Special Issue "Revisiting the Impact of Technological and Organisational Innovation"

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Josep Llach
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Organization, Business Management and Product Design, Universitat de Girona, 17004 Girona, Spain
Interests: innovation and quality management; sustainable and collaborative economy
Dr. Andrea Bikfalvi
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Organization, Business Management and Product Design, Universitat de Girona, 17004 Girona, Spain
Interests: strategy; innovative projects; entrepreneurship
Dr. Rodolfo de Castro
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Organization, Business Management and Product Design, Universitat de Girona, 17004 Girona, Spain
Interests: operations management; LEAN production

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the context of continuous change and accelerated solutions needed to answer social, economic, environmental, and global societal challenges, innovation is the backbone of progress and one of the possible answers. It has long captured the interest of academics, business, and policymakers, and it continues to do so due to its multidisciplinary character, uneven implementation in organization, regions and nations, and complexity.

New technology and novel approaches of work organization make the apparently already traditional topics of technological innovation and organizational innovation an evergreen area deserving attention from both researchers and implementers. While the big picture is composed by antecedents’—decisions/processes—impact, potential adopters are mostly interested in performance explaining stories, in conditions where innovations are conceptually endorsed by their advantages and benefits for organizations, units, and individuals.

It is in this context that the assumption is that new technology and organisational concepts generate a new impact, and therefore, the objective of this Special issue is to advance knowledge by revisiting facets of impact in the light of new technologies accompanied by organizational innovations forming the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Further investigation is needed to discover positive, null, and negative impacts, complementarity or substitutive effects, types of impact areas (financial, operational, attitude, behaviour, etc.), impact fluctuation over time, as well as evidence on the spreading and diffusion of concrete tech-org solutions present in organization, a necessary and previous condition for impact generation.

Dr. Josep Llach
Dr. Andrea Bikfalvi
Dr. Rodolfo de Castro
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

  • Industry 4.0
  • Smart industry
  • New technologies
  • Technological innovation
  • Organizational innovation
  • Impact
  • Manufacturing
  • Small medium enterprises

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
A Precondition of Sustainability: Industry 4.0 Readiness
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6641; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126641 - 10 Jun 2021
Viewed by 638
Abstract
To achieve sustainability and further develop their businesses, manufacturing companies need to find an appropriate response to the frequent changes in customer demands, development of new technologies, and dynamic competition. One of the possible requirements for sustainability is the adoption of the Industry [...] Read more.
To achieve sustainability and further develop their businesses, manufacturing companies need to find an appropriate response to the frequent changes in customer demands, development of new technologies, and dynamic competition. One of the possible requirements for sustainability is the adoption of the Industry 4.0 paradigm. This paper aims to apply Industry 4.0 general readiness assessment methodology and social network analysis to find out the readiness level of Serbian manufacturing and how digital technologies interplay during the time. The results of this study show that wireless human-machine communication technologies initiated the digital transformation of Serbian manufacturing from non-users to basic readiness level. Secondly, manufacturing companies significantly invested in the Cyber-Physical Production System to increase the level towards high readiness. Finally, manufacturing companies in Serbia should consider investing in capabilities to adapt the Near real-time production control system if aiming to compete with competitors from developed countries. The main contribution of this paper is to show the general readiness level of manufacturing companies for digital transformation in transition economies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Revisiting the Impact of Technological and Organisational Innovation)
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Article
Evaluation and Improvement of Technological Innovation Efficiency of New Energy Vehicle Enterprises in China Based on DEA-Tobit Model
Sustainability 2020, 12(18), 7509; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187509 - 11 Sep 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 661
Abstract
It is vital to promote and optimize the technological innovation efficiency of new energy vehicle (NEV) enterprises for the green transformation of China’s automobile industry. However, China’s NEV enterprises still have problems such as insufficient research of technology and unreasonable innovative resource allocation. [...] Read more.
It is vital to promote and optimize the technological innovation efficiency of new energy vehicle (NEV) enterprises for the green transformation of China’s automobile industry. However, China’s NEV enterprises still have problems such as insufficient research of technology and unreasonable innovative resource allocation. To improve the technological innovation efficiency of China’s NEV enterprises, the NEVs’ technological innovation process is divided into two stages: the research and development (R&D) stage and the achievement transformation stage in this research. Combining Tobit regression with data envelopment analysis (DEA), an evaluation framework of technological innovation efficiency of the NEV enterprises is constructed. Then, the innovation efficiency of 23 NEV listed enterprises from 2013 to 2018 is analyzed. The result reveals three findings. First, the overall technological innovation efficiency of NEV enterprises is low. Second, enterprises’ R&D efficiency is generally higher than the achievement transformation efficiency. Third, according to two-stage efficiency, 23 NEV enterprises are divided into four categories. For different types of enterprises, targeted guidance to improve innovation efficiency is proposed. This research provides a theoretical and practical basis for improving the innovation efficiency of NEV enterprises. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Revisiting the Impact of Technological and Organisational Innovation)
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