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Sustainable Business Practices in Emerging Markets: Innovation, Governance, and Environmental Impact

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 1497

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Zhaoyang Kong

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Guest Editor
Business School, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China
Interests: low-carbon economy and policy; energy strategy and policy; business innovation and entrepreneurship management; venture capital
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Yuhua Zheng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Business School, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 100048, China
Interests: carbon financial market; the impact of carbon emission policies; CSR/ESG/sustainability; corporate governance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Daojuan Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Business School, Aalborg University, DK-9220 Aalborg, Denmark
Interests: business internationalization; cross-border M&As; corporate governance; SMEs; emerging market firms; and CSR/ESG/sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Farid Ullah

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Accounting, Xijing University, Xi’an 710123, China
Interests: corporate governance; corporate social responsibility; corporate finance; financial management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, emerging markets have shown amazing resilience and have gradually become an important engine for global business development. However, emerging markets still face many challenges, such as the growing cost of climate change and the increasingly severe global financial situation. Exploring how to promote sustainable development in emerging markets is a very important aspect of research. With the rapid development of emerging technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and blockchain, emerging markets have also ushered in new development opportunities.

The aim of this Special Issue is to therefore publish original research papers and critical reviews that can contribute to discussions of the possible pathways for achieving sustainable development in emerging markets. Authors may approach this from multidimensional business practices such as innovation, governance, and environmental protection in helping emerging economies formulate action routes for sustainable development. Contributions are expected to have profound implications for a wide range of stakeholders, including policymakers, managers, national organizations, etc.

For this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Innovation/emerging technologies and sustainable development.
  • Digital economy/green economy and sustainable development.
  • Digital finance/green finance and sustainable development.
  • Environmental regulation/tax administration and sustainable development.
  • Charity and sustainable development.
  • Cultural communication and sustainable development.
  • The standardization of engineering construction and environmental protection.
  • Government subsidies and carbon performance.
  • The accounting and application of carbon footprint/carbon emissions.
  • Talent cultivation in emerging markets.
  • Accounting information disclosure and corporate social responsibility.
  • Ambitions and actions of emerging economies in promoting sustainable development.

Dr. Zhaoyang Kong
Dr. Yuhua Zheng
Dr. Daojuan Wang
Dr. Farid Ullah
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 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 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

  • emerging market
  • sustainable development
  • innovation
  • environmental protection
  • environmental regulation
  • government subsidy
  • carbon emission
  • digital economy

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

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

25 pages, 718 KiB  
Article
An Analysis of the Relationship Between ESG Activities and the Financial Performance of Japanese Companies Toward Sustainable Development
by Takafumi Ikuta and Hidemichi Fujii
Sustainability 2025, 17(15), 6790; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17156790 - 25 Jul 2025
Abstract
Demands for companies to comply with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) requirements are growing, and companies are also expected to play a role in promoting sustainable development. For companies to achieve sustainable growth while addressing ESG, it must be understood whether ESG activities [...] Read more.
Demands for companies to comply with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) requirements are growing, and companies are also expected to play a role in promoting sustainable development. For companies to achieve sustainable growth while addressing ESG, it must be understood whether ESG activities promote improved corporate financial performance. We conducted a five-year panel data analysis of 635 Japanese firms from FY 2019 to FY 2023, using the PBR, PER, and ROE financial indicators as the dependent variables and CSR ratings in the human resource utilization (HR), environment (E), governance (G), and social (S) categories as the independent variables. The results revealed that, depending on the combination of ESG field and financial indicators, companies with advanced ESG initiatives had greater financial performance, with some cases showing a nonlinear relationship; differences in the results between manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries were also observed. For companies to effectively advance ESG activities, it is important to clarify the objectives and results for each ESG category. For policymakers to consider measures to encourage companies’ ESG activities, it is also important to design finely tuned regulations and incentives according to the ESG category and industry characteristics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Business Practices in Emerging Markets: Innovation, Governance, and Environmental Impact)
26 pages, 1055 KiB  
Article
Environmental Governance Innovation and Corporate Sustainable Performance in Emerging Markets: A Study of the Green Technology Innovation Driving Effect of China’s New Environmental Protection Laws
by Jide Zhang, Ruorui Wu and Hao Wang
Sustainability 2025, 17(14), 6556; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17146556 - 18 Jul 2025
Viewed by 379
Abstract
Against the backdrop of the accelerated transition to sustainable development in global emerging markets, the synergistic mechanism between environmental governance innovation and corporate green transformation has become a key issue in realizing high-quality development. As the world’s largest emerging economy, China’s new Environmental [...] Read more.
Against the backdrop of the accelerated transition to sustainable development in global emerging markets, the synergistic mechanism between environmental governance innovation and corporate green transformation has become a key issue in realizing high-quality development. As the world’s largest emerging economy, China’s new Environmental Protection Law (EPL), implemented in 2015, has promoted green technology innovation and performance improvement of heavily polluting enterprises by strengthening environmental regulation. This paper takes Chinese A-share listed companies as samples from 2012–2023, treats the EPL as a quasi-natural experiment, and applies the DID method to explore the path of its impact on the performance of heavily polluting firms, with a focus on analyzing the mediating effect of green technological innovation and the moderating role of firm size and regional differences. The study revealed the following findings: the implementation of the EPL significantly improves the performance of heavily polluting enterprises, which verifies the applicability of “Porter’s hypothesis” in emerging markets; green technological innovation plays a partly intermediary role in the process of policy affecting enterprise performance, indicating that environmental regulation achieves win–win economic and environmental benefits by driving the innovation compensation mechanism; and there is significant heterogeneity in policy effects, with large-scale firms and firms in the eastern region experiencing more pronounced performance improvements, reflecting differences in resource endowments and institutional implementation strength within emerging markets. This study provides empirical evidence for emerging market countries to optimize their environmental governance policies and construct a “regulation–innovation–performance” synergistic mechanism, which will help green economic transformation and ecological civilization construction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Business Practices in Emerging Markets: Innovation, Governance, and Environmental Impact)
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21 pages, 280 KiB  
Article
Research on the Impact of Corporate ESG Performance on Sustained Innovation in the VUCA Context: Evidence from China
by Huicong Li, Jie Wang, Ruzhen Zhang and Mengran Duan
Sustainability 2025, 17(12), 5304; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17125304 - 8 Jun 2025
Viewed by 613
Abstract
In recent years, corporate innovation has faced growing pressures from macroeconomic fluctuations and intensifying industry competition, making the maintenance of uninterrupted innovation increasingly crucial. This study selected Chinese listed firms from 2015 to 2022 as samples and adopted a panel fixed-effect model to [...] Read more.
In recent years, corporate innovation has faced growing pressures from macroeconomic fluctuations and intensifying industry competition, making the maintenance of uninterrupted innovation increasingly crucial. This study selected Chinese listed firms from 2015 to 2022 as samples and adopted a panel fixed-effect model to examine the impact of corporate ESG performance on sustained innovation, with particular attention to external environmental pressures, including macroeconomic uncertainty, industry competition, and market attention. The results demonstrate that corporate ESG performance significantly promotes corporate sustained innovation. Mechanism analyses indicate that from the dual perspectives of resource effects and governance effects, ESG performance primarily enhances sustained innovation by increasing investment in R&D funding and personnel, as well as avoiding managerial myopia. Specifically, macroeconomic uncertainty dampens the positive effect of ESG performance, whereas, under industry competitive and market scrutiny pressures, the beneficial impact of ESG performance on sustained innovation becomes more evident. The research findings expand the internal drivers for sustained innovation, enrich the study of economic consequences of ESG performance, and clarify the differentiated moderating effects of various external pressures under VUCA scenarios. By integrating internal drivers and external complex environments, the paper offers practical insights for firms to leverage ESG practices for innovation resilience and long-term growth, particularly under dynamic market conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Business Practices in Emerging Markets: Innovation, Governance, and Environmental Impact)
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