Special Issue "Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Making of Sustainable Change"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Francesca Grippa
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Professional Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Interests: innovation management; entrepreneurship; organizational network analysis; organizational behavior
Dr. Monica Baraldi Borgida
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Professional Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Interests: sustainable global business; integrated reporting; business ethics
Dr. Youngbok Ryu
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Professional Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Interests: small business innovation research; technology transition; bibliometrics
Dr. Richard Swanson
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Professional Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Interests: the application of financial theory to project design and development in the infrastructure sector; especially as a stimulus for economic growth

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to launch a Special Issue on “Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Making of Sustainable Change” in the Sustainability journal. This Special Issue aims to contribute to studying the enablers of social, economic and environmental change through the lenses of sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship.

Despite the diffusion of paradigms like the circular economy and the rise of hybrid organizations like the social enterprise, today’s organizations are struggling to fully embrace business models that prioritize sustainable change. And for organizations that were able to implement such initiatives, it is not clear whether these principles are successfully implemented  to provide them with a buffer against economic downturns and pandemic disruptions. Today, value creation within organizations is community and network-based, with alliances and collaborations playing a key strategic role in shaping both competitive advantage and sustainable change. To fully understand the impact that organizations have on their communities, we need to embrace a multi-dimensional approach that incorporates financial and non-financial indicators of performance, that cover aspects such as environmental impact, economic equity, social justice, customer satisfaction, and human development. Traditional measures of financial performance alone are inadequate to support strategic decision making, as they do not take into account the evolution of the firm's most relevant intangible assets, including the value generated by external stakeholders.

This Special Issue will contribute to the existing literature by discussing principles and best practices that can help organizations build sustainable growth through partnerships and collaborations. We invite contributions in the forms of research papers, case studies and systematic reviews, that highlight the transformative power of sustainable innovation, defined as the creation of new products, services or business models that improve performance in the three dimensions of sustainable development: social, environmental and economic (Lenssen et al, 2013). .

Examples of topics suitable for this Special Issue are:

  • Sustainability initiatives across all economic activities and markets.
  • Performance management of social, environmental and economic impact.
  • Principles of circular economy that make companies resilient to pandemic disruptions.
  • Sustainable partnerships between for profit and nonprofit organizations.
  • The role of social capital development to build resilient communities and organizations.
  • Individual traits and organizational mechanisms that foster sustainable change.

Research and reviews articles are therefore invited to be submitted to this Special Issue to contribute to and highlight the impact of innovation and entrepreneurship.on building sustainable change.

Prof. Dr. Francesca Grippa
Dr. Monica Baraldi Borgida
Dr. Youngbok Ryu
Dr. Richard Swanson
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 papers will be 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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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 1900 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 innovation
  • social entrepreneurship
  • ESG dimensions and materiality (transparency)
  • sustainable change and value (circular economy)
  • corporate purpose

Published Papers (2 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Article
Comparing Behavioral Theories to Predict Consumer Interest to Participate in Energy Sharing
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7693; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147693 - 09 Jul 2021
Viewed by 407
Abstract
Consumer investment in distributed energy resources (DERs) is increasing the penetration of renewable energy in the grid. In some cases, DERs produce more electricity than needed by the owner and this excess electricity is sold to the utility (e.g., net metering). In contrast, [...] Read more.
Consumer investment in distributed energy resources (DERs) is increasing the penetration of renewable energy in the grid. In some cases, DERs produce more electricity than needed by the owner and this excess electricity is sold to the utility (e.g., net metering). In contrast, energy sharing allows a facilitator, which may or may not be the utility, to redistribute excess renewable electricity to fellow community members directly. However, little is known about consumer interest in participating in this type of arrangement. This preregistered study uses structural equation modeling to compare two behavioral theories, Value-Belief-Norm and Diffusion of Innovation, to predict consumer interest in participating in energy sharing. Participants answered questions about energy sharing in the context of an energy-sharing community facilitated by the fictional company, E-topia. Survey data from 195 online participants suggest that Value-Belief-Norm is a better, although not quite acceptable, fit. This suggests that early adoption of energy sharing may be driven by appealing to core values rather than novelty-seeking. This study implies that individuals are more likely to participate in a new technology system such as energy sharing when the effects of participation align with individuals’ values. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Making of Sustainable Change)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Article
Examining the Relationship between the Economic Performance of Technology-Based Small Suppliers and Socially Sustainable Procurement
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7220; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137220 - 28 Jun 2021
Viewed by 479
Abstract
Sustainable public procurement plays an important role in addressing not only environmental but also economic and social issues through government acquisitions from technology-based small suppliers. In this context, the objective of this study is to better understand the holistic public procurement process by [...] Read more.
Sustainable public procurement plays an important role in addressing not only environmental but also economic and social issues through government acquisitions from technology-based small suppliers. In this context, the objective of this study is to better understand the holistic public procurement process by assessing the operational efficiency of technology-based small suppliers and associating the economic aspect of public procurement with the social aspect, such as women-owned businesses. To this end, we analyzed U.S. Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research grantees by combining network data envelopment analysis with bootstrap truncated regression analysis. Drawing on the analysis results, we found that (1) there is heterogeneity in the performance of research and development, network building, and commercialization sub-processes, and (2) there is a positive relationship between the overall performance and women-owned small suppliers who excel particularly in network building. The former implies that small suppliers may have different expertise in the chain of public procurement; the latter suggests that woman entrepreneurs with a business network may be able to outperform their counterparts in the public procurement market. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Making of Sustainable Change)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop