifying sustainability through innovative tools and strategic frameworks. It highlights methods for measuring and monitoring sustainability, evaluates the impact of policies and laws, and provides integrated approaches to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Ultimately, this Special Issue seeks to inspire innovative solutions and advance understanding of sustainability within socio-economic, scientific, and policy contexts.

Dr. Alexandros G. Sahinidis
Dr. Panagiota Xanthopoulou
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 single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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 entrepreneurship
  • digital innovation
  • strategic management
  • sustainability strategies
  • blockchain in sustainability
  • artificial intelligence for sustainable development
  • social entrepreneurship
  • digital transformation
  • Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
  • social entrepreneurial intention

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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27 pages, 652 KB  
Article
Critical Success Factors for Quality 5.0 Adoption in South African Manufacturing: A Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach
by Nondumiso Goodness Mhlongo and Nita Inderlal Sukdeo
Sustainability 2026, 18(9), 4432; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18094432 - 1 May 2026
Viewed by 288
Abstract
The transition toward sustainable, human-centric, and resilient manufacturing systems has accelerated the emergence of Industry 5.0, repositioning quality management as a key enabler of sustainable industrial transformation. Quality 5.0 extends digitally enabled quality practices by explicitly integrating human wellbeing, environmental responsibility, and organizational [...] Read more.
The transition toward sustainable, human-centric, and resilient manufacturing systems has accelerated the emergence of Industry 5.0, repositioning quality management as a key enabler of sustainable industrial transformation. Quality 5.0 extends digitally enabled quality practices by explicitly integrating human wellbeing, environmental responsibility, and organizational resilience. However, for manufacturing firms in developing economies, guidance on how to prioritize the critical success factors (CSFs) for effective Quality 5.0 adoption remains limited. This study aims to identify and prioritize sustainability-oriented CSFs for Quality 5.0 adoption in South African manufacturing organisations using the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP). A systematic literature review informs the development of a hierarchical CSF model, which is subsequently evaluated through expert judgements from industry and academia. Triangular fuzzy numbers and Chang’s extent analysis are employed to address uncertainty and subjectivity in decision-making. Key findings indicate that workforce skills and competence (global weight = 0.134), human-centric leadership (0.122), reliable digital infrastructure (0.118), employee engagement and empowerment (0.109), and environmental sustainability integration (0.096, rank 5) are top enablers. The findings highlight that technological readiness alone is insufficient, and that social and organizational sustainability dimensions play a dominant role in Quality 5.0 adoption within resource-constrained contexts. This study contributes by providing a sustainability-oriented decision-support framework for prioritizing Quality 5.0 adoption initiatives and offers actionable insights for managers and policymakers seeking to advance sustainable manufacturing in developing economies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development Goals)
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48 pages, 2323 KB  
Article
Digitalization, Investment, and Sustainable Economic Growth: An ARDL Analysis of Growth Mechanisms in the SPRING-F Countries
by Ionuț Nica, Irina Georgescu and Onur Yağış
Sustainability 2026, 18(7), 3604; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18073604 - 7 Apr 2026
Viewed by 630
Abstract
This study analyzes the long-run relationships between digitalization, investment, innovation, and economic growth in connection with the energy transition in the SPRING-F group (Spain, Poland, Romania, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and France) using annual data for the period of 2000–2024. The analysis starts [...] Read more.
This study analyzes the long-run relationships between digitalization, investment, innovation, and economic growth in connection with the energy transition in the SPRING-F group (Spain, Poland, Romania, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and France) using annual data for the period of 2000–2024. The analysis starts from the premise that digitalization affects economic performance not only directly, but also through structural transmission mechanisms linked to investment and the energy transition. To capture these dynamics, this study employs three complementary panel ARDL models. The first model explains economic growth (GDP per capita) as a function of digitalization, capital accumulation, R&D expenditure, renewable energy consumption, trade openness, and foreign direct investment. The second model estimates gross capital formation (GCF) in order to assess the investment transmission channel. The third model explains renewable energy consumption (RNEC) in order to capture the sustainability dimension. The results show that trade openness and capital accumulation are the strongest long-run drivers of economic growth in the SPRING-F group. Internet use, R&D expenditure, and FDI also display positive long-run associations with GDP per capita, whereas fixed broadband subscriptions and renewable energy consumption enter the growth equation with negative coefficients, suggesting that digital infrastructure and the green transition do not automatically generate immediate growth gains. The GCF model confirms that investment acts as an important transmission mechanism, especially through the robust GDP–GCF linkage. The RNEC model indicates that the energy transition is positively associated with investment, innovation, and trade openness, while GDP and digital infrastructure remain negatively associated with the renewable energy share. Overall, the findings point to a conditional and nonlinear relationship between growth, digitalization, investment, and sustainability, with the sustainability channel remaining more specification-sensitive than the growth and investment equations. The long-run results for the GDP equation should also be interpreted with additional caution, given the comparatively weaker cointegration evidence for Model 1. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development Goals)
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22 pages, 2152 KB  
Article
HCEA: A Multi-Agent Framework for Sustainable Human-Centered Entrepreneurship Based on a Large Language Model
by Yu Gao, Yanji Piao and Dongzhe Xuan
Sustainability 2026, 18(7), 3554; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18073554 - 4 Apr 2026
Viewed by 552
Abstract
Human-centered entrepreneurship considers employee well-being and uses the Sustainable Development Goals as its fundamental pillars. However, existing research predominantly focuses on institutional interventions and fails to provide integrated intelligent solutions for tackling human–machine collaboration issues in the context of digital transformation. Large language [...] Read more.
Human-centered entrepreneurship considers employee well-being and uses the Sustainable Development Goals as its fundamental pillars. However, existing research predominantly focuses on institutional interventions and fails to provide integrated intelligent solutions for tackling human–machine collaboration issues in the context of digital transformation. Large language models (LLMs) offer potential for affective computing and personalized support, but face critical gaps in ethical governance, privacy protection, and real-time risk intervention in sensitive entrepreneurial contexts. Our proposed Human-Centered Entrepreneurial Intelligent Agent (HCEA) framework achieves the unified optimization of task utility, empathetic expression, and ethical security by integrating a large language model core fine-tuned via a multi-objective hybrid loss function and a cluster of task-specialized intelligent agents. HCEA integrates retrieval-enhanced generation to ensure suggestion accuracy, a hierarchical data governance system for sensitivity-based privacy protection, and an independent risk detection module for real-time intervention and referral. We build the framework by constructing a hybrid entrepreneurial dataset, design the multi-agent architecture of decision support, emotion understanding and ethical risk tracking, and empirically evaluate both comparisons and ablation experiments. The results demonstrate that HCEA outperforms five baseline models across six key metrics, including entrepreneurship guidance relevance, emotion recognition, and high-risk recall. This study contributes to the intersection of digital transformation and sustainable entrepreneurship by providing a technically feasible, ethically grounded intelligent framework that empowers enterprises to reconcile efficiency with human-centric values, advancing SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and SDG 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development Goals)
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Review

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24 pages, 1523 KB  
Review
Mapping the Intersection of Entrepreneurship, Digitalization, and the SDGs: A Scopus-Based Literature Review
by Panagiota Xanthopoulou and Alexandros Sahinidis
Sustainability 2025, 17(18), 8420; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17188420 - 19 Sep 2025
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2457
Abstract
This study examines the dynamic interconnection between entrepreneurship, digital transformation, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), placing the research question in a broader socio-technological context. The research was based on a descriptive review of 22 empirical studies drawn from the Scopus database and [...] Read more.
This study examines the dynamic interconnection between entrepreneurship, digital transformation, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), placing the research question in a broader socio-technological context. The research was based on a descriptive review of 22 empirical studies drawn from the Scopus database and related to technological innovations adopted by business initiatives aimed at sustainable development. A total of 314 records were identified, 180 screened, and 22 empirical studies included. Studies originated primarily from Europe and Asia and applied quantitative (60%), qualitative (25%), or mixed methods (15%). Through thematic analysis, the dominant technologies (such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, ERP systems, digital platforms, and ESG data analysis) were identified, as well as the methodological approaches followed in the relevant international literature. The main findings indicate that digital transformation offers significant opportunities to enhance innovation, transparency, and social inclusion. However, challenges also arise, such as digital inequalities, the lack of a strategy for alignment with the SDGs, and institutional weaknesses. In conclusion, the transition to sustainable digital business models requires a multidisciplinary approach, strengthened leadership, educational interventions, and institutional support. This study contributes theoretically and practically to the ongoing scientific dialogue on sustainable and digitally supported entrepreneurship. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation and Sustainable Development Goals)
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