Dear Colleagues,  

The changing business environment has continuously raised concerns about our society’s sustainability, urging companies to re-evaluate the sources of their competitive advantage so as to not only sustain their own innovative abilities but focus more on the development and evolution of the whole society. For instance, recently, an agreement, the Glasgow Climate Pact, has been reached in OP26 summit to cut emissions by 2030.

Data, information, and knowledge are commonly considered some of the most important sources of sustained competitive advantages in organizations (Barney, 1991, 2001; Chatterjee et al., 2020; Gomes and Dahab, 2010; Loebbecke et al., 2016; Tallman et al., 2004; Shenkar, and Li, 1999). Information system (IS) tools and practices have been widely applied by organizations to improve the efficiencies and effectiveness of their specific functions and processes (Aydiner et al., 2019; Barua et al., 1995; Gorla et al., 2010; Theorin et al., 2017). In the last decade, emerging technologies, such as Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics, the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence, have dramatically updated the traditional information management landscape (Dwivedi et al., 2020; Hughes et al., 2019; Yan et al., 2021). However, very few studies have explored the implication of organizational IS initiatives in the context of the latest technological innovation and development from the sustainability perspective and how they can help organizations go green, such as to facilitate green innovation (Adams et al., 2016; Schiederig et al., 2012) and undertake environmental and social responsibility (Crane and Glozer, 2016; DesJardins et al., 1998; Diez-Cañamero et al., 2020; Lee et al., 2018).

Against this backdrop, this Special Issue aims to understand the adoption, development, implementation, and impact of IS initiatives in the sustainable development of organizations to fulfill the mission of sustainability in a broader context. The scope of the Special Issue includes IS theories, technologies, methodologies, policies, and strategies for jointly advancing corporate and societal sustainability and perspectives and practices of organizations that use  IS initiatives for sustainability purposes. It is open to theoretical, empirical, case-study, and other applicable methodologies.

The following list of potential topics is provided to stimulate ideas for manuscripts. Authors are not restricted to this list, but submissions must provide relevant insights framed by these research topics.

• The implications of sustainability from IS perspectives;
• The impact of sustainability on IS methods, processes, or practices;
• The role of IS in realizing sustainable development/growth in organizations;
• Models of sustainability integration in IS programs;
• The emerging technologies and IS tools to facilitate sustainability;
• IT-enabled sustainable management of knowledge assets;
• Sustainable online social community;
• Information technology for sustainable development;
• Sustainable information infrastructure;
• The role of IS in sustainability practices in developing countries.

References:

Adams, R., Jeanrenaud, S., Bessant, J., Denyer, D., & Overy, P. (2016). Sustainability‐oriented innovation: A systematic review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(2), 180-205.

Aydiner, A. S., Tatoglu, E., Bayraktar, E., & Zaim, S. (2019). Information system capabilities and firm performance: Opening the black box through decision-making performance and business-process performance. International Journal of Information Management, 47, 168-182.

Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120.

Barney, J. B. (2001). Resource-based theories of competitive advantage: A ten-year retrospective on the resource-based view. Journal of Management, 27(6), 643-650.

Barua, A., Kriebel, C. H., & Mukhopadhyay, T. (1995). Information technologies and business value: An analytic and empirical investigation. Information Systems Research, 6(1), 3-23.

Chatterjee, S., Moody, G., Lowry, P. B., Chakraborty, S., & Hardin, A. (2020). Information Technology and organizational innovation: Harmonious information technology affordance and courage-based actualization. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 29(1), 101596.

Crane, A., & Glozer, S. (2016). Researching corporate social responsibility communication: Themes, opportunities and challenges. Journal of Management Studies, 53(7), 1223-1252.

DesJardins, J. (1998). Corporate environmental responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(8), 825-838.

Diez-Cañamero, B., Bishara, T., Otegi-Olaso, J. R., Minguez, R., & Fernández, J. M. (2020). Measurement of corporate social responsibility: A review of corporate sustainability indexes, rankings and ratings. Sustainability, 12(5), 2153.

Dwivedi, Y. K., Hughes, D. L., Coombs, C., Constantiou, I., Duan, Y., Edwards, J. S., ... & Upadhyay, N. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management research and practice: Transforming education, work and life. International Journal of Information Management, 55, 102211.

Gomes, P. J., & Dahab, S. (2010). Bundling resources across supply chain dyads: The role of modularity and coordination capabilities. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 30 (1), 57-74.

Gorla, N., Somers, T. M., & Wong, B. (2010). Organizational impact of system quality, information quality, and service quality. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 19(3), 207-228.

Hughes, L., Dwivedi, Y. K., Misra, S. K., Rana, N. P., Raghavan, V., & Akella, V. (2019). Blockchain research, practice and policy: Applications, benefits, limitations, emerging research themes and research agenda. International Journal of Information Management, 49, 114-129.

Lee, J. W., Kim, Y. M., & Kim, Y. E. (2018). Antecedents of adopting corporate environmental responsibility and green practices. Journal of Business Ethics, 148(2), 397-409.

Loebbecke, C., Van Fenema, P. C., & Powell, P. (2016). Managing inter-organizational knowledge sharing. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 25(1), 4-14.

Tallman, S., Jenkins, M., Henry, N., & Pinch, S. (2004). Knowledge, clusters, and competitive advantage. Academy of Management Review, 29(2), 258-271.

Theorin, A., Bengtsson, K., Provost, J., Lieder, M., Johnsson, C., Lundholm, T., & Lennartson, B. (2017). An event-driven manufacturing information system architecture for Industry 4.0. International Journal of Production Research, 55(5), 1297-1311.

Schiederig, T., Tietze, F., & Herstatt, C. (2012). Green innovation in technology and innovation management–an exploratory literature review. R&d Management, 42(2), 180-192.

Shenkar, O., & Li, J. (1999). Knowledge search in international cooperative ventures. Organization Science, 10(2), 134-143.

Yan, M., Filieri, R., & Gorton, M. (2021). Continuance intention of online technologies: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Information Management, 58, 102315.

Dr. Zuopeng (Justin) Zhang
Prof. Dr. Sajjad Jasimuddin
Dr. Yulong (David) Liu
Dr. Leven Jianwen Zheng
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• information systems
• sustainable development
• emerging technologies
• social media
• knowledge management
• developing countries