Timeline

• September 15, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Clotilde Coron, Université Paris-Saclay

Data is increasingly recognized as a crucial resource for organizational innovation, with extensive and organized data exploitation considered a key driver of the ongoing fourth industrial revolution. HRM is not exempt from this trend, and the methodological challenges of leveraging increasingly diverse and massive datasets present significant stakes for both practitioners and academic researchers.

Recent reflections on applicable methods for extracting value from data often emphasize the disruptive potential of big data, presenting it as the foundation for a renewal of empiricism based on intensive exploration of data masses through exploratory methods, aimed at generating new knowledge through purely inductive logic. However, inductive, data-driven approaches remain rare in quantitative HRM studies, despite their capacity to transcend the classical dichotomy between qualitative/inductive and quantitative/deductive approaches in management sciences. Data-driven methodologies also help address criticisms leveled at hypothetico-deductive approaches, such as their strong standardization and difficulty in generating truly innovative theories.

This special issue aims to provide an updated overview of the challenges and opportunities of data-driven HRM, as well as inductive quantitative methods applicable in empirical research. Expected contributions may address these themes from methodological perspectives (such as presenting an innovative method with illustration in HRM), empirical perspectives (conducting a quantitative study on a subject by adopting an inductive approach), or conceptual perspectives (analyzing the stakes for HRM of data-driven management). Proposals presenting emerging or underutilized methods in francophone quantitative HRM studies will be particularly appreciated, including supervised learning, data mining, textual statistics, and longitudinal approaches.

Potential topics

• Data-driven approaches in HRM
• Inductive quantitative research methods
• Big data exploitation and analysis
• Supervised learning applications in HRM
• Data mining techniques
• Textual statistics
• Longitudinal approaches
• Innovative quantitative methods in HRM research
• Theory building from data
• Emerging methodologies in francophone HRM studies

Timeline

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• March 25, 2023: Submission deadline for articles

Juliette Fronty, IUT Toulouse 3

Christelle Havard, BSB Education

Work in organizations is experiencing numerous changes and is questioned by several challenges. The integration of ecological issues in productive and organizational choices, along with the development of digital technologies and artificial intelligence, is modifying the nature of work performed, its modalities, and the relationships that workers develop with each other and with various organizational stakeholders such as managers, clients, and suppliers. The rise of digital platforms is also changing the relationship to work and the nature of services provided by workers, who become to some extent independent. The growing diversity of worker profiles and expectations, combined with increasing aspiration for remote work, complexifies work situations and disrupts team functioning and managerial relationships.

These challenges put tension on work and on the various forms of social dialogue existing in organizations: institutionalized social dialogue (formal and informal) involving management and employee representatives in instances and negotiation spaces, as well as proximity social dialogue occurring between workers, their direct managers, and employee representatives present in teams. New subjects must be addressed at both dialogue levels: the consequences of ecological and digital transition on work, such as remote work arrangements. New forms of collective representation are also emerging at organizational boundaries, challenging traditional social dialogue actors: neo-unions are emerging around ecological issues; non-unionized collectives represent digital platform workers. Direct participation spaces called professional dialogue by practitioners are created at team levels and question proximity social dialogue. These challenges therefore interrogate social dialogue through its actors (traditional actors like unions and new actors), its objects (work and its regulation), its spaces (infra-organizational and at organizational boundaries), and its modalities (mechanisms aiming to organize these different types and levels of dialogue).

In accordance with the editorial line of the journal @grh, this special issue can welcome theoretical or empirical contributions based on qualitative or quantitative methodologies. Contributions can be written in French or English and concern organizations in France or internationally.

Potential topics

• Effects of remote work on collective representation modalities, proximity social dialogue, and professional dialogue
• How networked or flattened organizational forms modify spaces and modalities of social dialogue on work
• Articulations between social dialogue and professional dialogue, between formal and informal social dialogue concerning work mutations
• Employee access to organizational governance, new forms of participation and voice, and dialogue about work
• Use of virtual tools and artificial intelligence, their effects on work, and dialogue by actors about these technologies
• Spaces where ecological transformation effects on work are discussed, actors involved, and the nature of ecological social dialogue
• Collective representation of independent workers and platform workers, conceptions of work they promote, and dialogue instances
• Digital transformation and artificial intelligence effects on work nature, modalities, and worker relationships
• Ecological transition challenges in productive and organizational choices
• Diversity of worker profiles and expectations, remote work aspirations, and impacts on team functioning and managerial relations
• New collective representation forms emerging at organizational boundaries challenging traditional social dialogue actors
• Direct participation spaces called professional dialogue created at team levels

Timeline

• June 1, 2024: Publication of call for contributions
• January 15, 2025: Paper submission deadline
• April 1, 2025: Feedback to authors
• June 1, 2025: Reception of revised article versions
• September 1, 2025: Final acceptance of selected articles
• December 1, 2025: Publication of special issue

La 5e conférence de la revue CCA se tiendra à Concordia (Montréal) le 6 février 2026.

Timeline

• September 1, 2025: Date limite de soumission

Nancy Côté, Université Laval

Jean-Louis Denis, University of Toronto

Henri Bergeron, Sciences Po

Tracey L. Adams, University of Western Ontario

Ce numéro spécial vise à interroger l'articulation entre la nécessité de réformer nos systèmes de santé et de services sociaux et les enjeux d'engagement et de mobilisation au travail que ces transformations soulèvent. Il s'inscrit dans une réflexion sur les façons de concilier la performance des systèmes de santé et le bien-être des personnes au travail.

Une approche critique des enjeux de mobilisation et d'engagement devient essentielle pour penser des politiques et des modes de gestion des ressources humaines plus novateurs et plus attentifs aux besoins et aux expériences des personnes au travail, et plus socialement légitimes, en intégrant les enjeux de justice organisationnelle, de conditions de travail et de voix des salariés, notamment à travers les relations avec les gestionnaires de proximité.

Souvent réduites à un enjeu de motivation au travail, ce numéro propose d'aborder la mobilisation et l'engagement comme des phénomènes profondément sociaux, situés à l'intersection des évolutions sociétales et des dynamiques propres au monde du travail. Cela conduit, au-delà des motivations individuelles, à s'intéresser aux contextes de travail dans lesquels les individus exercent leur métier ou leur profession, ainsi qu'aux environnements sociaux qui façonnent leurs statuts, les expériences du travail et les aspirations au travail.

Potential topics

• L'articulation entre la nécessité de réformer les systèmes de santé et de services sociaux et les enjeux d'engagement et de mobilisation au travail
• La conciliation entre la performance des systèmes de santé et le bien-être des personnes au travail
• Les enjeux de justice organisationnelle et de conditions de travail
• La voix des salariés et les relations avec les gestionnaires de proximité
• La mobilisation et l'engagement comme phénomènes sociaux situés à l'intersection des évolutions sociétales et des dynamiques du travail
• Les contextes de travail et les environnements sociaux qui façonnent les statuts et les expériences du travail
• Les aspirations au travail et les politiques innovantes de gestion des ressources humaines

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Date limite d'envoi des soumissions

Patrick Cohendet, HEC Montréal

Bastian Lange, Université Humboldt de Berlin

Elke Schüßler, Université Leuphana de Lüneburg

Laurent Simon, HEC Montréal

Timeline

• October 31, 2026: Deadline for paper submission

Emmanuel Kamdem, ESSEC Douala

Zouhour Ben Hamadi, ESSCA

Helena Karjalainen, EM Normandie

Konan A. Seny Kan, emlyon business school

Serge Agbodjo, Université de Toulouse

Yosra Hammami, Esprit School of Business

This special issue explores the themes of secrecy and silence in the management of organizations across Africa. It examines how these phenomena shape organizational practices, culture, and decision-making processes in African business contexts.

Potential topics

• Secret et silence dans le management des organisations
• Organizational management in African contexts
• Secrecy and silence in organizational settings
• Management practices in African organizations

Timeline

• November 30, 2026: Submission deadline

Arthur Nguyen, Université de Rouen Normandie

Ahmed Benmecheddal, Université de Lorraine

Noémie Dominguez, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3

Jack Tillotson, Université de Vaasa

Timeline

• January 30, 2027: Deadline

Karine Goglio, Kedge Business School

Marion Neukam, Université de Strasbourg

Florence Crespin-Mazet, Kedge Business School

Patrick Cohendet, HEC Montréal

Eric Davoine, Université de Fribourg

Timeline

• July 30, 2026: Submission deadline

Franck Barès, HEC Montréal

Jean-François Chanlat, Université Paris-Dauphine-PSL

Emmanuelle Dubocage, emlyon business school

Timeline

• October 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Vera Ivanaj, Université de Lorraine

Silvester Ivanaj, ICN Business School

Niti Bhasin, Université de Delhi

John McIntyre, Institut de Technologie de Géorgie

Timeline

• April 28, 2025: Submission deadline

Luc Brès, Université Laval

Raymond Paquin, Université Concordia

Thomas Bauwens, Université Erasmus

Emmanuel Raufflet, HEC Montréal

Adriane MacDonald, Université Concordia

Bart van Hoof, Université des Andes de Bogota

Timeline

• March 6, 2025: |Call for papers announcement date

Timeline

• November 5, 2026: Deadline for paper submission

SIM, AIM, and Haute école Arc are pleased to announce an article development workshop. A plenary session with the editor-in-chief of SIM will precede this workshop.

Timeline

• April 2, 2026: Deadline for article submissions
• May 20, 2026: Workshop date in Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Valérie Fernandez, Telecom Paris

Bénédicte Geffroy, IMT Atlantique

Liette Lapointe, McGill University

Jean-François Berthevas, Université de La Rochelle

As Orlikowski and Iacono (2001) emphasize, information systems (IS) researchers not only have the opportunity to influence the future, but they also have the responsibility to do so by documenting what digital technologies change, capturing what disappears, and what is being created.

In the healthcare sector, recent years have been marked by massive growth in innovations and the implementation of digital technologies: the development of mobile health, the deployment of digital patient monitoring devices, the operationalization of integrated electronic medical records systems, the introduction of artificial intelligence applied to clinical diagnostics, the development of immersive therapies via virtual reality, and the use of blockchain technology. However, beyond the proliferation of innovative digital devices, what now stands out seems to be of a different order: their interdependence, which nurtures new forms of complexity, the quantification at work (data-intensive medicine), and the unprecedented modes of instantaneous calculation (algorithmic medicine) that support them, as well as the connectivity challenges (telemedicine).

Data analysis and Artificial Intelligence (AI), driven by the acceleration of data collection in the sector, are ushering in disruptions and radical innovations in healthcare. Rapid advancements in AI are creating new opportunities in healthcare. These technologies alone have a transformative power on the industry and society. But through their integration, their disruptive effects increase exponentially, raising new issues.

Thus, the more organizations collect data due to increased integration of digital devices, the more the issue of privacy protection becomes critical. With the dissemination of self-learning algorithms, cybersecurity concerns become even more critical. This new generation of digital innovations also raises new governance questions, particularly regarding the involvement of new stakeholders in healthcare system analysis, represented by the intervention of non-human agents in automated and algorithmic decision systems.

Similarly, explainability, accountability, relationships between healthcare professionals, and the organization of work represent major challenges associated with the use of AI in healthcare organizations. The complexity of algorithms and the colossal volume of data used by AI make it extremely difficult to understand and thus explain the functioning and results produced by AI. The question of responsibility for healthcare professionals and the organizations to which they belong becomes even more acute when they use this technology. From a managerial perspective, the use of AI is a major disruptive element in healthcare management systems, contributing to the transformation of relationships among stakeholders and the emergence of new work organizations that require new skills. Providing patients with broader access to healthcare via telemedicine or connected devices for remote monitoring profoundly changes the organization of care and the role of the patient. It also raises numerous challenges in terms of health equity and trust.

For some, this represents a significant break. For others, technological advancements in healthcare oscillate between continuity and a shift. Many studies have shown that the impact of early generations of information technology on healthcare has been far below expectations. And even though the COVID crisis accelerated the digital transformation of the healthcare sector, the sector, and even more so the medico-social sector, remain marked by slow adoption of innovations in digital health technologies.

The transformative potential of digital technologies in the healthcare sector remains complex to grasp, as it is embedded in structural specificities. The complexity of the domain is related to the multiplicity of competing and/or cooperating actors (industrials, consumers, patients, healthcare professionals, insurance companies), and an institutional environment characterized by multiple levels of regulation and the power of professional bodies. The ongoing challenge of integrating legacy systems, the diversity of technological platforms, and strict regulations pose major interoperability issues. Governments, providers, and users must agree on interoperability and standardization frameworks in a constantly evolving regulatory context. Each new technology integrated into the healthcare pathway introduces a multiplicity of changes in the existing context, creating obstacles and resistance that may affect the social and spatial organization of care, the division of medical and paramedical labor, and interactions among various stakeholders. Power dynamics at play in the healthcare industry are highlighted in studies on IS governance and the direction of AI development, and internal power dynamics within a healthcare organization, as well as external dynamics that often play out between patients and caregivers.

Is the transformative power of digital technologies in healthcare likely to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare systems? As the World Health Organization (2021) reminds us, digital innovations aim to transform the delivery of healthcare services, making them more accessible, personalized, and potentially more efficient.

Emerging technologies in healthcare present new challenges and renew issues due to the unpredictable discontinuities brought about by technologies like AI and their integration, or even their expansion across the entire sector. They offer significant opportunities for future research and the potential to renew theoretical and methodological approaches in IS management. In order to overcome past difficulties and address the complexity of the field, scholars advocate for interdisciplinary approaches in healthcare and information technology. The healthcare field represents a rich environment from which new theories can be developed and existing theories extended in the field of IS.

This special issue is open to contributions from interdisciplinary and sociotechnical perspectives, often considered one of the foundational viewpoints in IS discipline. Submissions should focus on the ongoing transformations driven by innovative digital health technologies and grasp the magnitude of these changes. Contributions on the medico-social sector, which is currently under-researched, will be appreciated. Contributions may include empirical, theoretical, or meta-analysis papers.

Potential topics

• The challenges of AI in healthcare (ethics, responsibility, etc.)
• Patient empowerment and healthcare democracy
• The 'techno-push' dynamics of digital health technologies and industrial influence on the pace and direction of innovations in this field (particularly AI)
• The challenge of new forms of multi-level governance in healthcare
• The new generation of digital health technologies and their vulnerabilities
• The care pathway and technologies
• Hospital-city cooperation/coordination

Timeline

• September 30, 2025: Submission Deadline
• December 20, 2025: First-round Notification
• March 20, 2026: Revision Deadline
• June 1, 2026: Second/Final Decision by Invited Editors
• July 1, 2026: Publication Decision by Editorial Board
• September 1, 2026: Publication Date

Florence Laval, Université de Poitiers

Anass Mawadia, Université de Poitiers

Aurélie Dudézert, IMT-BS

Nathalie Mitev, University of Münster

This special issue focuses on the plasticity of working methods in the digital workplace, examining how organizations and individuals adapt their work practices in response to digital technologies and transformations. The issue explores the flexibility, malleability, and evolution of work methods as they are shaped by digital tools, platforms, and organizational contexts.

Potential topics

• Plasticity of working methods in digital environments
• Digital workplace practices and adaptability
• Evolution of work methods in response to digital transformation

Timeline

• February 3, 2024: Deadline for submitting an abstract to the workshop organized at the AIM Conference
• April 3, 2024: Response to the authors for participation in the workshop
• May 27, 2024: Preparatory workshop to support the authors and offer them constructive feedback in order to improve the articles before submission
• September 1, 2024: Deadline for submission of manuscripts for the special issue of the journal
• October 15, 2024: Response to the authors
• November 30, 2024: Deadline to submit the final version

Anaïs Boutru, Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL

Linda Rouleau, HEC Montréal

Géraldine Schmidt, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Albéric Tellier, Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL

Management research has long been populated by celebrated cases that have achieved the status of founding myths. Cases such as IBM's blindness to personal computing, Xerox's strategic myopia toward the graphical user interface, Nokia's fall to smartphones, the Mann Gulch fire, and Elton Mayo's Hawthorne experiments have become ubiquitous in the field's collective memory. These 'cold cases', endlessly cited and taught, structure ways of thinking and provide a shared foundation of representations that are central to the construction of epistemic communities.

Despite their pervasive influence, few studies scrutinize the empirical robustness, theoretical validity, or performativity of these emblematic cases. In management research, particularly in qualitative research, the risk of circularity is significant. Researchers working with inevitably heterogeneous and incomplete material may, even unconsciously, select data that confirm their theoretical priors, set aside disconfirming evidence, and ultimately favor demonstrations of the 'as if' type.

Management research's pursuit of 'theoretical gaps' has often privileged the production of new concepts at the expense of verification, reinterpretation, or falsification. This predilection leads to a stratification of knowledge where certain studies become canonical and generate 'halo effects', while others sink into oblivion not because they are invalid, but because they do not fit the dominant narratives of the discipline.

The aim of this special issue is to 'reopen the files of management' by challenging established truths, revisiting myths, excavating forgotten cases, and analyzing the processes of canonization and erasure that structure disciplinary memory. Famous cases such as Kodak, IBM, Enron, and Nokia must be regarded as epistemic artifacts, produced, reproduced, and sometimes distorted by scholarly communities, bearing narrative, moral, and institutional dimensions.

M@n@gement has established itself as a privileged venue for critical, reflexive, and interdisciplinary approaches in management research. This special issue continues this tradition by inviting the community to undertake an archaeology of its own knowledge. Revisiting 'cold cases' means interrogating how management research constructs its own history, its certainties, and its silences. It is a call to strengthen the cumulative and self-critical dimension of the field by restoring a rightful place to research grounded in the replication of experiments, the challenging of established findings, and recontextualization.

At a time when researchers are constantly pressured to produce 'new' knowledge, this special issue proposes to rehabilitate slow, reflexive research capable of revisiting taken-for-granted assumptions, reopening closed debates, and reinvigorating the controversies that are constitutive of knowledge production.

Potential topics

• Reexamination and reinterpretation of canonical management cases (IBM, Xerox, Nokia, Kodak, Enron, etc.)
• Empirical robustness and theoretical validity of emblematic cases in management scholarship
• Performativity of famous cases and their role as epistemic artifacts
• Processes of canonization and erasure in disciplinary memory
• Circularity in qualitative management research and issues of confirmation bias
• Role of founding myths in structuring management thinking and epistemic communities
• Halo effects and the stratification of knowledge in management research
• Forgotten cases and alternative narratives in management history
• Critical reexamination of the Hawthorne experiments and other foundational studies
• Replication, falsification, and verification in management research
• Archaeology of management knowledge and disciplinary self-reflexivity

Timeline

• October 14, 2026: Pre-submission workshop (online)
• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Sarah Richard, Audencia Business School

Lucie Noury, Audencia Business School

Pauline de Becdelièvre, Université Paris Saclay

Céline Louche, Waikato Management School—University of Waikato

Stéphan Pezé, Université Toulouse Capitole

The production and dissemination of knowledge, particularly on inequalities, climate change, and biodiversity, are increasingly under attack. These attacks are reflected in some political and administrative decisions adopted across several national contexts, such as the measures taken by President Donald Trump since his return to power. Beyond the US, academic freedom is being directly or indirectly undermined in many countries. For example, in France, controversies surrounding 'Islamo-leftism' within universities, reignited by the Minister of Higher Education, have been accompanied by concrete attacks on several scientific institutions.

Although research on grand challenges, sustainability, and ecosystem transitions is still ongoing, climate policies and the low-carbon transition are also under attack from many sides. These attacks range from climate scepticism to misinformation and lobbying, and aim to delay or weaken existing or future standards, as illustrated by the recent deregulation movement in Europe around the Omnibus law. Despite research pointing to the depletion of global resources, sustainable finance, ESG investing, and CSR are becoming increasingly polarized. Some asset managers are taking a more cautious approach to their commitments, and major players such as BlackRock announced in 2024 that they would be withdrawing ESG-labelled financial products. Some companies are reviewing their CSR practices and communication by adopting withdrawal or 'silence' strategies.

At the same time, the movement for equity, equality, and inclusion seems to be reaching a peak when it comes to considering diverse identities within organizations. And yet, it is simultaneously accompanied by growing opposition. The murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protests in 2020 intensified diversity initiatives, while fuelling a conservative backlash. In connection with these events, the public statements of certain companies, far from achieving consensus, have sometimes crystallized negative reactions.

Finally, the flexibilisation of work is also undergoing changes. While teleworking, part-time work and flexible hours have become the norm, particularly because of the health crisis, the ideal of constant availability remains dominant. Barriers to the use of these arrangements, such as stigmatization and career penalties, persist and are even becoming more pronounced, while calls for a return to the office are growing.

Whether it be attacks on science, the retreat from climate and financial commitments, the contestation of inclusion policies or the questioning of individualized management systems, these developments reflect a critical re-evaluation of social and ecological advances perceived as progressive: a phenomenon known as 'backlash'.

At its most basic level, backlash is defined as resistance to social progress. It is an active 'counterattack' against initiatives, programmes, knowledge, and policies that aim to change existing patterns of inequality and injustice. Used at a political level, the term refers to a retrograde goal of returning to a previous social condition, using extraordinary objectives and tactics that challenge dominant narratives to interfere with the dominant public discourse. The concept of 'backlash' emerged in the 1970s in the United States, in political science, to describe and analyse right-wing extremism. The emphasis is then placed on the link between 'backlash' and symbolic investment in the past: beyond simple opposition, backlash is often associated with fear of loss and nostalgia for an idealized past. In the 1990s, the feminist movement took up this notion, suggesting that every advance made by women triggers a hostile reaction to block or reverse their gains. Since then, it has been particularly mobilized in the field of gender studies and research on diversity, equality, and inclusion, which combine backlash with the study of the negative social and economic consequences affecting individuals who go against social norms.

Today, some researchers attribute a systematic nature to backlash. All projects aiming for social justice encounter resistance from privileged groups seeking to restore or maintain their power, contributing to a growing polarization of opinions. This development has been fuelled by several structural and psychological factors that have broadened its scope, including fear of losing resources, fear of the emergence of new dominant values, and questioning of existing values.

In management literature, the issue has mainly been explored from the perspective of diversity. Studies have focused on how women, particularly those in leadership positions, who challenge gender stereotypes may face a number of sanctions, such as hostile messages, negative evaluations, lack of promotion, or tensions with colleagues.

However, in a context where organizations play an increasingly political role, where they constitute a microcosm reflecting societal aspirations, and are part of increasingly connected networks of stakeholders, the phenomenon of backlash impacts organizations as a whole. Management and organization studies, together with other disciplines such as political science, sociology and psychology, can contribute to exploring the phenomenon at the institutional, organizational, managerial, and individual levels to shed new light on these dynamics, help us analyse them critically and position ourselves, as researchers and practitioners, in these debates.

At the institutional level, backlash can be understood through the three pillars—regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive—that structure the legitimacy of practices. It is not simply a matter of decline, but rather the outcome of institutional efforts aimed at undermining or redefining norms that were previously thought to be established. For example, the recent decline in commitment to sustainable development in the United States is based on anti-ESG laws passed in 37 states and decisions by the Supreme Court. At the same time, a 'backlash industry' is mobilizing framing marketing strategies to influence norms and representations. Nevertheless, institutional work does not only serve to destabilize institutions; it can also aim to defend, maintain, or strengthen them through various institutional maintenance practices involving stakeholders both inside and outside organizations.

At the organizational level, backlash can be overt, as illustrated by the explicit withdrawal of social or environmental policies under pressure following governance or political evolutions. These changes can generate opposition from stakeholders and can prove difficult to implement depending on how deeply rooted they are in regulations, culture, or processes. Alongside these apparent shifts, more subtle forms of backlash are also emerging: resource reductions, the withdrawal of objectives, silence, and changes in vocabulary, generating tensions between discourse and practice. Among stakeholders, trade unions play a central role in protecting existing rights. They constitute a counter-power that can either slow down backlash or contribute to it.

Managers appear to be key intermediaries, caught up in contexts of ambiguity, conflicting values and contradictory demands. Neither mere executors nor fully autonomous, they are faced with moral and political dilemmas, which sometimes lead them to support strategic changes, and sometimes to resist or attempt to preserve certain commitments. However, backlash remains poorly conceptualized as a specific managerial challenge with both organizational and societal dimensions.

At the individual level, organizational contexts characterized by normative uncertainty or contested values can exacerbate the identity and moral tensions experienced by individuals, with lasting effects on their commitment, well-being and career choices. These tensions drive action, with employees who are particularly sensitive to social or environmental issues making their voices heard within organizations in the form of internal activism. But threat is as much a cause as a consequence of backlash: it can emerge from perceived threats to the identity, status, or legitimacy of certain dominant groups, revealing ambivalent dynamics.

Taken together, these different levels do not function in isolation but feed into each other: institutional transformations redefine the organizational and managerial scope for action, which influences individual experiences, which in turn can help to consolidate, influence, or challenge existing institutional frameworks.

This special issue aims to contribute to the theorization of the backlash phenomenon by analysing its institutional, organizational, managerial, and individual manifestations. The objective is to gain a better understanding of the internal and external mechanisms that promote backlash, as well as its effects and their complex relationships. Ultimately, this special issue will seek to understand the representations and experiences of the various stakeholders faced with backlash, including the multiple forms of resistance it can generate.

This special issue calls for papers based on a variety of methodological and conceptual approaches and encourages the adoption of multidisciplinary approaches at the intersection of management science, sociology, political science, psychology, communication, philosophy and law, among others. Submitted articles may be conceptual or empirical and based on a variety of ontologies. They may explore in depth one of the manifestations of backlash (e.g. questioning of science, environmental commitments, DEI policies, or flexible work), take a more comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of backlash, or conduct comparative studies. Submitted manuscripts may also offer an analysis focused on a specific level of analysis (individual, managerial, organizational, or institutional) or undertake a multi-level analysis.

Potential topics

• What are the different forms of backlash affecting organizations? Are there 'invisible' forms of backlash?
• How and to what extent does backlash contribute to the deinstitutionalization of established norms (e.g. ESG, DEI, climate)?
• What forms of institutional work produce or hinder backlash?
• What roles do different modes of governance and different forms of organization play in weakening or, conversely, protecting social progress? Are democratic organizations, in particular, more or less prone to backlash?
• How do organizations respond, resist, protect themselves, and participate in backlash?
• What are the risks, uncertainties, and tensions generated by backlash? How can they be managed?
• What forms of collective response are organized to face backlash (e.g. meta-organizations, networks, lobbying)?
• How do individuals participate in or resist backlash (e.g. through employee activism)?
• What is the impact of backlash on individuals (identity, career paths, values, social representations, experience)?
• How does backlash transform or disrupt individuals' relationships with work and the company?
• What forms of individual and collective resistance to backlash can be observed? What are the conditions and effects of this resistance?
• What is the role of researchers and what stance should they adopt in response to this phenomenon?
• What methodological and epistemological approaches are best suited to studying backlash, its mechanisms, and its consequences? What methodological innovations are needed to better understand its contemporary forms?
• How can organizational theory contribute to understanding the phenomenon of backlash?
• What are the multi-level interactions between societal, organizational, and individual backlash?
• How can backlash contribute to the emergence of other backlashes?

Timeline

• October 19, 2026: Deadline for paper proposals to workshop (maximum 3,000 words, including references)
• November 19, 2026: Online paper development workshop organized by the guest editorial team across different time zones
• February 1, 2027: Opening of submission period for full papers
• June 1, 2027: Deadline for full paper submission
• December 1, 2028: Publication date

Call for papers for a special issue on imagining post-growth.

Timeline

• January 15, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Masatoshi Kato, Kwansei Gakuin University

David Audretsch, Indiana University

Roy Thurik, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Maksim Belitski, University of Reading

Alex Coad, Waseda Business School

Eric Liguori, Florida State University

Rapid technological change, globalization of supply chains and demand, increasing physical and digital connectivity, and inter-dependencies between actors in innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems are forcing entrepreneurs and managers to rethink how they organize beyond the manufacturing of products and services, how they innovate, what technologies they adopt, and what markets they enter. The forms and models of organization affect a firm's ability to become exceptional. At the core of firm organization, the factors that distinguish them from their counterparts in the industry and region are firm size, firm age, stage of entrepreneurial continuum, institutional context, and technology-savviness. Firms that have been able to optimize their organization will outperform their regional competitors, markets, and industry; create new forms of growth at a different pace; and approach the innovation and production frontier. Through organizations in different forms, entrepreneurs and mature firms create product and process innovation and coordinate people, external ecosystem actors, government, suppliers, and capital to achieve frontier outcomes.

This collection is especially interested in organizational forms enabling rapid growth without compromising productivity, efficiency, and societal impact, and facilitating innovation and market entry, firm resilience, and survival within both firm shocks and exogenous shocks. Moreover, the collection is interested in understanding how firms' high growth, scaling, and exceptional performance are driven by novel organizational forms. This focus is timely for the Journal of Small Business Management as an intellectual platform that studies why and how the most novel forms and models of organization in performance, growth, efficiency, and innovation are emerging in large tech firms and in exceptional performers among micro-, small-, and micro-firms, in social entrepreneurial firms, and even non-profit organizations. The special focus includes the novel forms of organization that allow for persistent steady growth, high value added, and other exceptional performers—such as niche innovators, scaleups, accelerators, blitzscalers, hidden champions, and Mittelstand-type firms and hyperspecialized firms—that repeatedly outperform their counterparts in the industry.

By combining specific forms of organization, these firms often operate nearby or at the innovation and production frontier despite constrained resources and through global or localized resource orchestration. Hidden champions or niche innovators—for example, hyperspecialized digital and non-digital firms that focus on a small set of activities and scale through digital technologies or localized networks and interdependencies with complements and partners often plugging into collaborators' value chains—are highly successful small firms that hold top global market positions in niche segments.

Global outreach is an important locus to understand novel forms of organization. Global firms, such as micro-multinationals or born-global firms, are young and small firms that internationalize early, working with a lean core and extensive external partners for production, distribution, or customer acquisition, and often relying on global value-chain orchestrators. While prior work has examined financial performance, resource management, scaling, and innovation in such firms, most evidence comes from European contexts, with little evidence from other regions of the world. For example, niche leaders in parts of Asia may begin with an imitation strategy and then move up the value ladder. These firms may be more likely to pursue listing and brand recognition, may expand into adjacent domains beyond niche focus, and may balance domestic and global knowledge via investment in training, R&D, and engagement with ecosystem actors regionally and globally. Little is known about how organizational forms differ across regions, industries, countries, and clusters, or which specific characteristics enable them to experiment, adopt, and develop certain forms of organization that ensure their exceptional performance.

This online collection invites work that theorizes and empirically examines novel forms and models of organization, including structures, processes, architectures, institutions, and governance, that enable firms of different ages, sizes, and niche focus to approach or redefine the productivity and innovation frontier. The collection welcomes research that opens the black box of novel forms and models of organization, enabling firms to outperform their close and distant competitors, recombine a variety of knowledge, and adopt new modes of working, hiring, and innovating to achieve exceptional performance. Additionally, the collection welcomes research that explains when, how, and why particular organizational forms and models outperform others across regions, industries, clusters, and ecosystems in diverse contexts of high-cost developed economies, high-cost emerging economies, and other developing economies.

This collection is expected to investigate how novel forms of organization can appear beyond the OECD and WEIRD countries representing Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies (primarily North America, Western Europe, Australia, and parts of East Asia like Japan/South Korea). Interestingly, most developed Asian economies have actively identified and cultivated niche leaders and innovators through national programs, such as Japan's Global Niche Top Companies Selection 100 and South Korea's World-Class 300 & Global Specialized Enterprise Cultivation. In China, two policy-driven categories—niche champions and specialized, advanced, differentiated, and innovative firms—aim to move small businesses up global value chains, emphasizing market performance, strategic uniqueness through innovation, competitive advantage, internationalization, and sustainable growth. Understanding new forms and models of organization for innovation and firm growth will create a rich empirical setting and extend existing growth and innovation theories.

Potential topics

• How do firms adopting novel forms of organization differ in leadership, governance, and decision-making, and how do these differences shape innovation and productivity at the frontier?
• What internal microstructures (e.g., boards, design, cross-functional teams, routines) enable firms to combine and recombine internal capabilities with external knowledge and ecosystem actors to achieve exceptional performance?
• How do novel organizational forms affect authority, accountability, and coordination across functions, and what are the effects on innovation speed, product and managerial innovation, value creation, talent retention, growth, and scaling?
• Which combinations of internal investment (make), external acquisition (buy), and alliance orchestration (ally) constitute novel organizational models that sustain frontier performance across firm types (hidden champions, niche leaders, sustained innovators, blitzscalers, scalers, etc.)?
• How does the diversity (institutional and geographic) of external knowledge and innovation partners translate into firms adopting novel forms of organization, and what internal routines convert diverse inputs into outcomes?
• Under what conditions do international vs regional knowledge collaboration and spillovers generate non-redundant knowledge that improves innovation and performance, and how do firms with different organizational forms apply, filter, and integrate this knowledge?
• How does digitalization (AI and robotics, data systems, cloud, prominent role of intangibles, etc.) reshape internal process architectures, and which organizational forms best convert digital investments into productivity and innovation gains?
• Which governance models (data rights, intellectual property, cybersecurity, partner contracts) enable novel organizational forms to adopt and scale complex technologies while maintaining trust and control in technology and partners?
• How do digitally savvy firms pivot and reconfigure organizational forms to build resilience to supply, demand, and geopolitical shocks, and what design features predict faster recovery and sustained innovation?
• How do firms implement novel forms of organization while embedded in industry and entrepreneurial ecosystems, and how does ecosystem position shape organizational models for innovation and scaling?
• How do niche leaders and other exceptional performers orchestrate global supply chains as an organizational capability, not only a sourcing choice, across regional and international contexts?
• What partner portfolio mixes (universities, suppliers, customers, competitors, government, research labs, conferences, competitions, trade and industrial associations, scientific communities) are associated with frontier outcomes, and what form of organization do firms need to adopt to efficiently govern such collaborations, knowledge spillovers, and firm strategies?
• How do relationships with government shape novel organizational models through procurement, standards, subsidies, and cluster governance, and when do these relationships enhance versus constrain innovation and productivity?
• How do organizational models vary between emerging and traditional industries and across industrial clusters of novel and emerging industries where traditional forms of organization are no longer working?
• How do deglobalization pressures and techno-nationalism reshape firms' organizational choices?
• What distinctive business model configurations characterize exceptional performers across countries, regions, industries, and stages of growth, age, and size, and how are these configurations enabled by organizational form?
• How do European, Asian, American, and African leaders in WEIRD and non-WEIRD countries differ in adopting and experimenting with novel forms of organization?
• What contextual factors explain these cross-country differences?
• Do niche leaders exhibit distinctive innovation patterns (radical vs incremental, product vs process, ecosystem vs standalone), and which organizational designs best explain variation in these patterns and their performance effects?

Timeline

• November 1, 2026: Manuscript submission opens
• November 15, 2026: Submission deadline for extended abstracts and full papers
• January 31, 2027: Manuscript deadline

Anastasios Xepapadeas, Athens University of Economics and Business

Simone Marsiglio, University of Pisa

Luca Gori, University of Pisa

In recent years, the global transition toward sustainable and low-carbon economic systems has encountered increasing political and social resistance. This phenomenon—broadly termed "anti-environmentalism"—encompasses a range of behaviors, beliefs, and policy stances that oppose or undermine environmental regulation, renewable energy expansion, and climate mitigation efforts. While green growth remains a central framework for reconciling economic development with ecological preservation, its implementation is increasingly conditioned by public acceptance, political will, and institutional credibility. Understanding how and why opposition to environmental policy arises—and how it interacts with economic incentives and policy design—is therefore a critical problem from both policy and academic perspectives.

It is therefore essential to examine the implications for pathways toward green growth and sustainable development when environmental considerations—particularly those related to climate change—are neglected under the influence of anti-environmentalist attitudes. This concern is made more urgent by scientific evidence indicating that climate change increases both the frequency and magnitude of extreme events, thereby amplifying expected damages. Moreover, the growing likelihood of transgressing critical planetary boundaries underscores the importance of understanding anti-environmentalist movements, which, if embedded in policy, could accelerate such boundary crossings. In addition, anti-environmentalist positions may hinder the mechanisms of creative destruction that facilitate transitions to low-carbon economies, offering a further area of relevance for the proposed Special Issue.

This Special Issue will bring together leading research in environmental economics, macroeconomics, political economy, and behavioral economics to explore the drivers, dynamics, and implications of anti-environmentalism for sustainable growth. It aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of how economic systems can maintain progress toward green growth amidst political polarization and societal backlash. We welcome a broad range of techniques and approaches, including optimal control, game theory, political economy, and network theory. Special attention will be given to methodological (theoretical, empirical or experimental) contributions aiming at disentangling the multifaceted nature of the anti-environmentalism and green growth relationship.

This Call for Papers is related to the HEDGE (Health, Environment, Development and Growth Economics) conference which will take place in Pisa on 5-7 February 2026, but it is open to everyone. Both conference participants and non-participants are encouraged to submit high-quality papers dealing with topics related to anti-environmentalism and green growth, broadly defined.

Potential topics

• Economic, social and political determinants of anti-environmental attitudes and behavior
• The impact of populism, misinformation, and lobbying on climate and environmental policy outcomes
• Public perception and resistance to carbon taxation, green industrial policies, and regulation
• Distributional and equity aspects of green growth as sources of policy backlash
• The role of institutions and governance in shaping environmental resistance
• International and comparative analyses of anti-environmental movements and climate cooperation
• Behavioral and cultural dimensions of environmental skepticism and pro-growth narratives
• Policy strategies for overcoming anti-environmentalist sentiment and fostering green, just and inclusive transitions
• Economic growth under increasing climate-related extreme event risk, and the costs of climate skepticism

Timeline

• March 31, 2027: Submission deadline

Sarah Meier, ETH Zurich

Eric Strobl, University of Bern

Robert J. R. Elliott, University of Birmingham

In many regions of the world fire seasons have been lengthening, alongside increases in wildfire frequency and intensity. Climate change, shifts in land use, and the expansion of human settlements into fire-prone areas have transformed wildfires from largely localised hazards into systemic risks with cascading effects across ecosystems and economies. These developments have rendered many existing models, policies, and assumptions increasingly outdated, underscoring the urgent need for robust economic evidence to inform policy and private-sector decision making aligned with current and future wildfire conditions.

Wildfires and smoke pollution affect economies through multiple, interconnected channels. Beyond direct suppression costs and physical damages, wildfires disrupt production and supply chains, reduce labour productivity, influence tourism and recreation, and reshape migration and housing-market dynamics. Smoke exposure generates substantial public health burdens and impairs cognitive performance and labour market outcomes. These impacts occur within a context of rising public expenditures on prevention, suppression, and recovery, as well as rapidly evolving policy debates around insurance markets, land-use regulation, adaptation, and risk financing. Together, these dynamics highlight the need for empirical research that quantifies welfare consequences and evaluates the effectiveness of emerging policy responses.

Despite growing attention, many ecological and economic impacts of wildfires and smoke, particularly with regard to their persistence, remain under-studied, especially in regions that have not historically experienced large-scale wildfires but are now facing emerging risks. Cross-regional comparison can therefore support knowledge exchange between regions with long-standing fire experience and those facing emerging vulnerabilities, including across the Global North and South. At the same time, recent advances in data availability, remote sensing, and the use of AI-based technologies for monitoring, early warning, and suppression create new opportunities for applied research.

This Special Issue seeks contributions that advance empirical and policy-relevant understanding of wildfire impacts, as well as analyses that evaluate adaptation and management strategies aimed at reducing their welfare costs. We welcome applied research grounded in environmental, climate, and resource economics, including studies that use new data or innovative identification strategies to address this emerging challenge. Interdisciplinary work is encouraged where it strengthens economic insight into wildfire impacts and informs policy decisions.

Potential topics

• Labour productivity, sectoral employment shifts, and worker mobility
• Housing markets, mortgage risk, and migration and other behavioural responses to wildfire risk and exposure
• Natural capital and ecosystem service valuation, including impacts on biodiversity, recreation, and forest asset pricing
• Inequality, information access, and distributional impacts of exposure and monitoring technologies
• Public finance, insurance markets, and the fiscal consequences for local and regional governments
• Institutions, governance, and risk-sharing arrangements, including coordination across jurisdictions, public-private roles, and firm responses to wildfire risk
• Prevention, suppression, and adaptation strategies, including land-use planning, prescribed burning, indigenous fire stewardship, and advanced monitoring and management technologies
• Welfare losses from smoke exposure, including physical and mental health outcomes and associated human capital effects

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

Lisa A. Robinson, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Olof Bystrom, OECD

Ståle Navrud, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Mortality risk reductions typically dominate the benefits estimates for environmental policies. Recent reviews and syntheses of the value per statistical life (VSL) literature suggest that, while the research base is relatively strong for some settings, it contains significant gaps and inconsistencies. These include the need for more research on how attributes of the population and the risk affect these values. Deciding how to best synthesize and apply the estimates is also challenging.

The value of nonfatal risk reductions receives substantially less attention, although the expected reduction in cases of nonfatal illnesses or injuries associated with environmental policies is frequently large. As is the case for mortality risks, estimates of individual willingness to pay (WTP) are the preferred measure of values. However, due to gaps in the research literature, these risks are often valued using proxies such as averted costs.

Current approaches to valuation also raise a number of questions such as how to appropriately combine values for co-occurring effects and how to address distributional equity. Recent and emerging research addresses all of these problems, including new best practice WTP studies for mortality and morbidity, improved approaches for combining results across studies and transferring the estimates to different contexts, and innovations to address related challenges.

This special issue will highlight important contributions to this work and provide a useful reference for those interested in applying or building upon the results.

Potential topics

• Value per statistical life (VSL) and population attributes affecting mortality risk valuations
• Valuation of nonfatal risk reductions and morbidity using willingness to pay approaches
• Synthesis and application of health valuation estimates across different contexts
• Addressing co-occurring effects and distributional equity in health valuations
• Benefit transfer methods and meta-analysis approaches for health valuation
• Best practice willingness to pay studies for mortality and morbidity risk reductions
• Combining and transferring valuation estimates to different policy contexts
• Methodological innovations in environmental health economic evaluation

Timeline

• October 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Sanchayan Banerjee, King's College London

Lory Barile, University of Warwick

Traditional environmental economics addresses market failures (e.g., externalities, public goods, asymmetric information), using regulation and price-based instruments under a rational choice benchmark. Decades of evidence on bounded rationality, bounded self-interest, and bounded willpower reveal systematic departures from that benchmark, generating behavioural failures that can blunt or distort policy. These departures are well documented across core domains (e.g., environmental valuation, discounting of future outcomes and assets, and utility maximisation) and have given rise to a vibrant subfield: Behavioural Environmental Economics & Policy (BEEP).

This Special Issue will consolidate and showcase new contributions and evidence on how behavioural insights improve the design, delivery, and evaluation of environmental policy. Although BEEP has grown substantially, few efforts have mapped its diverse applications. We aim to fill this gap by providing theoretical, actionable, and evidence-based guidance for researchers and practitioners on putting BEEP into practice. Framed this way, the Special Issue will serve as a practical reference, grounded in recent cases that show why recognising and addressing human behaviour (and its failures) is essential to tackling urgent challenges, from climate change and biodiversity loss to air and water pollution.

We welcome conceptual/theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented submissions that apply behavioural insights to understand, explain, or solve environmental problems. We particularly encourage quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method designs (e.g., field/lab experiments, quasi-/natural experiments, RCTs, process evaluations), though literature reviews and theoretical contributions will also be considered. Overall, we seek contributions that diagnose and integrate market and behavioural failures and that design, test, and evaluate policies, including 'green nudges', that are both effective and welfare-enhancing.

Potential topics

• Interactions between market failures and behavioural failures in environmental settings
• Policy design that combines prices/standards with behavioural tools (defaults, salience/framing, simplification, commitment)
• Welfare analysis (including psychological costs), ethics, and paternalism in environmental policy
• Empirical identification of behavioural mechanisms; field/lab/quasi-experimental evidence
• Heterogeneity, equity, and distributional consequences of behavioural environmental policies
• Replication, meta-analysis, and open-science practices in this domain
• Choice architecture and environmental outcomes
• Interactions between behavioural instruments and prices/regulation
• Welfare measurement and persistence (including psychological costs)
• Distributional and equity dimensions
• Climate cognition and communication
• Evaluation and methods

Timeline

• November 30, 2026: Submission deadline

As organizational scientists, we should be striving to produce useful and replicable research. Recently, how we conduct our research has drawn critique. From our relative disuse of inductive research methods, to unethical practices during the review process, to publication bias, to HARKING, to P-hacking, and so on, we must take meaningful steps so that we and the consumers of our research have confidence that our findings are meaningful, replicable, and honest.

Journal of Business and Psychology will be launching a special initiative — results-masked review submission option. In this alternative path, authors submit the intro, methods, measurement info, and analysis plan of a completed study (no results or discussion in the first round). This abbreviated paper then undergoes peer review and is evaluated on the merits, rigor, and quality of the project rather than what was actually found.

The goal is to encourage authors to propose conceptually sound, interesting, and methodologically rigorous research without concern for whether the results will be statistically significant. Instead, we want the focus to be on the importance of the research question and the rigor of the research design. We should welcome the results from sound research no matter if they support proposed hypotheses, yield null results, or replicate (or fail to replicate) previous work. Simply speaking, well conceived, designed, and conducted research should form the corpus of knowledge.

The results-masked review approach is appropriate for inductive, deductive, mixed methods, and papers involving multiple studies. In the case of the latter type, the author is encouraged to contact the editor to decide on the best approach for submission. There are multiple options as the results-masked review approach is highly flexible. At times, it may make sense to include the first study with results, and then the follow-up studies without results. Other times it is useful to include all studies without results. Overall, an initial conversation with the editor can clarify an approach that makes sense for the project in question. We also welcome traditional registered reports submissions following the same process.

Potential topics

• Inductive and deductive research methods
• Replicable and rigorous research design
• Publication bias and research integrity
• Null results and hypothesis-disconfirming findings
• Mixed methods research
• Multi-study research designs
• Research question importance and methodological rigor
• Registered reports

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Maksim Belitski, Loyola University New Orleans

James Cunningham, Newcastle University

Riccardo Fini, University of Bologna

Simon Mosey, University of Nottingham

Phillip Phan, Johns Hopkins University

The Journal of Technology Transfer is pleased to introduce a new Special Collection on Technology Transfer through Collaboration: Bridging Academia, Policy, and Practice. The collection invites submissions that examine technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and innovation through collaborations between academic researchers and non-academic actors in policy and practice.

Timely and high-quality research on technology transfer often emerges from close interaction between academics, practitioners, and policymakers. Such collaborations can provide access to emerging phenomena, reveal underexplored mechanisms, and generate insights that may not be visible through conventional data sources or established theoretical lenses alone. The aim of this Special Collection is to support rigorous research that draws on boundary-spanning collaborations to advance scholarship on technology transfer while also generating meaningful implications for policy and practice.

The Special Collection particularly welcomes papers co-authored by academics and non-academic actors, including but not limited to technology transfer professionals, policymakers, entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, industry experts, platform managers, R&D managers, and innovation intermediaries. Such collaborations provide unique insights to policy and practice environments, enhance access to data, expand the contextual reach of empirical work, and address fundamental questions through a diversity of collaborative perspectives. Submissions should use collaborative engagement to develop new theory, enrich empirical analysis, access distinctive data, and address important questions in technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Contributions should combine methodological rigor with practical and policy-relevant insight and demonstrate novel, impactful contributions to technology transfer scholarship.

The Special Collection is intended to create a lasting foundation for cumulative scholarly development rather than a one-off set of papers. The Journal of Technology Transfer remains firmly committed to its identity as a double-blind, rigorously peer-reviewed academic journal. Submissions must meet the journal's standards for theoretical contribution, methodological rigor, empirical credibility, and clarity of argument. The goal of this Special Collection is not to relax scholarly standards, but to broaden the range of relevant questions, data sources, contexts, and perspectives that inform high-quality research in technology transfer.

Potential topics

• Papers co-authored by academics and non-academic actors, including technology transfer professionals, policymakers, entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, industry experts, platform managers, R&D managers, and innovation intermediaries
• Technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and innovation through boundary-spanning collaborations
• Development of new theory through collaborative engagement
• Enrichment of empirical analysis using collaborative perspectives
• Access to distinctive data through academic-non-academic partnerships
• Addressing important questions in technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and innovation from multiple collaborative perspectives

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Wisdom Kanda, Linköping University

David Audretsch, Indiana University Bloomington

Magnus Klofsten, Linköping University

Maribel Guerrero, Arizona State University

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

Societal changes, environment, political and financial crises inevitably affect labor markets and the quality of employment. Recent pandemic and global political changes have only demonstrated how quickly one's employment and workplace situation can change. Among other factors, entrepreneurship could play a crucial role in the creation of decent work, especially in a volatile environment.

Understanding the relationship between entrepreneurship and working conditions is crucial for supporting policies and instruments which aim at more productive, decent work, fair wages, better access to the labor market, and improved job opportunities for all.

In order to fully represent this multifaceted topic, we would like to gather a spectrum of current perspectives in a single Collection, facilitating a better understanding of possibilities and ways of striving toward the goal of 'achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all' (SDG 8 of the U.N.).

Submissions to this collection may be research or review articles, depending on the individual journal guidelines. Each submission will undergo thorough and rigorous peer review in accordance with each journal's peer review editorial policy. Accepted articles will be published in the journal they were submitted to, as well as highlighted on this collection page.

Potential topics

• Equal pay for work of equal value
• Gender discrimination in employment
• Immigration and employment
• Labor shortages after COVID-19
• Modern slavery and child labor
• Labor policy
• Entrepreneurial enterprises, SMEs, and family businesses
• Global entrepreneurial firms: organization design, emerging conceptions in entrepreneurship (i.e. born globals), globalization's challenges and opportunities, cultural differences
• Remote work
• Opportunity entrepreneurship as a direct way to generate high quality employment
• Measuring and dealing with positive and negative externalities of new businesses

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Stefano Bresciani, University of Torino

Jawad Abbas, James Cook University

Fauzia Jabeen, Abu Dhabi University

In today's dynamic evolving technology landscape, firms face a transformative wave caused by technological advancements which are omnipresent, from automating manufacturing processes to leveraging big data analytics for strategic decisions. This development warrants entrepreneurial firms to develop digital capabilities strategically to navigate these changes, effectively positioning themselves for innovation and growth and enabling them to improve their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance.

This call for papers focuses on exploring the strategies employed by entrepreneurial firms in building digital capabilities to enhance their ESG performance, addressing challenges, and leveraging opportunities in sustainable business practices.

In an ever-changing technological milieu where technological proficiency is synonymous with competitive advantage, fostering digital capabilities becomes a survival necessity, empowering firms to orchestrate agility, resilience, and sustainable performance. The digital age has ushered in transformative opportunities and challenges, redefining the landscape for entrepreneurial firms striving to align with ethical, social, and environmental responsibilities.

Entrepreneurial ventures, characterized by innovation, agility, and risk-taking, are at the forefront of shaping the future of business. Their unique characteristics make them prime actors in navigating the complexities of integrating digital capabilities for improved ESG outcomes. Improving ESG performance is imperative for organizations, transcending mere compliance to embody a commitment to sustainable and ethical practices. This commitment holds profound implications for various stakeholders, ranging from shareholders to customers, suppliers, employees, and others.

Improved ESG performance mitigates risks associated with environmental impact and social responsibility, enhances corporate reputation, and attracts conscientious investors. Stakeholders increasingly scrutinize ESG metrics as a reflection of an organization's ethical standing and long-term viability. It fosters a symbiotic relationship, aligning corporate objectives with societal expectations and contributing to building a more responsible and resilient business ecosystem.

This Collection aims to unravel the intricate role of building digital capabilities in entrepreneurial firms' improved ESG performance. By exploring this intersection, we seek to understand how digital capabilities can contribute to a more environmentally and socially responsible entrepreneurial firm with a strong governance structure. We invite experimental, conceptual, theoretical, and empirical studies exploring the convergence of digital capabilities in shaping entrepreneurial firms' ESG performance, shed light on challenges, and explain solutions.

While the listed topics and questions are primary interests, we remain open to manuscripts that explain other complexities relevant to digital capabilities and ESG performance. We are keen to receive manuscripts that employ innovative methods and engage deeply with the prevailing dilemmas and dialogues in entrepreneurial research. Your insights and academic rigor will help broaden our collective comprehension of the complexities, challenges, and impacts surrounding building digital capabilities strategies and their implications for ESG performance.

Potential topics

• How do entrepreneurial ventures define and measure ESG performance in the digital era? And what critical digital capabilities contribute to their improved ESG performance?
• What challenges do entrepreneurial firms face in integrating digital solutions to enhance environmental sustainability? What could be the best practices for tackling those challenges?
• What are the possible learning mechanisms and knowledge-sharing processes within entrepreneurial ecosystems that could foster development of digital capabilities for ESG goals?
• What roles do leadership and organizational culture play in fostering digital capabilities for superior ESG performance in entrepreneurial firms?
• How can entrepreneurial firms effectively utilize digital technologies to measure and improve their environmental performance within ESG frameworks?
• How can digital capabilities be harnessed to address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) challenges in entrepreneurial firms, contributing to improved social sustainability?
• How do digitalization efforts impact the governance structures of entrepreneurial firms in the context of sustainability? What actions could be taken to improve it?
• To what extent do regulatory frameworks influence the adoption of digital strategies for ESG compliance in entrepreneurial settings?
• How do digital technologies facilitate transparency and accountability in ESG reporting for entrepreneurial firms?
• How can entrepreneurial firms balance profitability goals with sustainable practices through digital transformations? Under this scenario, which opportunities and challenges could arise?
• What lessons can we learn from recent, real-world cases that showcase the impact of digital capabilities on ESG performance in different industries, particularly entrepreneurial firms, and how can new guidelines lead toward improved ESG performance?

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Diego Matricano, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"

This Multi-Journal Collection is a cross-disciplinary resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers interested in entrepreneurship as a way to address paramount global issues. The collection emphasizes the expected and realized changes as well as the implications related to entrepreneurship phenomena.

Papers featured in this collection investigate the impact of entrepreneurship with an eye toward how it can shape the future, utilizing micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis. The collection welcomes contributions that explore entrepreneurship across diverse contexts and dimensions, including international dimensions, sustainability concerns, demographic characteristics, educational aspects, and ecosystem dynamics.

Potential topics

• Entrepreneurship as a way to address global issues
• Impact of entrepreneurship on shaping the future
• Micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis of entrepreneurship
• Expected and realized changes in entrepreneurship phenomena
• Implications of entrepreneurship phenomena
• International entrepreneurship and globalization
• Sustainable and green entrepreneurship
• Female and women entrepreneurship
• Social entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship education
• Digital entrepreneurship and digitalization
• Startup ecosystems and entrepreneurial ecosystems
• Entrepreneurial motivation and behavior
• Innovation and entrepreneurship
• Risk-taking and resilience in entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial networks and ecosystems
• SMEs and entrepreneurship
• Circular economy and entrepreneurship

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Bibliometrics has a long-standing interest in tracing epistemic change. The question of how epistemic change is reflected in publications is implicit to evaluative bibliometrics because the quality of a paper is measured through its impact, which can be understood as the extent to which a paper changes later research. Beyond this idea underlying bibliometric assessments, the question of how to identify and trace emerging fields or emerging technologies has attracted considerable attention, and the dynamics of topics has been traced with bibliometric methods. These approaches either identify emerging topics and technologies by searching for rapidly growing clusters of publication or trace changes that are known to exist and trace them using citation patterns, keywords or combinations thereof. The current interest in the identification of exceptional papers reflects a similar interest in epistemic change.

The application of bibliometric methods for tracing epistemic change also appears to be hindered by constraints that are not necessary but appear to be somewhat self-inflicted in that they are due to methodological traditions that are taken for granted in bibliometrics. Recent indicators like Innovativeness, Novelty, Originality or Disruptiveness describe single papers and attempt to codify the epistemic change they bring about. This design is based on three implicit assumptions. First, the construction of indicators of epistemic change from metadata of individual papers implies the assumption that the epistemic change is an event rather than a process. Second, the construction of these indicators assumes that the event that is measured by the indicator is fully reported in exactly one paper. Third, indicators sacrifice specificity for comparability, attempting to describe how much epistemic change is represented by a paper while being unable to report the kind of change that has occurred.

These three limitations appear to be the results of choices made by indicator designers rather than fundamental limitations of bibliometrics, and come on top of the only truly fundamental limitation: the dependence of bibliometrics on the signal about a publication's content that is contained by the publication's metadata. This limitation raises a fundamental question about the validity of bibliometric measures of epistemic change. Since we don't know how the content of a paper is reflected in bibliometric metadata, we cannot assess the content or strength of the signal metadata contain and thus cannot know if the signal is validly codified by an indicator.

The special collection presents papers that were developed in a series of workshops which addressed these four challenges, providing perspectives on conceptualisation and operationalisation of epistemic change, construction of ground truths, analysis of metadata content, validation of indicators, and application of artificial intelligence methods to publications.

Potential topics

• Conceptualisation and operationalisation of epistemic change for bibliometric tracing
• Construction of ground truths for development and testing of bibliometric methods
• Metadata content related to epistemic change in bibliographic records
• Validation of established bibliometric indicators against ground truths
• Application of large language models to full texts for identifying epistemic change

Timeline

• October 31, 2026: Submission deadline

S. Tamer Cavusgil, Georgia State University

Marleen Dieleman, IMD Business School

Md. Tareq Hossain, Thammasat University

Ruey-Jer Bryan Jean, National Taiwan University

Destan Kandemir, Georgia State University

Suntichai Kotcharin, Thammasat University

Hussain Rammal, Adelaide University

Southeast Asia has emerged as one of the most consequential yet under-theorized regions in contemporary international business. The ten ASEAN economies collectively form the world's fifth-largest economic bloc, attracted record FDI inflows of approximately US$ 230 billion in 2023 and 2024, and are projected to add roughly 140 million new consumers by 2030. The region has become a critical site for phenomena that strain or extend prevailing IB theory: it is simultaneously a primary beneficiary of China-plus-one supply chain reconfiguration, a launchpad for a new generation of regional multinationals, and a laboratory for institutional heterogeneity, where ten countries with widely divergent political systems, regulatory regimes, religious traditions, and stages of development cooperate without monetary union or labor mobility.

Despite this empirical importance, Southeast Asia remains underrepresented in top international management journals, where research on emerging Asia continues to be dominated by Chinese and Indian contexts and where the theoretical voice of scholars based in the region itself is frequently filtered through Western co-authorship and Western analytical frames. This Focused Issue invites contributions that take Southeast Asian phenomena as theoretically generative rather than merely empirically illustrative, and actively encourages submissions led by scholars based in the region. The issue aims to advance international management theory beyond the BRICS-centric vocabulary that has shaped emerging-market IB research, and to surface concepts, mechanisms, and boundary conditions that the region's distinctive configuration of family capitalism, ethnic-Chinese business networks, state-linked enterprises, hyper-digital consumer markets, and ASEAN-level institutional layering uniquely reveals.

Potential topics

• The Rise and Internationalization of Southeast Asian Multinationals - Theory-building work on springboard, asset-augmentation, and catch-up strategies of ASEAN-origin MNEs; internationalization trajectories compared to Chinese and Indian counterparts; asset-augmentation versus ownership-advantage-based theories of FDI; platform architecture in cross-border expansion of digital-native champions; internationalization of state-linked enterprises under dual commercial and political principals
• Supply-Chain Reconfiguration, Maritime Connectivity, and Regional Supply-Chain Governance - Integration of Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Philippines into reorganized global value chains; upgrading dynamics and co-location strategies with Chinese MNEs; port competitiveness and hinterland connectivity; maritime logistics resilience; multimodal transport-corridor integration; dual-sourcing and supply-chain resilience strategies; digital logistics platforms; ASEAN's role in global production-network reconfiguration
• Cross-Border Trade, Geopolitics, and the Middle-Power Firm - How Southeast Asian firms hedge between US, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and European spheres of influence; non-market strategy under strategic ambiguity; role of Singapore as neutral coordination hub; strategic ambiguity and hedging among ASEAN-based firms; locational advantages of neutral coordination hubs; non-market strategy navigating US-China technology restrictions; implications of middle-power diplomacy for firm internationalization
• Indigenous Theorizing and Methodological Innovation from the Region - Submissions drawing on Southeast Asian intellectual traditions, languages, or fieldwork methods; indigenous concepts such as gotong royong, kreng jai, and bayanihan as theoretical resources; multi-language qualitative research designs and epistemology of translation; postcolonial perspectives on knowledge production; methodological pluralism including ethnographic, historical-archival, and participatory approaches

Timeline

• March 30, 2027: Submission deadline

Jonas Puck, WU Vienna

Srividya Jandhyala, ESSEC Business School

Vera Kunczer, Copenhagen Business School

Harald Puhr, University of Innsbruck

Michael Wolfesberger, WU Vienna

Rising national security concerns, populist politics, and societal pressures have produced fragmentation, i.e., the coexistence of overlapping, conflicting, or weakly coordinated rules and pressures across national, supranational, and societal spheres. MNEs must navigate the triality of home, host, and supranational institutions in cross-border business. Multilateral frameworks that could shape MNE sustainability initiatives, such as the UN SDGs and the Paris Agreement, face domestic resistance in some countries and are part of the legal basis in others. Such tensions between supranational frameworks and nationalist movements or policies can create conflicting institutional logics and institutional schisms. While international institutions shape firms' assessments of their domestic environments, in adapting to these fractured environments, MNEs may also amplify institutional pluralism through local responses.

This focused issue seeks to advance understanding of how MNEs strategize in fractured environments and the resulting stakeholder pressures. Papers may address the proposed areas of focus or other relevant areas related to MNE responses to fragmentation and stakeholder pressures. The issue welcomes interdisciplinary submissions that complement business perspectives with approaches from other disciplines, particularly political science. Both conceptual and empirical papers are welcome, including contributions focused on methodological advances, theory testing, and theory development.

Potential topics

• What drives the exposure of MNEs to institutional fragmentation and fracturing?
• When and how do MNEs integrate market- and non-market strategies across global markets in response to fragmented stakeholder and institutional pressures?
• How do MNEs manage and organize their response strategies across different markets?
• How do institutional fragmentation and geopolitical tensions shape interactions within firms?

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

Tina Dacin, Queen's University

Robin Holt, University of Bristol

Jean Clarke, Emlyon Business School

Jaco Lok, Macquarie University

Max Ganzin, Macquarie University

This Special Issue seeks to foreground the ethical dimensions of venture creation, opportunity recognition, and stakeholder engagement. It invites scholars to reimagine entrepreneurship as an inherently ethical practice, instead of viewing ethics as a constraint or an afterthought in the pursuit of economic gain. The intersection of ethics and entrepreneurship presents a unique opportunity to rethink and shape new ethical paradigms and foster innovative approaches to the persistent questions of responsibility, justice, and human flourishing. Entrepreneurship is often celebrated as a catalyst for creativity, imagination, and the capacity to disrupt, yet it has also drawn criticism for promoting ideals that valorize self-optimization and commodification. The foundational activities of entrepreneurship – venture creation, opportunity enactment, and creative destruction – are themselves inextricably bound to questions of ethics.

At the core of any entrepreneurial act is its willing encounter with, and encouragement of, 'the other' - whether this means novel products, new practices, uncertain futures, or transformed habits. From some philosophical perspectives, such as phenomenology, ethical experience also involves engagement with the 'other,' coupled with a refusal to confine or transform 'the other' to the norm. Yet this raises a critical question: if entrepreneurship courts 'the other,' does it then corrupt and empty this otherness in the calculated pursuit of economic returns? If ethics entails a life lived alongside difference, then how do entrepreneurial lives compare to those shaped and scripted by the certainty and commitment to principled forms of the good advocated by other philosophical positions, such as deontology? This SI is dedicated to papers investigating this uneasy yet intimate relationship between ethics and entrepreneurship.

Different philosophical perspectives can offer unique insights into the interplay between ethics and entrepreneurship, including virtue ethics, care ethics, pragmatism, capabilities approaches, as well as deontology and phenomenology. Similarly, different schools in entrepreneurship studies, from early traditions in evolutionary economics or trait theory, to more recent perspectives associated with alertness to opportunity, emergence and creativity, and actualization, provide different stimulus for ethicists. While entrepreneurship is often associated with opportunity-seeking and value creation, its concern with seeking support from others, and with growing an organizational form that sustains the livelihood of others, extends its operations beyond economic and industrial narratives of profit, and product- and service innovation.

Entrepreneurial ventures are embedded within complex networks of stakeholders, including employees, customers, investors, non-human systems, and communities. Navigating these relationships demands ethical judgment that balances competing interests, priorities, and values. Unlike managerial decision-making, which tends to rely on established protocols, systems, and formalized structures, entrepreneurial judgment occurs in a context of greater uncertainty and fluidity, where ethical considerations are threaded into the very fabric of entrepreneurial practice.

Entrepreneurs must establish trust, negotiate power dynamics, and create shared meaning among diverse stakeholders, all while remaining attuned to the broader societal and environmental implications of their actions. They continually navigate competing values, and face unpredictable consequences within 'spaces of ambiguity,' where loosened norms make ethical reasoning both precarious and generative. In such spaces, distinguishing a 'good reason' for action from simply 'a reason to act' carry significant personal, social and commercial resonance, raising fundamental questions about the nature of ethical responsibility in conditions of flux and uncertainty, about the requirement to follow rules or break them, about the intimacy between the social and ethical commitments inherent in entrepreneurship, and about the relationship between entrepreneurial flourishing and care.

If we can still speak of 'the entrepreneur,' it is as a figure that challenges the viability of the sovereign self, continually narrating identity through stories of venturing and novelty. The entrepreneurial self emerges through an ongoing process of becoming – an engagement with chance, contingency and creative responsiveness. The entrepreneur lives out an experimental existence, embracing uncertainty and 'becoming' through the act of venturing into the unknown, through proffering of alternatives, often oppositional ones. This insight invites deeper explorations of both how organizations are formed, and stakeholders are engaged in sustaining what we might call 'good shape' – a venture that remains dynamic yet coherent amidst uncertainty and change.

In bringing entrepreneurship and ethics into philosophical dialogue, each field can deepen its appreciation of itself and the other. Entrepreneurship studies can learn from how ethicists have conceptualized difference, authenticity, autonomy, duty, care and recognition. These ethical-philosophical concepts invite a deeper reflection on the responsibilities of entrepreneurs – not only towards stakeholders but towards the wider social and ecological systems in which they operate. In turn, ethical theorists can learn from entrepreneurship's philosophical examination of contingency, creativity, and emergent futures that foregrounds fluidity, moral luck, and improvisation.

Potential topics

• Philosophical Dimensions of Ethics: How do different philosophical traditions (e.g., virtue ethics, deontology, utilitarianism, phenomenology, hermeneutics) inform our understanding of entrepreneurship as an ethical practice? How are traditions confirmed or transformed when ethics is viewed through an entrepreneurial lens?
• Phenomenology of the Entrepreneurial Experience: In what sense are entrepreneurial experiences of uncertainty, autonomy, and decision-making ethical, and how does phenomenology illuminate Kierkegaard's 'finitude' of lived reality?
• The Entrepreneur and Ethical Subjectivity: How can ethical theories of 'subjecthood', agency, embodiment, and 'self' inform understandings of the entrepreneur, and how might post-human ethics further enrich the question 'Who is the entrepreneur'?
• Ethics and Rule-Breaking: Ethically, what is the connection between following and breaking rules, and how might entrepreneurial theory enrich understandings of this connection?
• Stakeholder Relations and Trust: How do entrepreneurs navigate stakeholder dynamics and trust-building while pursuing ethical objectives and are these forms of trust akin to those envisaged in current ethical theorising?
• Entrepreneurship as Inherently Ethical or Unethical: Is entrepreneurship inherently ethical or exploitative, and how can these views inform a more nuanced understanding of entrepreneurial ethics? How core are ethics to entrepreneurship?
• Entrepreneurship and Technological Mediation: In the digital age of machine protocols, does judgment still matter—and is entrepreneurship a break from, or reinvention of, the network, platform, and stack?
• Ethics, Value, and Entrepreneurial Goals: Can ethical theories of value and worth contribute to the framing of entrepreneurial goals and opportunity?
• Temporal Dimensions of Entrepreneurial Ethics: How do entrepreneurial decisions compare immediate gains with long-term ethical considerations? In what ways does the entrepreneurial relationship to time create unique ethical challenges and opportunities?

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Pauline Reinecke, Leuphana University Lüneburg

Ignas Bruder, Technische Universität Dresden

Tobias Hahn, Esade Business School

Olga Kokshagina, University of Sydney

Stephanie Schrage, Kiel University

Janina Sundermeier, Freie Universität Berlin

Gender paradoxes emerge from tensions embedded in organizations, where competing expectations generate not only managerial challenges but also fundamental ethical questions about inclusion, equality, and responsibility. While prior research has examined barriers such as the glass ceiling and pay inequality, less attention has been paid to how gender paradoxes subtly yet systematically shape organizational experiences and allocate moral responsibilities among actors.

Gender is approached as an institutionalized system of social practices for constituting people as two significantly different categories, men and women, and organizing social relations of inequality on the basis of that difference. At the same time, the special issue recognizes the lived realities of intersex, non-binary, genderfluid, and other gender-diverse individuals who navigate structures grounded in binary norms.

Paradoxes, defined as contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time, are central to many tensions related to gender in organizations. These include the double bind women leaders face in balancing agentic and communal expectations, the difficulties gender-diverse individuals encounter when resisting dominant norms of professionalism, and the strain between care responsibilities and workplace demands for emotional detachment.

Gender paradoxes raise critical ethical questions: Whose interests are prioritized? Who bears moral and emotional burdens? What responsibilities do organizations, and specifically those organizational members unaffected by exclusion, hold in addressing these tensions? And when do such tensions call for institutional reform rather than individual adaptation? This Special Issue seeks to foreground the ethical dimensions of gender paradoxes in organizations.

The special issue welcomes original contributions that examine gender paradoxes not only analytically but also through ethically grounded normative arguments about how individuals and organizations can and should respond. Submissions should critically engage with ethical questions posed by gender paradoxes such as how moral responsibility is distributed, what burden visibility imposes, and how organizational actions with moral intent may reproduce inequality.

Submissions may tap into a range of theoretical traditions, including paradox, identity, institutional, practice, and discourse theory – as well as normative frameworks such as feminist ethics, ethics of care, virtue ethics, deontological approaches to ethics, and critical management studies. The special issue explicitly welcomes theoretically and methodologically diverse submissions that offer distinct insights into the empirical phenomenon of gender paradoxes, examining how related tensions are generated, navigated, and contested in organizational life.

Potential topics

• Systemic constraints: How ethical commitments to inclusion and equality clash with organizational systems optimized for efficiency – such as standardized evaluations, established management practices, or masculinized leadership norms
• Competing values and moral ambiguity: How ideals such as fairness, meritocracy, and equity create ethical tensions and "tragic choices", where no option is without compromise
• Limits of both/and thinking: How both/and strategies for navigating gender paradoxes can foster more inclusive responses, but may also obscure structural inequalities and shift responsibility to individuals
• Symbolic inclusion and tokenism: How efforts such as diversity targets or flexible work arrangements may produce ethically problematic outcomes, including constrained agency, limited advancement, and superficial change
• Stigma, visibility, and marginalization: How gender-diverse professionals experience and resist stigmatization within organizations, raising ethical questions about who bears the burden of representation

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Doris Schneeberger, Vienna University of Economics and Business

Linda Tallberg, University of Lapland

José-Carlos García-Rosell, University of Oulu

Astrid Huopalainen, Aalto University

Eline Jammaers, Hasselt University

Katherine Dashper, Leeds Beckett University

Helen Wadham, Manchester Metropolitan University

Whilst human treatment of animals has long been a subject of considerable debate within the ethics literature, it is only in more recent years that scholars in business have examined ethical issues around the tourism and food industries, innovation, business education, animal rights and business failure, posthumanism, art, work involving animals, multispecies space, animal protection work, and stakeholder theory. Such interest is to be welcomed. Nevertheless, the interest that business scholars have shown in non-human animals remains piecemeal, and often seems unaware of non-Western or indigenous perspectives. Additionally, ongoing technological developments that have the potential to radically transform the moral demarcations we make between humans and other non-human animals have hitherto received limited attention. Such transformations could slow down, or potentially reverse, the exponential increase in human domination over animals that has been evidenced over the past two centuries, and could significantly impact producers who still depend on traditional ways of animal production.

The present call seeks studies that critically examine human-animal relations in the workplace, industry, or other societally organized spaces. We invite contributions that take an ethical, political, and/or multispecies lens to bring animals from the margins to the center of focus and analysis. We are especially interested in scholarly work that builds on interdisciplinary insights from animal ethics in general.

Industrial animal agriculture not only causes enormous animal suffering but also has severe negative ramifications for our planetary ecosystem, biodiversity, climate change, and species extinction. Despite this, meat production is at its highest level ever, with an expanding animal industry. Given that these animals are commonly raised in inhumane and unnatural circumstances, further discussion on the ethical challenges of killing sentient animals for food and alternative ways of producing animal products is required.

Corporate disclosure concerning animal welfare also awaits further discussion. Companies may be reluctant to include animals in their CSR reports and codes of ethics, fearing potential accountability issues from powerful activists and social movements. Only a few recent scholarly efforts have explored the question of CSR and animal welfare. Some scholars have chosen to be deliberately critical and provoke change by, for example, advocating for an accounting of animal welfare as a potential avenue forward.

Recent work on DEI has highlighted the overlapping inequalities animals and marginalised humans face, requiring equality policies that are both multispecies and intersectional. Others have called for more research around intersecting issues of asymmetrical power and care, like the ecofeminist tradition, as well as interspecies solidarity and justice. Developing multispecies inclusivity based on illuminating the animal's standpoint moves the traditional organizational lens to a post-anthropocentric way of perceiving, fostering multispecies wellbeing. Scholars might thus also seek inspiration from Indigenous ontologies which perceive life as interconnected.

Potential topics

• Applying animal ethics theories to business ethics: Using specific animal ethics theories (e.g., rights-based, utilitarian, care ethics) to address business ethics issues
• Corporate disclosure, CSR, and accounting for animals: Examining how businesses disclose and account for their impact on animals
• Expanding business ethics frameworks to include animals: Discussing how stakeholder theory, corporate moral responsibility, or, for example, triple bottom line (TBL) approaches could incorporate animals
• Non-Western and Indigenous ethical perspectives on multispecies organizations: Exploring how Indigenous and non-Western philosophies can inform business-ethics approaches to animals
• Animals as workers: Investigating ethical concerns regarding animals used as workers in diverse settings, from agriculture to entertainment
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and the role of animals: Extending DEI discussions to consider nonhuman animals in business contexts
• Multispecies inclusivity: Analyzing how businesses can integrate multispecies perspectives into ethical and operational frameworks
• Animal tourism: Addressing ethical challenges and exploitation in wildlife tourism, zoos, and entertainment industries
• Technological innovations and their impact on animals: Examining cultivated animal products, alternative proteins, AI, and digitalization in relation to animals
• Farmed animals and emerging business models: Investigating ethical issues in new farming methods such as precision and regenerative agriculture
• Hard-to-access animal-use industries: Exploring ethical concerns in medical research, pharmaceuticals, and laboratory testing

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Stelios Bekiros, University of Turin

Andrea D'Ariano, Roma Tre University

Peng Wu, Fuzhou University

Guowei Zhang, Dalian University of Technology

Operations research (OR) problems increasingly arise in data-rich and highly uncertain environments where operational decisions must adapt dynamically to evolving contextual information. Advances in sensing technologies, digital platforms, enterprise systems, and large-scale data collection have significantly expanded the availability of side information related to demand patterns, operational states, user behaviors, market conditions, and environmental factors. In many modern applications, such contextual information provides valuable predictive signals that can substantially improve decision quality when effectively integrated into optimization models.

In response, contextual optimization has emerged as a rapidly growing research direction at the intersection of optimization, machine learning, statistics, and prescriptive analytics. Unlike classical optimization paradigms that rely solely on historical averages or predefined uncertainty sets, contextual optimization explicitly incorporates side information into the decision-making process, enabling more adaptive, personalized, and data-driven operational policies. Recent developments in this area include contextual stochastic optimization, distributionally robust optimization with covariates, decision-focused learning, learning-enhanced optimization, online optimization, and adaptive decision-making frameworks.

Despite substantial progress, several important challenges remain open. Real-world contextual optimization problems often involve high-dimensional and heterogeneous data, noisy or incomplete observations, distribution shifts, privacy concerns, interpretability requirements, and stringent real-time computational constraints. Moreover, predictive accuracy alone is insufficient in operational settings; the ultimate objective is to improve downstream decision quality and system performance. Consequently, there is a growing need for new theories, methodologies, and computational frameworks that systematically integrate learning, analytics, and optimization under uncertainty.

This special issue aims to bring together recent advances in contextual and data-driven optimization methods, with particular emphasis on optimization and decision making under uncertainty using side information. We welcome high-quality contributions that develop novel theories, models, algorithms, and applications integrating optimization with machine learning, statistical learning, and data analytics.

Potential topics

• Contextual Stochastic Optimization
• Distributionally Robust Optimization with Side Information
• Prescriptive Analytics and Contextual Decision Making
• Learning-Enhanced Optimization
• Decision-Focused Learning
• Online, Dynamic, and Adaptive Optimization
• Learning-Augmented Algorithms
• Interpretable and Trustworthy Optimization Models
• Statistical Guarantees and Generalization in Optimization
• Data-Driven Optimization Under Uncertainty
• AI and Machine Learning for OR
• Human-in-the-Loop Optimization
• Optimization with Foundation Models or Generative AI
• Scalable Algorithms for Large-Scale Optimization Problems
• Digital Twin and Real-Time Decision Systems
• Contextual Transportation and Logistics Optimization
• Contextual Supply Chain and Revenue Management
• Data-Driven Healthcare and Service Operations

Timeline

• July 31, 2027: Submission deadline

Annamaria Barbagallo, University of Naples Federico II

Encarnación Algaba, University of Seville

Giovanna Bimonte, University of Salerno

Francesco Ciardiello, University of Salerno

This special issue aims to promote research on game theory as a fundamental framework for analyzing strategic interaction, cooperation, conflict, coordination, and decision-making in complex systems. The issue aims to showcase recent developments in game theory and its diverse applications, with particular emphasis on interaction dynamics and collective decision-making, encompassing theoretical contributions, practical applications, and interdisciplinary approaches.

In particular, we encourage participants of the European Meeting on Game Theory 2026 (SING21) to submit complete and expanded versions of the papers presented at the conference. Nevertheless, submissions of other relevant papers are also welcome. Papers based on conference presentations should be significantly revised and extended, and they should appropriately reference the original conference version where relevant.

All submissions will undergo a rigorous peer-review process coordinated by the Guest Editors. Accepted papers will be published online individually, before print publication.

Potential topics

• Cooperative games and their applications
• Non-cooperative games and strategic interaction
• Mechanism design
• Network
• Dynamic games
• Evolutionary games
• Stochastic games
• Voting, power indices, and collective decision-making
• Auctions and market design
• Bargaining
• Learning and experimentation in games
• Computational game theory
• Applications of game theory to management, energy, health policy, industrial organization, environmental and resource economics, transportation, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and other fields

Timeline

• April 20, 2027: Submission deadline

Rosella Giacometti, University of Bergamo

Aaron Kim, Stony Brook University

Sergio Ortobelli Lozza, University of Bergamo

Svetlozar Rachev, Texas Tech University

Gabriele Torri, University of Bergamo

This special issue is open to all researchers working in quantitative finance and aims to collect cutting-edge contributions that push forward the theoretical, methodological, and applied frontiers of the field. While it originates from the Workshop on Quantitative Finance 2026 (QFW 2026, Bergamo, Italy), submissions are not limited to workshop participants.

This special issue aims to serve as a reference point for recent advances in quantitative finance, insurance and risk modeling, promoting contributions with strong methodological rigor and high relevance for both academia and practice.

Potential topics

• Advanced risk measures
• Portfolio optimization and asset allocation under uncertainty
• Stochastic control and dynamic portfolio choice
• Insurance and actuarial modeling
• Machine learning and artificial intelligence in finance
• Market microstructure
• Agent-based and behavioral finance models
• ESG and climate risk modeling
• Systemic risk, financial networks, and stability

Timeline

• January 15, 2027: Submission deadline

Yi-Kuei Lin, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Industrial engineering systems, including manufacturing systems, supply chains, logistics networks, energy and power systems, transportation systems, and service operations, play a critical role in modern society. The reliable operation of such systems is essential for ensuring efficiency, safety, and robustness in the presence of uncertainty, disruptions, and complex interactions among system components. Failures or performance degradation in these systems may lead to significant economic losses, operational inefficiencies, and societal impacts.

Traditionally, reliability modeling in industrial engineering has been grounded in probabilistic analysis, stochastic modeling, and analytical evaluation techniques. While these approaches remain fundamental, recent advances in sensing technologies, industrial Internet of Things, and information systems have enabled the collection of large-scale operational and condition-monitoring data. This has led to a growing interest in data-driven and intelligent reliability modeling, where statistical learning, machine learning, and other statistical analytical approaches complement classical reliability theory.

At the same time, reliability analysis is increasingly expected to support decision-making processes, such as maintenance planning, resource allocation, system design, and operational optimization. Integrating reliability modeling with decision support frameworks allows practitioners and decision-makers to move beyond reliability assessment toward actionable, reliability-informed decisions under uncertainty.

We invite submissions on topics related to reliability modeling and decision support for industrial engineering systems using Operations Research, industrial engineering, and data-driven methodologies. Contributions addressing both theoretical developments and practical applications are welcome.

We welcome the submission of original research papers that provide new insights and practical solutions to challenges in reliability modeling and decision support for industrial engineering systems. Submissions should demonstrate methodological rigor and clearly highlight their relevance to real-world industrial applications. Papers that illustrate how data-driven reliability analysis can enhance decision-making and system performance are particularly encouraged.

Potential topics

• Data-driven reliability modeling and parameter estimation using operational data
• Reliability analysis using statistical learning and machine learning methods
• Reliability models combining analytical formulations with data-driven learning approaches
• Decision support systems incorporating reliability analysis and risk information
• Optimization and decision-making problems informed by reliability performance
• Predictive maintenance and condition monitoring using data and learning models
• Multistate system and network reliability analysis
• Reliability evaluation of manufacturing, logistics, and supply chain systems
• Reliability modeling in energy, power, and infrastructure systems
• Stochastic modeling and uncertainty analysis in data-driven reliability studies
• Simulation, enumeration, and approximation methods for reliability evaluation
• System design and resource allocation considering reliability and operational data
• Reliability analysis supported by digital twins, data analytics, and intelligent systems
• Reliability, robustness, and resilience of industrial engineering systems

Timeline

• July 31, 2027: Submission deadline

Andrea Flori, Politecnico di Milano

Anna Maria Gambaro, Università del Piemonte Orientale

Ioannis Kyriakou, University of London

Duc Khuong Nguyen, EMLV Business School

Climate-related risks, viewed through a systems operation's lens, can disrupt the coordination, flow, and stability of financial and economic processes. Although their importance is increasingly acknowledged by academic, regulatory, and practitioner communities, quantifying environmental externalities and designing effective mitigation policies remain open to debate and subject to contention. A key source of uncertainty stems from the transition to a low-carbon economy, particularly concerning its timing and pace. This transition may induce substantial effects on firms, especially those in carbon-intensive sectors, posing systemic challenges to their stability. This underscores the urgent need for rigorous analytical solutions to model climate-related risks and to study their transmission mechanisms within interconnected economic systems.

From a firm's perspective, the regulatory push towards decarbonization and more sustainable economic models necessitates an optimal trade-off between transforming production processes and maintaining competitive market performance. This reflects a fundamental conflict between short-term objectives, such as profitability and stakeholder satisfaction, and long-term strategic goals related to sustainability and risk mitigation; transitioning to low-carbon operations demands a long-term planning horizon and a comprehensive assessment of associated risks. However, firms must also remain resilient to sudden exogenous shocks that can destabilize the delicate balance between stakeholder interests and shareholder value maximization. As a result, ensuring business continuity and profit stability may, at times, require a short-term focus. Importantly, even when a firm or sector is well positioned to absorb a direct shock, significant vulnerabilities may persist through indirect exposures, particularly through interdependencies in global supply chains. Recent developments have shown how external disruptions can propagate through production networks, amplifying uncertainty and operational risk. There is therefore a need for integrated modelling approaches that jointly capture carbon emissions, operational disruptions, and related risks across multiple supply chain tiers, framing the problem as a multi-objective optimization task.

Due to the progressive integration of financial markets, such interdependencies can occur through, for example, asset price movements, volatility changes, or liquidity shocks, generating non-trivial aggregate patterns that may ultimately lead to market instability. However, how such instability may emerge from supply chain relationships remains largely unexplored. Recent contributions have begun to address this gap, for example, by modelling the effects of carbon pricing on asset values and portfolio risks, examining how optimal credit portfolio realignment can facilitate low-carbon transitions, and investigating how investment horizons influence transition outcomes under uncertainty.

The mechanisms by which climate and environmental risks are transmitted to financial and economic systems constitute a multidisciplinary research agenda. Robust stochastic optimization techniques play a critical role in managing credit, counterparty, and supply chain risks that are amplified by the climate transition. Concurrently, advanced machine learning methods, such as supervised learning and natural language processing, offer promising tools for forecasting carbon stranded risks and classifying complex climate policy scenarios, with significant implications for both operational and investment decisions. This call for papers invites contributions that examine how financial institutions are responding to growing uncertainty in portfolio allocation and risk management, driven by evolving climate regulations and the inherent unpredictability of low-carbon transition pathways. We particularly welcome applied and methodological operations research studies that address these challenges in an innovative and rigorous manner.

Potential topics

• Robust stochastic optimization methods for climate transition risks
• Portfolio optimization and risk-adjusted return modelling under climate policy uncertainty
• Credit and counterparty risk assessment under low-carbon transition scenarios
• Risk-sharing mechanisms and insurance models for climate-related disruptions
• Supply chain risk management in climate transition
• Operational decision-making in emission trading schemes and carbon pricing
• Predictive modelling of carbon stranding risk via supervised learning
• Machine learning and big data analytics for climate risk scenario classification
• Natural language processing applications in climate policy risk analysis
• Bayesian network approaches to modelling climate transition risk propagation
• Agent-based models of climate transition dynamics and systemic effects

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Xu-Feng Zhao, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Yan-Fu Li, Tsinghua University

Hoang Pham, Rutgers University

Modern industrial systems generate massive datasets from sensor monitoring, which presents computational and memory challenges in data processing. Advanced machine learning technologies such as transfer learning, federated learning, quantum machine learning, and reinforcement learning offer effective and scalable solutions for processing and analyzing large volumes of data, as well as supporting subsequent decision-making.

Recently, various new techniques of advanced machine learning have already been applied to system reliability management, such as fault diagnosis, health condition assessment, remaining useful life prediction, degradation modeling, and maintenance optimization. Yet, ongoing research works continue to explore this exciting research area.

This special issue invites high-quality original research papers, review papers, and case studies that delve into advancements in advanced machine learning for system reliability management.

Potential topics

• Deep learning for anomaly detection and/or fault detection
• Machine learning-enhanced maintenance optimization
• Federated learning for system monitoring and predictive maintenance
• Reinforcement learning for maintenance decision making
• Transfer learning for cross-domain maintenance
• Generative models for synthetic data generation for predictive maintenance
• Self-supervised learning for unlabeled data for fault detection
• Large models for fault detection and/or diagnosis
• Generative models for reliability testing
• Meta-heuristics for large-scale reliability design optimization

Timeline

• May 30, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline
• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline for special issue

Guoqing Zhang, University of Windsor

Jiaguo Liu, Dalian Maritime University

Hakan Yildiz, Wayne State University

The reconfiguration of global supply chains has become increasingly urgent amid escalating tariff uncertainty and shifting international trade policies. Tariff-induced disruptions are reshaping sourcing strategies, manufacturing footprints, logistics networks, and market access worldwide.

While tariff-related supply chain research is not new, today's environment is marked by unprecedented levels of uncertainty and complexity. High tariff rates, retaliatory measures, and escalating trade tensions have created significant challenges for supply chain reconfiguration and management in practice. The unprecedented challenges of tariff uncertainty highlight the need for new decision-making models, offering significant opportunities to advance the literature and address pressing real-world challenges.

This special issue invites high-quality contributions that develop and apply Operations Research (OR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods to address the challenges and opportunities in global supply chain reconfiguration under tariff uncertainty. We welcome theoretical developments, methodological innovations, applied modelling studies, and quantitatively supported managerial insights. Interdisciplinary research that integrates OR, AI, supply chain management, and international economics, particularly with real-world case applications, is especially encouraged.

Manuscripts should be original, unpublished, and prepared according to submission guidelines. Submissions are expected to have strong methodological contributions in OR and/or AI, with clear relevance to global supply chain reconfiguration under trade policy uncertainty.

Potential topics

• Supply network redesign and optimization under tariff uncertainty
• Robust and stochastic optimization models for tariff-driven supply chain planning
• Global supply chain reconfiguration under trade policy uncertainty
• AI-powered dynamic supply chain adaptation and tariff response strategies
• Dynamic production, sourcing, and logistics strategies facing tariff risks
• Supply chain resilience and risk management for tariff disruptions
• Logistics and warehousing for global e-commerce and omnichannel supply chains
• Maritime network and logistics optimization with tariff impacts
• Hybrid OR–machine learning for adaptive decision-making in global supply chains
• Multi-echelon inventory management under fluctuating tariff policies
• AI and data-driven methods for trade policy analysis and supply chain impacts
• Optimization models and algorithms for large-scale global supply chain problems

Timeline

• October 31, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline

Madjid Tavana, La Salle University

Olga Battaïa, KEDGE Business School

Yasser Dessouky, San Jose State University

Masood Fathi, University of Skövde

Reza Zanjirani Farahani, Paris School of Business

The increasing complexity of modern decision-making demands advanced Operations Research (OR) models that integrate Collaborative Intelligence—the synergy between human expertise, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven decision support, and distributed problem-solving frameworks. This paradigm enhances adaptability, efficiency, and resilience in complex operations by leveraging multi-agent coordination, human-AI collaboration, decentralized optimization, and machine learning-enhanced decision-making.

Traditional OR methodologies, despite their strengths in static environments, struggle with the dynamic, interconnected, and uncertain nature of modern decision-making. As Russell Ackoff noted in his 1956 article, "The Aging of a Young Profession," OR was already showing signs of stagnation, becoming overly preoccupied with mathematical techniques rather than addressing real-world problems holistically. By 1979, in "The Future of Operational Research is Past," he further criticized OR for prioritizing optimization within narrow constraints instead of embracing a systemic, interdisciplinary approach. Modern applications like logistics, production, service systems, and emergency response require more adaptive and interactive OR models. Collaborative Intelligence offers a transformative approach, enabling real-time interaction among humans, AI agents, and mathematical models to optimize problem-solving and system performance.

The rapid advancements in AI have revolutionized decision-making across OR domains. However, fully autonomous AI systems face challenges in handling uncertainty, ethical considerations, and interpretability, particularly in high-stakes environments. Collaborative Intelligence bridges this gap by combining the computational power of AI with human intuition, adaptability, and ethical reasoning, fostering trust and robustness in decision-making.

This special issue explores cutting-edge methodologies, theoretical advancements, and practical applications of Collaborative Intelligence in OR. We invite high-quality contributions that address how human expertise and AI can collaboratively enhance decision-making, improve system resilience, and optimize complex operational environments. We welcome original research contributions that propose innovative mathematical models, algorithms, and applications of OR for collaborative decision-making, resilience planning, decentralized optimization, and dynamic problem-solving in complex operational environments. Submissions should demonstrate theoretical rigor and practical relevance, focusing on advancing the state of the art in Collaborative Intelligence.

This special issue aims to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to share insights, methodologies, and case studies that highlight the transformative potential of Collaborative Intelligence in OR.

Potential topics

• Designing OR models that facilitate seamless interaction and information exchange between human decision-makers and AI agents
• The framework for integrating human judgment, preferences, and ethical considerations into AI-driven decision-making
• Techniques for visualizing and interpreting AI outputs to enhance human understanding and trust
• Novel optimization algorithms and game-theoretic frameworks for coordinating and optimizing decisions in multi-agent environments
• Models addressing diverse objectives, capabilities, and interactions among multiple agents
• Approaches to managing conflicts, uncertainties, and strategic behaviors in multi-agent decision-making
• OR frameworks capable of dynamically adapting to real-time changes and uncertainties
• Decentralized optimization algorithms and control strategies for distributed systems
• Online learning and adaptive control techniques to improve system responsiveness and resilience
• Leveraging machine learning and data analytics to extract insights and patterns for OR applications
• Learning-based optimization algorithms that improve performance through data feedback
• Predictive analytics and simulation techniques for enhanced decision-making and risk management

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Matteo Rocca, University of Insubria

Davide La Torre, Skema Business School

Constantin Zopounidis, Technical University of Crete

This special issue aims to publish selected papers presented during the 16th International Conference on Multiple Objective Programming and Goal Programming (MOPGP'25) that will be held on 1–3 July 2025, in Varese, Italy. Contributions arising from papers presented at the conference should be substantially extended and cite the conference paper where appropriate. The special issue will also consider papers not presented during the conference. Original and unpublished work not currently under consideration in any other journal is welcome.

The intersection of Multiple Objective Optimization (MOP), Goal Programming (GP), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) creates a robust framework for addressing complex decision-making challenges in Economic and Social Sciences. MOP provides structured methods to evaluate and prioritize conflicting objectives, while GP helps setting specific goals to be achieved by the decision maker. AI leverages data analytics and machine learning to process large datasets, revealing insights that improve the accuracy and the robustness of decision models and predictions.

The scientific quality of the contributions is the main criterion in the selection process.

Potential topics

• Advancements in Multiple Objective Programming Techniques
• Goal Programming Techniques and Formulations
• Goal Programming Approaches in Public Policy
• AI-Enhanced Decision Support Systems for Resource Allocation
• Data-Driven Methods in Economic and Social Decision-Making
• Integrating Machine Learning with MOP
• Multicriteria Deep Learning
• Applications of MOP and GP in Sustainable Development
• Real-Time Decision-Making Frameworks Using AI
• Comparative Studies of MOP and GP in Various Contexts
• Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Sustainable Economics
• Multiple Criteria Decision Making in Environmental Economics
• Optimization Models for Social Welfare
• Behavioural Insights in Multi-Objective Decision-Making
• Metaheuristics and Computational Methods in MOP
• MOP and MCDM in AI applications
• Innovative Applications to Economic and Social Sciences

Timeline

• June 30, 2027: Submission deadline

Hoang Pham, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

The era of AI, through its focus on the reliability and statistical machine computing of intelligent systems in everyday applications and the service industry, has experienced a dramatic shift in recent years. Such systems require reliable and timely responses.

Articles concerning new theoretical research and methods in advanced reliability and statistical computing for intelligent systems are solicited. Preference will be given to papers with real-world applications over purely theoretical papers.

Potential topics

• Mathematical reliability and statistical methods
• Big data modeling and prediction
• Statistical learning algorithms, models, and theories
• Machine learning models for intelligent systems
• Text mining and deep machine learning
• Intelligent system dependability and performability
• Reliability modeling and optimization
• High-dimensional data analysis
• Statistical inference for intelligent systems
• Industrial case studies in intelligent systems, including field and service robotics, medical care, education, visual surveillance, intelligent transportation, etc.

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

Dries F. Benoit, Ghent University

Kristof Coussement, Institut d'Economie Scientifique Et de Gestion

Cem İyigün, Middle East Technical University

Asil Oztekin, University of Massachusetts Lowell

The objective of this special section is to publish papers that contribute to both the theory and practice of data science and predictive analytics. While papers describing new techniques have been published in other journals, we would expect to see how the technique could be applied in practice with implications to create value in organizations. Creating value through analytics may lead to, or require, organizational change for it to effective. The relationship with Operations Research is direct but distinct: analytics is an organizational activity that draws on and uses the techniques of data science and operational research as appropriate.

Research into data science and analytics should seek to both incorporate the unique aspects of the OR discipline, as well as the innovations, concerns and characteristics of the analytics movement.

Potential topics

• Ethics and governance issues in analytics: How should data be obtained? What are the ethical implications of using applications of analytics to influence behavior?
• Big data and analytics: What are the limitations and applications of optimization and other OR techniques to large datasets? What are the challenges for applications of OR methods within distributed systems? What is the possibility that OR models could in fact be the producers of big data, e.g., large-scale simulation models? What new methods/models in response to big data, e.g., sentiment mining, can be adopted by OR?
• Organizational issues in analytics adoption: What are the issues facing organizations trying to adopt analytics? What is the role of real-time applications of OR in organizations?
• Data quality and analytics: What methods can be used for hypothesis testing and model validation in large datasets? How can unstructured data be used effectively in OR models? What is the role of multi-methodology in business analytics? What opportunities do open data present for the OR discipline?
• Analytics and decision support: How can data visualization techniques be used across the breadth of OR? What role do problem structuring and "soft" OR techniques play in analytics and big data projects?

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Kannan Govindan, University of Southern Denmark

Organizations must rethink and optimize their existing strategies to meet their sustainable business goals, due to the constant depletion of vital resources and the greater demands of societal issues. The increasing population not only has an impact on natural resources, but it also results in greater pollution and contributes to greater levels of poverty. With these considerations, on September 25, 2015, some countries adopted a new set of sustainability development goals (SDGs) to end poverty and to improve prosperity worldwide. Seventeen sustainable development goals have been targeted to achieve by 2030 under the new sustainable development agenda. Further, these sustainable development goals encompass a range of perspectives and various levels of applications, including supply chain management.

In recent years, researchers and practitioners have addressed supply chain management issues because of their significant impacts on organizational developments regardless of the field of applications. Over the years, researchers have proven that an inefficient supply chain can force an organization to fail. Hence, integrating SDGs in operations and supply chain management areas is an important topic to explore. Many studies sought to explore sustainability in supply chain management with a wide range of concepts and strategies, including green, lean, and other approaches with a special focus on newly targeted SDGs. Research is needed to further analyze and shape the implementation of SDGs in supply chain management environments with the help of advanced operations research (OR) methods, including multi-attribute decision making (MADM) and multi-objective decision making (MODM).

The main objective of this special section is to invite academic practitioners to contribute a better understanding of the scientific basis for decoupling economic growth from resource depletion and environmental degradation while improving human lives with the assistance of advanced OR methods. It is believed that advanced optimization models and algorithms can improve data-driven decision models by either formulating pattern discoveries and knowledge extraction problems or by defining efficient algorithms for implementing SDGs in supply chain management at a macro level. Additionally, new algorithms continually make efficiency gains and improve the applicability of older algorithms. Virtually every numerical analysis includes several optimization algorithms that can be applied to design sustainability in supply chain. With these concerns, this special section pertains to sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) by making direct connections between resources, the environment, the economy, and the goal of achieving SDGs in different parts of the world through OR methods.

These themes should incorporate an integrated approach: looking at possibilities of connecting the conservation of resources with sustainable human economic activities (from a supply chain perspective), and monitoring progress towards sustainable indicator strategies with the support of multi stakeholders in predominant inter- and intra- organizational management fields. This special section will comprise a significant body of knowledge about how natural resources are being utilized in various economies and will address the impact of this use on the eco-efficient and socio-economic systems, and suggest pathways of transitioning to a more sustainable future. This perspective includes building on and expounding the significance of resource conservation and efficiency along with a societal focus to improve sustainable development in supply chain management by achieving the proposed SDGs.

This special section seeks to be specific regarding the different kinds of sustainable supply chains because they can affect the policy implications of different sustainable indicators. In addition to these ideas, this special section welcomes authors to contact us to discuss other possible subtopics. To encourage effective methods and thereby motivate the authors to adopt a variety of sustainable supply chain perspectives in approaching this subject, the special section Editor has purposely kept the above list of suggested topics short. However, all submissions must suit within the domain statement of the journal.

Potential topics

• Designing and policymaking in SDGs through stakeholder support: to provide examples of sustainable policy and design making with multi-stakeholder perspectives and to define how sustainability is considered in framing policies and enumerating success factors and challenges on supply chain management
• Implementing SDGs in supply chains through innovative strategies and practices: to identify the sustainable goals, indicators, and practices related to the implementation of sustainable supply chain management and to explore how this knowledge may be used to effectively manage and conserve resources with less environmental and societal impact
• Monitoring supply chain governance and implications with a focus on SDGs: to elaborate practices and supporting mechanisms in measuring, monitoring, and reporting progress toward achieving targets, and to further emphasize various challenges related to the implementation of SDGs in supply chain management in different applications/context/economies

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Eva K. Lee, Georgia Institute of Technology

Ariela Sofer, George Mason University

Optimization has long been a cornerstone for advancement of various industrial, government, and military applications. In recent years, it has become increasingly important in advancing research and development related to medical and biological applications. Complexity of medical devices and delivery systems demands solutions to complex decision problems; and biological and clinical applications provide rich, sometimes overwhelming, sources of data upon which challenging optimization problems must be formulated and solved. Such challenges stimulate partnerships between members of the mathematical programming community and biologists, clinicians, public health officials, and others. These partnerships provide excellent opportunities to push the frontier of theoretical and computational optimization while solving important problems that benefit society and mankind.

To highlight and support the role of optimization and computation in such applications, and to disseminate advances to the broad research community in a timely manner, the Annals of Operations Research: Operations Research in Medicine special section was established in 2000. Each volume is devoted to presenting state-of-the-art research results in this dynamic and exciting area. We seek original, high quality contributions that investigate theoretical or methodological work on models and algorithms involving continuous linear and nonlinear optimization, integer programming, combinatorial optimization and stochastic approaches applied to medical and biological applications.

Manuscripts must be original, previously unpublished, and not currently under review in other journals. Each manuscript will be subjected to peer review according to the standard of Annals of Operations Research.

Potential topics

• Disease modeling
• Medical diagnosis
• Treatment planning
• Biological and medical imaging
• Epidemiology
• Molecular biology
• Continuous linear and nonlinear optimization applied to medical and biological applications
• Integer programming applied to medical and biological applications
• Combinatorial optimization applied to medical and biological applications
• Stochastic approaches applied to medical and biological applications

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Yiji Su, Tongji University

Shaker A. Zahra, University of Minnesota

Vikas Kumar, University of Sydney

Sihong Wu, University of Auckland

The global entrepreneurial landscape is being reshaped by geopolitical tensions, realigning supply chains, technological disruption, digital progress, and long-term climate and demographic trends. As a leading engine of global economic growth, the Asia-Pacific is a critical arena in which these transformations unfold. This Collection aims to provide a platform for advancing theories, methodologies, and practices that enhance understanding of inclusive entrepreneurship in the region.

Potential topics

• Inclusive entrepreneurship in the Asia-Pacific region
• Entrepreneurial responses to geopolitical tensions
• Supply chain realignment and entrepreneurship
• Technological disruption and entrepreneurial innovation
• Digital progress and inclusive business models
• Climate and demographic trends affecting entrepreneurship
• Economic growth and inclusive entrepreneurship in Asia-Pacific

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Jiatao Li, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Di (David) Fan, RMIT University

Wei Liu, Qingdao University

Siah Hwee Ang, Victoria University of Wellington

In today's highly digitalized and knowledge-driven global economy, technology has come to signify far more than traditional notions of productivity and efficiency. Its strategic importance has risen to the level of a critical determinant of national competitiveness, institutional security, and social stability. Against this backdrop, the emergence of techno-nationalism represents a salient new trend.

Investigating how techno-nationalism reshapes corporate innovation and strategy can not only fill the theoretical gap in existing IB research between macro-level politics and micro-level firm practices, but also provide new insights into the resilience-building and innovation pathways of Asia-Pacific firms in this new normal.

Potential topics

• Techno-nationalism and national competitiveness
• Strategic importance of technology in institutional security and social stability
• Impact of techno-nationalism on corporate innovation and strategy
• Macro-level politics and micro-level firm practices in the context of technology
• Resilience-building pathways of Asia-Pacific firms
• Innovation strategies in response to techno-nationalism

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Jasmina Berbegal-Mirabent, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya

Angelo Cavallo, Politecnico di Milano

Antje Fiedler, University of Auckland

Esteban Lafuente, Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica

The accelerated diffusion of digital technologies has redefined the strategic landscape for both private and public organizations—e.g., universities, hospitals, and local administrations—which are often exposed to similar constraints in terms of access to resources, agility, and strategic planning. This digital transformation has opened new avenues for innovation, performance improvement, and competitive positioning, yet the literature remains fragmented on how digitalization is conceptualized across functional areas and levels of analysis. While large organizations have traditionally led digitalization efforts thanks to their greater resource availability, entrepreneurial ventures, SMEs, and public service providers are increasingly embarking on the digitalization journey to survive, remain competitive, or grow.

The integration of digital technologies into organizational and individual practices goes beyond a mere technological adoption process, and constitutes a profound socio-technical transition that reconfigures the interplay between human capabilities, technological resources, and institutional arrangements. These transitions unfold through co-evolutionary dynamics in which human practices, organizational routines, and digitally-enabled capabilities influence one another over time. Instead of focusing on technology adoption patterns, understanding these dynamics requires examining how human-technology interactions and architectures develop, and how these configurations shape long-term technological trajectories and pathways of organizational transformation.

Despite their transformative potential, leveraging digital technologies also brings significant challenges. Digital technologies put to the test traditional managerial paradigms, requiring better alignment between firms' digitalization processes, strategic planning, and execution, and internal resource bases. For firms, digitalization can generate benefits in various dimensions (e.g., operational efficiency, innovation, and financial and non-financial outcomes), but technology adoption is also associated with risks of misalignment between technology and strategy, and exposure to cybersecurity threats. At the individual level, digitization and particular AI tools create new possibilities for automation, augmentation, and personalized learning, but simultaneously raise concerns about motivation, overreliance, and responsible use. Consequently, scholars have begun to unpack the complex relationship between digitalization and performance, suggesting that technological adoption must be contextualized within firms' strategic capabilities and operational models and individuals' motivations and expected outcomes.

Nevertheless, organizations face a 'digitalization paradox': while digitalization can unlock significant performance benefits—including innovation, knowledge spillovers, internationalization, and sustainability goals—its adoption process is fraught with resource constraints, knowledge gaps, and organizational inertia. Recent empirical evidence focused on SMEs emphasize the positive outcomes of digitalization, but only when firms possess the necessary internal capabilities, strategic orientation, digitally skilled workforce, and leadership and innovation capacities to effectively leverage digital technologies. These tensions underscore the need for a more nuanced understanding of how digital strategies are conceived, deployed, and leveraged across private and public organizations, where legacy processes, regulatory rigidity, and funding limitations often delay or complicate digital transformation.

Moreover, the 'dark side' of digitalization—such as technology-resource misfit, digital fatigue, or misalignment between strategy and technology adoption—remains underexplored. In this context, digitalization cannot be treated as a monolithic enabler, but rather as a contingent process shaped by organizational, technological, and environmental antecedents. Qualitative evidence suggests that when decision rights, data flows, and competencies are not redesigned in concert, technology-organization misalignments can erode anticipated performance gains despite greater data availability. Digitization, particularly AI, may also introduce additional complexity and shift the nature of uncertainty, requiring organizations to further adapt and reconfigure their decision-making processes. Whether digitalisation benefits incumbents or entrepreneurs remains unresolved, as emerging evidence points to asymmetric outcomes in which new technologies can both entrench existing power structures and catalyse entrepreneurial entry.

The challenge for researchers is to further scrutinize how organizations orchestrate digital tools and capabilities to enhance performance outcomes, and how various (organizational, technological, or contextual) variables condition these relationships. Researchers should adopt a critical perspective that allows for new insights on the outcomes of performance-enhancing strategic actions that rely on digital technologies in different economic settings.

This special issue encourages rigorous inquiry into the processes, mechanisms, and contingencies that underpin the adoption and impact of digital technologies in private firms and comparable service-oriented public institutions. One key area of interest concerns the organizational, technological, and institutional antecedents that drive organizations to engage in digital transformation. Despite growing awareness of the need to digitalize, firms and public institutions continue to exhibit heterogeneity in the strategic reconfiguration of their business models, knowledge assets, and innovation portfolios, leading to varied pathways of digitalization and performance outcomes. Contributions are invited that investigate the motivations, contextual pressures, and capability configurations that influence these digitalization pathways.

Another critical research area relates to the performance consequences of digitalization processes. While numerous studies have shown the potential of digital technologies to generate both financial and non-financial benefits, more research is needed to fully unveil the mechanisms through which such outcomes emerge in different organizational settings and for different units of analysis (e.g., at the firm, product, or team level). Studies are welcomed that assess how digitalization affects performance metrics—such as innovation capacity, internationalization, operational flexibility, market-related metrics, and environmental outcomes—particularly in light of the specific resource endowments that most organizations have to deal with. Contributions that examine how universities and other public service organizations manage their digital transformation journey—such as the adoption of hybrid learning platforms, e-administration, and AI-enabled service delivery—and how these transformations influence their specific outcomes (e.g., students' performance, service delivery, and operational restructuring) are also of interest. Research exploring how these changes affect the capacity of public institutions to contribute to regional innovation ecosystems and to support their stakeholders, such as SMEs, entrepreneurs, and larger organizations, is also welcomed.

Prospective contributors are encouraged to adopt novel theoretical lenses or robust empirical strategies to investigate how firms and public service institutions initiate, manage, and assess their digitalization efforts, and how such efforts interact with internal resources and external environments to influence their outcomes. In methodological terms, case-based, conceptual, and empirically based submissions are encouraged. Review articles (i.e., bibliometric studies, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses) will not be considered for publication. Authors are recommended to pay explicit attention to the managerial implications of their findings.

Potential topics

• What are the key organizational, technological, institutional, and market-related antecedents that influence SMEs' digitalization strategies? Are there differences between industries or economic contexts?
• What strategic choices underpin the digitally-induced actions of organizations? And, what prerequisites support such strategies at the organization and operational level?
• How do socio-technical system readiness factors—including technical infrastructure, organizational culture, workforce capabilities, and data governance maturity—interact to shape the adoption of digital technologies in different organizational contexts?
• How do ecosystem characteristics (e.g., governance structures, network density, public-sector involvement) shape the emergence of digitally enabled interactions among actors?
• How can digital technologies be integrated into firm operations to promote the development of value-adding strategies? What organizational resources, processes, and competencies support the integration of digital technologies in firm operations?
• For what strategic purposes (automation, augmentation, cybersecurity, or innovation) do firms integrate digital technologies in their routines and processes?
• How do digital literacy, ethical concerns, organizational culture, and managerial practices shape the adoption and usage of digital technologies?
• How do public service organizations with constrained resources plan, govern, and execute their digitalization processes?
• What lessons can be drawn regarding leadership, governance structures, and resource orchestration in public institutions? To what extent do their digital initiatives (e.g., e-administration, hybrid learning platforms, AI-enabled service delivery) generate spillover effects that foster innovation and digital readiness among regional SMEs?
• How do collaborations between public sector and industry influence the adoption and scaling of digital technologies? What governance models, knowledge-sharing mechanisms, or incentive structures enhance the co-creation of digital solutions and help firms develop stronger absorptive capacity? Are such partnerships more effective in certain sectors or regional ecosystems, and what are their long-term performance outcomes for both parties?
• How does a digitalization process influence individual-level outcomes (e.g., productivity, learning, creativity, and decision quality) and firm-level outcomes (e.g., innovation, internationalization, operational and team efficiency, and sustainability)?
• What mechanisms explain the heterogeneous outcomes resulting from digitally-enabled transformations across individuals, teams, and firms? Moreover, how do digital literacy, human-technology interactions, and strategic use of digital technologies shape these outcomes?
• Do organizations aligning their strategic competencies and digital technologies achieve superior competitive and performance outcomes?
• How do digital transformation processes reshape power between entrants and incumbents, and with what performance consequences?

Timeline

• February 28, 2026: Open for submissions
• January 31, 2027: Paper submission deadline
• April 30, 2027: First-round review decision to authors
• July 30, 2027: Revised manuscript due
• October 31, 2027: Second-round review decision to authors
• January 31, 2028: Final revised manuscript due
• April 30, 2028: Final author notification of acceptance

V. Kumar, Brock University

The use of new-age tools for transformative marketing strategies is an emerging area with several unexplored dimensions. While prior research has established a conceptual foundation, significant gaps remain unaddressed. Existing studies primarily focus on theoretical frameworks or conceptual models, lacking sufficient empirical validation of how these technologies influence consumer attitudes, decision-making, and purchasing behavior.

Furthermore, there is a lack of empirical research quantifying the return on investment (ROI) of integrating these advanced technologies into marketing campaigns. Previous research has also not thoroughly examined the tension between hyper-personalized marketing enabled by GAI and consumer privacy concerns, particularly in the context of Blockchain's ability to ensure data traceability.

This special issue aims to encourage researchers to explore these critical issues and bridge the existing research gaps.

Potential topics

• Use of new-age tools for transformative marketing strategies
• Empirical validation of how technologies influence consumer attitudes, decision-making, and purchasing behavior
• Return on investment (ROI) of integrating advanced technologies into marketing campaigns
• Tension between hyper-personalized marketing and consumer privacy concerns
• Blockchain's ability to ensure data traceability in marketing contexts
• Generative AI (GAI) applications in marketing

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Eric T. Bradlow, University of Pennsylvania

Replication Corner papers present complementary work on important existing published papers (in terms of citations in marketing and/or the topic itself) in order to help establish empirical generalizations and/or boundary conditions or moderators of an effect. Replication Corner papers begin with an important and highly cited existing published paper on an important topic in marketing and consumer behavior.

Replication Corner submissions should be a maximum of 4000 words (inclusive of abstract, main text, and references), and up to three tables and/or figures (not counting toward word limit). Additional material can be included in a web appendix.

Potential topics

• Replication of important and highly cited published papers in marketing and consumer behavior
• Establishment of empirical generalizations
• Identification of boundary conditions and moderators of effects
• Complementary work on existing published papers

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

This department collection focuses on high-quality empirical and theoretical research on the organization, financing, and performance of healthcare delivery and insurance systems. The collection covers hospitals, physicians, and other providers, as well as public and private insurance markets.

The department welcomes contributions analyzing provider payment mechanisms and other incentives and their implications for provider behavior, resource allocation, cost containment, quality of care, access, efficiency, and health outcomes. It encourages rigorous work examining provider competition, market structure, vertical integration, and the design of financing schemes as well as research on supply-side health interventions and system-level reforms.

The department also invites analyses of insurance market dynamics, including adverse selection, risk selection, moral hazard, and the interaction between insurance design and provider incentives. Both reduced-form and structural empirical studies, as well as formal theoretical models, are within scope.

By advancing evidence and theory on how incentives operate across providers and insurers, the department aims to inform policy debates on sustainable, equitable, and high-performing health systems.

Potential topics

• Organization, financing, and performance of healthcare delivery and insurance systems
• Hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare providers
• Public and private insurance markets
• Provider payment mechanisms and incentives
• Provider behavior, resource allocation, cost containment, quality of care, access, efficiency, and health outcomes
• Provider competition, market structure, and vertical integration
• Design of financing schemes
• Supply-side health interventions and system-level reforms
• Insurance market dynamics including adverse selection, risk selection, and moral hazard
• Interaction between insurance design and provider incentives
• Reduced-form and structural empirical studies
• Formal theoretical models

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Contributions apply microeconometric methods to the analysis of the economics of prevention, health behaviors, and equity. In particular, these concern the study of lifestyle choices, the demand for health care, or more specific topics such as vaccination uptake, risk preferences, or health literacy.

From a methodological perspective, submissions especially encourage the employment of modern tools of causal inference and exploitation of behavioral interventions, public health programs, or other policy measures.

Submissions should mainly examine individual decision-making in well-defined institutional or policy contexts and aim to generate insights that are relevant both academically and for policy.

Potential topics

• Microeconometric methods applied to the economics of prevention, health behaviors, and equity
• Lifestyle choices and demand for health care
• Vaccination uptake and risk preferences
• Health literacy studies
• Causal inference methods in health economics
• Behavioral interventions and public health programs
• Policy measures evaluation
• Individual decision-making in institutional and policy contexts

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Contributions present research on how health innovations are developed, evaluated, adopted, and scaled across settings and globally - including pharmaceuticals/biotech, medical devices, diagnostics, digital health and AI, and organizational/service innovations - using economic and behavioral approaches.

Topics include innovation incentives and market design; regulation, pricing/reimbursement and procurement; IP, competition and entry; evidence generation and clinical trials; and economic evaluation/HTA, particularly where it informs innovation, value, adoption, and real-world implementation.

Contributions also present research on behavioral drivers and barriers to diffusion (e.g., provider prescribing and practice patterns, patient uptake and adherence, trust and information environments, and organizational decision-making) and on data- and platform-driven innovation (algorithms, digital therapeutics, AI-enabled diagnostics, and learning health systems), including work on access, affordability, and public-good innovation models (e.g., open science, platform public goods, and innovations for underserved populations).

Potential topics

• Innovation incentives and market design
• Regulation, pricing/reimbursement and procurement
• IP, competition and entry
• Evidence generation and clinical trials
• Economic evaluation and HTA
• Behavioral drivers and barriers to diffusion including provider prescribing patterns, patient uptake and adherence, trust and information environments
• Organizational decision-making
• Data- and platform-driven innovation including algorithms, digital therapeutics, AI-enabled diagnostics, and learning health systems
• Access and affordability
• Public-good innovation models including open science, platform public goods, and innovations for underserved populations

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Contributions advance the methodology of economic evaluations of health interventions, also in relation to policy decisions. These include studies on the normative foundations of economic evaluations, discounting, spillover effects, equity weighting, disease severity, uncertainty, costing, and valuations of (changes in) health and wellbeing states.

This department is part of The European Journal of Health Economics, which is organized into five departments. Each department focuses on designated key topics in health economics, with articles grouped in its continuously updated Department Collection. When submitting a manuscript, authors are asked to indicate their preferred department by selecting the corresponding topic. The Editor-in-Chief determines whether a submission is desk-rejected or assigned to a department, and, if assigned, which department is most suitable. This department assignment is a prerequisite for, but does not guarantee, the manuscript's progression to peer review.

Potential topics

• Normative foundations of economic evaluations
• Discounting
• Spillover effects
• Equity weighting
• Disease severity
• Uncertainty
• Costing
• Valuations of health and wellbeing states

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Contributions present original economic research on health care in low- and middle-income countries, including work on health insurance, provider and individual health-related behavior, access to care, and policies relevant to the functioning of health care systems. It addresses both immediate policy concerns and structural challenges shaping health system development.

The emphasis is on novel, rigorous quantitative or analytical research with clear policy relevance. Papers that engage with broader questions in health economics of interest to the journal's general readership concerned with economic development are particularly welcome, especially those that use data from specific countries or regions to provide credible and informative answers.

Potential topics

• Health insurance
• Provider and individual health-related behavior
• Access to care
• Policies relevant to the functioning of health care systems
• Economic research on health care in low- and middle-income countries
• Health system development

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Wen-Hung Chen, AstraZeneca

Lori D. McLeod, RTI Health Solutions

Globally, regulatory and health technology assessment (HTA) bodies recognise the importance of hearing from patients when products are being developed and evaluated. Patient-reported outcomes and other clinical outcome assessments are increasingly included in submissions to these bodies. Additionally, recent regulatory guidance also discusses the collection of patient preference information. This broader conceptualisation can be termed 'patient experience data' (PED).

Despite this recognition, patient experience data are inconsistently included and evaluated by decision-makers. Understanding how different interest-holders approach this is essential for ensuring that patients' voices drive healthcare decisions to ultimately improve patient outcomes and health-related quality of life.

This article collection encourages submissions that consider the assessment of patient experience, such as preference, symptoms, and health-related quality of life, to inform regulatory and HTA submissions and decisions. Submissions of original research, reviews and discussion and/or response papers addressing recent regulatory and HTA developments in the field are encouraged. Other potential topics for manuscripts may include the application of artificial intelligence and digital health technology in patient experience data research.

Potential topics

• Assessment of patient experience, preference, symptoms, and health-related quality of life to inform regulatory and HTA submissions and decisions
• Original research on patient-reported outcomes and clinical outcome assessments in regulatory submissions
• Patient preference information collection and evaluation
• Reviews and discussion papers addressing recent regulatory and HTA developments in patient experience data
• Application of artificial intelligence and digital health technology in patient experience data research

Timeline

• June 30, 2027: Submission deadline

Brittany Lapin, Cleveland Clinic

Jessica Roydhouse, Menzies Institute for Medical Research

EQ-DAPHNIE represents a landmark endeavour in population health assessment and instrument evaluation, funded by the EuroQol Research Foundation. This initiative collected demographics, social determinants of health, as well as an extensive array of generic and symptom-specific patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) from 15 countries.

This special collection will include papers that delve into a myriad of research questions, including the establishment of population norms for various PROMs, cross-country comparisons, examination of health inequalities, assessment of instrument performance within and across countries, and specialized analyses focusing on self-reported health and the efficacy of different measures within the elderly population.

Potential topics

• Establishment of population norms for various patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs)
• Cross-country comparisons of health outcomes
• Examination of health inequalities across populations
• Assessment of instrument performance within and across countries
• Self-reported health analyses
• Efficacy of different measures within the elderly population
• Generic and symptom-specific patient-reported outcome measures

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Jessica Roydhouse, Menzies Institute for Medical Research

Brittany Lapin, Cleveland Clinic

The Limb Injury Measurement Battery for Quality of Life (LIMB-QOL) measurement system is a multifaceted patient reported outcome system designed to measure several domains of functioning across physical, emotional, and social health for individuals with limb loss and other major extremity trauma.

The LIMB-QOL is the result of a large, collaborative project that was funded by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs of the U.S. Department of Defense and overseen by the University of Delaware.

This special collection includes foundational manuscripts to introduce the LIMB-QOL measurement system to researchers and clinicians, including the development and implementation of this measurement system for individuals with major extremity injuries.

Potential topics

• Patient-reported outcomes for limb loss and extremity trauma
• Physical, emotional, and social health domains in limb injury
• Development and validation of the Limb Injury Measurement Battery for Quality of Life (LIMB-QOL)
• Implementation of LIMB-QOL in clinical research and practice
• Measurement of functioning and quality of life in individuals with major extremity injuries

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

A recent report has made it clear how reluctant researchers are to share and document their data, often the results of years of work and substantial expenditures. Data sets frequently disappear unarchived, resulting in lost work and duplicated efforts due to lack of data access. Transportation has added a 'Data paper' category to fill one of the gaps in the process of publishing data sets.

The 'Data paper' category allows researchers to report on substantial or innovative data collection exercises. These papers provide colleagues with credit for this difficult work and support researchers in further reporting of their respective studies, as data questions have already been answered and do not need to be rehearsed repeatedly.

Data papers are reviewed research papers focusing on the data collection process and its content. The journal aims to enrich the field with deeper insights into the data collection process and with freely available data sources enabling further analysis and comparison across time and space.

Potential topics

• Reports on substantially innovative or large policy relevant data sets
• Discussion of contents and design, theory or modelling considerations behind data collection
• Discussion of pre-tests and resulting changes
• Description of response process fully (sample frame, response behaviour, protocol and changes, incentives, AAPOR response rates)
• Evidence on representativeness of the sample obtained
• Basic substantial results and comparison to relevant benchmark surveys
• Examples of survey forms or CATI scripts in supporting materials
• Explanation of data availability for third parties and open access considerations

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Submission deadline

Stefan Gold, Technical University of Munich

Antoine Harfouche, Paris Nanterre University

Paul Jones, Swansea University

Maryam Lotfi, Cardiff University

Guoqing Zhao, Swansea University

Unethical labour practices represent a pressing global issue, with an estimated 50 million people currently living in such conditions worldwide. The prevalence of unethical labour practices is expected to increase due to ongoing regional conflicts, economic downturns, and restrictive migration policies in major Western countries. Digital technologies, such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing, promise significant benefits in addressing unethical labour practices and have consequently attracted increasing scholarly attention.

Modern slavery is one of the most serious forms of unethical labour practices, commonly conceptualized as the recruitment, movement, harbouring or receiving of children, women, or men through means such as coercion, deception, abuse of vulnerability, or the use of force, for the primary purpose of exploitation. It encompasses multiple practices, with prevalent forms including child slavery, human trafficking, forced labour, descent-based slavery, bonded labour, forced and early marriage, and domestic servitude. According to the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, an estimated 49.6 million people are living in conditions of modern slavery worldwide, including 22 million in forced marriage and 27.6 million in forced labour. Ongoing regional conflicts and expulsionist migration policies are expected to further exacerbate modern slavery by intensifying violence, displacing populations, and disrupting social and economic structures.

Digital technologies encompass a diverse range of tools, systems, and devices that leverage digital information and processes to enhance activities. These technologies include but are not limited to AI, blockchains, internet of things (IoT), big data analytics, cloud computing, and virtual and augmented reality. Big data and cloud computing are increasingly integrated into enterprise resource planning systems in manufacturing to support informed decision-making. Generative AI applications are being adopted in higher education to enable more efficient information access and content creation.

Digital technologies promise significant benefits for addressing unethical labour practices. Monitoring technologies such as remote sensors and worker voice technologies can enhance the identification of unethical labour practices within supply chains. Machine learning and AI can detect patterns of trafficking and slavery in large datasets, facilitating identification of at-risk areas or vulnerable individuals. Blockchain technology can be employed to track supply chain elements, helping to mitigate labour exploitation. Additionally, digital technologies have been proposed as effective tools to support the social inclusion of survivors of modern slavery.

The potential of digital technologies to address unethical labour practices has been consistently highlighted by various international organizations. The United Nations Human Rights Office has proposed that digital technologies are an effective means to prevent and address contemporary forms of slavery. Research conducted in partnership with the International Organization for Migration and other organizations has indicated that although digital technologies can support adults with lived experience of unethical labour practices in reintegrating into society, limited research constrains deeper understanding of these mechanisms.

Although existing studies have examined the role of digital technologies in addressing unethical labour practices, significant research gaps remain. Current literature has primarily examined technologies from the perspective of focal firms or single technology approaches, while other digital technologies such as biometrics recognition and satellite imagery employed by governments and non-governmental organizations also hold significant potential. Literature reviews indicate that while unethical labour practices remain pressing, there is limited research examining how digital technologies can be employed to monitor, detect, report, and address unethical labour practices, and there is a need for further empirical research to advance understanding in this area.

This special issue invites scholars and practitioners to examine the interplay between digital technologies and unethical labour practices, particularly the ways in which digital technologies can be employed to monitor, detect, report, and remediate unethical labour practices in pursuit of an ethical, responsible, and sustainable society. We welcome original, theory-driven research that makes significant contributions to advancing knowledge on this topic. Submissions may use various research methodologies, including theoretical and conceptual approaches, analytical and modelling, case studies and interviews, surveys, and literature reviews. All submissions must clearly identify the specific types of digital technologies being examined.

We particularly welcome studies that move beyond surface-level narratives and dominant discourse to provide nuanced and sophisticated insights into the nexus between digital technologies and unethical labour practices. Submissions that challenge existing paradigms, explore underexamined dimensions, or offer innovative perspectives and frameworks are especially encouraged. We seek contributions that extend theoretical boundaries and yield practical implications, thereby informing policymakers, business leaders, and wider society on how to leverage digital technologies to drive meaningful and lasting change in the fight against unethical labour practices.

Potential topics

• Role of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing in addressing unethical labour practices
• Monitoring and detection of modern slavery and human trafficking using digital technologies
• Machine learning and AI applications for identifying trafficking patterns and at-risk populations
• Blockchain technology for supply chain transparency and labour exploitation mitigation
• Remote sensors and worker voice technologies for identifying unethical practices in supply chains
• Digital technologies for supporting social inclusion and reintegration of modern slavery survivors
• Biometric recognition and satellite imagery applications by governments and NGOs
• Digital technology adoption mechanisms for mitigating unethical labour practices
• Theoretical and empirical frameworks for digital technology deployment in combating labour exploitation
• Policy implications and business leadership strategies for leveraging digital technologies against unethical labour practices

Timeline

• February 15, 2027: Submission deadline

Jyoti Choudrie, University of Hertfordshire

Sherah Kurnia, The University of Melbourne

Gabrielle Peko, University of Auckland

David Sundaram, University of Auckland

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are driving profound transformations across organisational, economic, and societal contexts, reshaping value creation, structures, and processes. As technologies such as generative and agentic AI, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) continue to evolve, scholarly attention must increasingly move beyond initial adoption toward understanding how these technologies are integrated, adapted, and leveraged over time. While prior research has extensively examined technology adoption decisions, comparatively less attention has been paid to post-adoption dynamics, including continuance, adaptation, and routinization. Moreover, the realization of value from ICT and AI investments remains uneven and insufficiently understood, as adoption does not necessarily translate into organizational or societal benefits. These gaps highlight the need for deeper theoretical and empirical insights into how technologies generate sustained value and transformation.

At the same time, the widespread deployment of ICTs and AI introduces complex risks and tensions, including ethical concerns, digital inequality, cybersecurity threats, and unintended consequences. In parallel, emerging forms of human–AI interaction and digital platforms are reshaping work practices, decision-making, and socio-technical relationships in ways that require renewed scholarly attention.

This special issue seeks to advance cutting-edge research that moves beyond initial adoption to examine post-adoption phenomena, value realization, and transformation across individual, organizational, and societal levels. While this special issue emphasizes post-adoption and impact, we also welcome novel perspectives on early-stage adoption where they offer new theoretical insights or address emerging technologies and contexts.

We invite original contributions employing diverse methodological approaches, including empirical, theoretical, experimental, design science, and review-based research.

Potential topics

• Technology assimilation, routinization, and deep integration
• Post-adoption behaviors: continued use, discontinuance, and switching
• Value creation, capture, and measurement in ICT and AI use
• Cross-cultural and comparative post-adoption studies
• Changes to work practices, organizational structures, and decision-making
• ICT-enabled institutional and governance transformation
• Digital platforms, ecosystems, and network effects
• Public sector and societal impacts of sustained technology use
• Success and failure of digital transformation initiatives
• Algorithmic bias, transparency, and accountability
• Privacy, cybersecurity, and data governance challenges
• Overuse, misuse, and unintended consequences of ICTs and AI
• Environmental and societal externalities of digital technologies
• Regulation and governance of AI and digital technologies
• Organizational strategies for effective post-adoption management
• Public policy for sustainable and ethical technology use

Timeline

• July 15, 2026: Submission of abstract (up to 300 words)
• August 15, 2026: Notification of abstract acceptance
• December 4, 2026: Submission of full paper
• April 5, 2027: Notification of first-round reviews
• July 1, 2027: Revised manuscripts due
• October 29, 2027: Notification of second-round reviews
• November 30, 2027: Final versions due
• January 31, 2028: Expected final decision

Laura Amo, University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Richard Baskerville, Georgia State University

Rui Chen, Iowa State University

Matthew Hashim, University of Arizona

Yaojie (William) Li, University of New Orleans

Yuan Li, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

As automation and AI explode, artificial intelligence is positioned to become the primary force in offensive and defensive cybersecurity practices. Attackers use generative AI to launch sophisticated spear-phishing attacks and deepfake campaigns targeting individuals; they also leverage Internet-of-Behaviors data to customize attacks based on user behavior patterns. AI companionship tools, while offering emotional support and practical assistance, also pose significant security and privacy concerns. Defensively, practitioners increasingly rely on AI-based threat detection tools just to keep pace with AI-fueled external threats, simultaneously facing cognitive issues associated with AI-based cybersecurity incident responses.

With AI driving cybersecurity from both offensive and defensive angles, it seems important to remember that security is fundamentally a human phenomenon. Human-in-the-loop is a well-established design principle emphasizing human involvement in system training, tuning, and decision making to improve accuracy and safety. This approach addresses contexts where human performance of security-critical functions is imperative because fully automated systems may be restrictive, inconvenient, or dangerous. Applied to security, HITL also guides designers and operators in identifying and mitigating human errors that cause security failures, premised on the notion that humans are the weakest link. Humans are thus a necessary yet vulnerable link in the security chain.

In this special issue of Information Systems Frontiers, we invite IS security researchers to consider how to balance AI's inevitable role in the future of information security while keeping humans such as users, employees, clients, patients, and students in the loop as a research focus. As security becomes increasingly AI-oriented, behavioral IS scholarship faces a growing challenge to retain focus on human behavior, cognition, and motivation. Now more than ever, it is imperative that humans remain central to research on secure systems, training programs, and assistive technologies such as chatbots.

This special issue will consist of papers from two sources: the best submissions from an open call for papers selected on a competitive basis, and invited submissions that are substantial revisions of selected papers accepted at the 2026 Dewald Roode Workshop on Information Systems Security Research. If from the latter, the submitted manuscript is required to have more than 40% new and original technical or scientific content, distinct from the workshop paper. Authors will be required to submit a letter detailing the differences between the workshop paper and the version submitted to this special issue.

Potential topics

• Neurosecurity (NeuroIS) investigations of information security behavior
• Behavioral analyses of design science treatments enhancing or balancing security and privacy tradeoffs
• The behavioral intersection of cybersecurity/privacy research and AI/ML advancements
• AI-enabled security awareness, training, nudging, and behavioral intervention systems
• Human-AI collaboration in security decision-making, compliance, monitoring, and response
• Behavioral security implications of generative AI, including phishing, social engineering, misinformation, insider threats, and user overreliance on AI tools
• Design science approaches to developing, evaluating, and theorizing intelligent security artifacts with behavioral implications
• Adaptive, personalized, and context-aware security interventions enabled by AI and analytics
• Theoretical extensions or reconceptualizations of established behavioral security theories in AI-mediated environments
• Security behaviors in pervasive and post-pandemic work environments, including remote work, hybrid work, IoT, cloud platforms, and platform ecosystems

Timeline

• January 15, 2027: Submission deadline
• May 15, 2027: Notification of first round reviews
• July 15, 2027: Revised manuscript due
• September 1, 2027: Notification of second round reviews
• October 15, 2027: Final version due
• January 30, 2028: Tentative publication date

Andrea Generosi, Pegaso University

Luigi Gallo, Pegaso University

Valerio De Luca, Pegaso University

Maura Mengoni, Marche Polytechnic University

Josef Spjut, NVIDIA

Lucio De Paolis, University of Salento

The past decade has seen explosive growth in video data (live and on-demand), driven by ubiquitous cameras, mobile devices, and online platforms. From city CCTV and body-cams to retail, sports, tele-health, and social live commerce, organizations now operate end-to-end video streaming pipelines at massive scale. In parallel, advances in deep learning, spanning video transformers, self-supervised pretraining, and multimodal large models, have transformed what intelligent systems can infer from continuous visual data, moving beyond static clips to long-horizon, low-latency understanding of events, activities, and interactions.

Affective computing adds a new dimension by interpreting emotional and social signals in video and multimedia. For example, research shows that portraying positive emotions and trust cues in video significantly increases viewer engagement. By combining facial expression, gesture, and acoustic analysis, advanced AI can infer user sentiment and intent. These capabilities enrich social-media intelligence, recommender systems, and customer journey analysis.

This special issue seeks cutting-edge work at the intersection of video analytics and affective computing, harnessing emotion and intent cues in visual data to enhance information systems, and about AI for video streaming: methods, systems, and governance for real-time ingestion, analysis, and decisioning over continuous video flows.

The goal is to bridge computer-vision analytics and affective models (extracting sentiment, engagement, trustworthiness, etc.) to design intelligent, human-centered systems that inform decision-making and adaptive services. The special issue is interested in methods that fuse visual, auditory, and textual data (multimodal analysis) to detect emotion, sentiment, engagement, gaze, gesture, posture, prosody and language in real time. Such techniques enable insights from live-streamed user interactions or "experience mining" in marketing and e-commerce. Deep-learning advances enable machines to recognize facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice and other cues to infer sentiment, engagement and intent. Recent work demonstrates that Convolutional Neural Networks combining video and audio input can predict viewers' emotions with high accuracy, achieving around a 75% AUC on real-world video-ads data. Other research has integrated language and vision: one study built an "Affective Mimicry Index" from CEO interview videos, using computer vision together with large language models, and found that higher video-derived empathy scores correlate with better firm performance. These examples show how multimodal video analytics can extract rich affective signals, from basic expressions to higher-level trust and empathy cues. The aim is to bring these advances into intelligent information systems that are explainable, fair, and aligned with human values.

Potential topics

• Scalable video understanding: algorithms and architectures for analyzing large-scale video streams (e.g. in surveillance, social media or enterprise) to support decision-making and business analytics.
• Emotion and sentiment analysis: detection of affective and engagement cues in video (e.g. customer-journey recordings, advertisement viewing, user-generated content).
• Multimodal fusion: methods that combine vision with audio, text or other modalities to enrich social-media intelligence and contextual analysis.
• Streaming-native AI and MLOps: online inference under tight latency budgets, stream processing/windowing, drift detection, A/B testing and safe rollouts, cost–latency–accuracy trade-offs, and end-to-end observability for production pipelines.
• Video(-language) models for streaming: multimodal LLMs/VLMs, memory and token compression for long-horizon video, retrieval-augmented streaming
• Real-time and distributed architectures: edge/cloud or federated systems for real-time video analytics at scale, including considerations of latency, bandwidth and privacy.
• Explainability, fairness and compliance: approaches to make affective video AI transparent and trustworthy, addressing ethical, legal and regulatory challenges.
• Adaptive learning: techniques for domain adaptation, continual learning or few-shot learning to handle evolving video streams and reduce the need for large labeled datasets.
• Case studies and applications: empirical studies in domains such as healthcare (e.g. remote patient monitoring), finance (e.g. behavioral analytics), education (e.g. XR/serious games environments), and smart environments.

Timeline

• October 30, 2026: Submission deadline

Hemant Bhargava, University of California, Davis

Andreas König, University of Passau

Jan Krämer, University of Passau

Chayanin Wipusanawan, University of Passau

One of the central features of the contemporary digital economy is the growing importance of digital platforms that enable, facilitate, govern, and increasingly mediate exchanges and interactions among participants who affiliate with the platform. Digital platform ecosystems, comprising platform owners, complementors, users, and a broader network of partners and institutions, have become a dominant architecture for value creation in the global economy. They influence organizational strategies, reshape industries and markets, and generate far-reaching social and political implications.

While platform ecosystems can foster novel forms of innovation, coordination, and entrepreneurial opportunity, their concentrated influence also raises critical questions regarding their powerful, and sometimes problematic, effects on societal processes and structures that extend beyond business and economic outcomes. As platform-mediated activities now govern substantial parts of how individuals work, communicate, access information, and participate in public debate, it is increasingly important to examine how these ecosystems are designed, governed, and regulated, and how such governance arrangements shape societal outcomes.

This influence is particularly visible in evolving labor arrangements, the organization and boundaries of online speech and content moderation, and the protection of vulnerable users, including youth safety and digital well-being. Related concerns include issues of fairness and transparency, market power and competitive dynamics, data practices and privacy, the distribution of risks and benefits across stakeholder groups, and the interaction of platform governance with public policy.

This special issue aims to provide a scholarly forum for addressing critical questions on digital platform ecosystems, considering both their enabling potential and their societal risks. We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions, employing quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods approaches, from the full breadth of the information systems field and related disciplines.

Potential topics

• Platform Governance and Ecosystem Orchestration: Governance mechanisms, rule-setting, boundary resources, and the allocation of decision rights across platform owners, complementors, and users; centralized, decentralized, and hybrid governance models.
• Strategic Conduct, Market Power, and Competitive Dynamics: Strategic positioning, platform envelopment, self-preferencing, lock-in, multi-homing, and the implications of dominant platforms for competition and market structure.
• Innovation, Complementor Dynamics, and Value Co-creation: Generativity, innovation governance, API and data access, developer relations, incentive structures, and strategies for value creation and capture across ecosystem participants.
• Content Governance, Speech, and Public Discourse: Content moderation, recommender systems, platform policies, and their effects on online speech, civic participation, and political communication across jurisdictions.
• Societal Risks, Safety, and Equity: Fairness, inclusion, and distributional effects of platform governance and algorithmic decision-making; information integrity and the maintenance of digital trust; safety, well-being, and protection of vulnerable users.
• Regulation, Policy, and Institutional Change: Antitrust and platform regulation, interoperability and portability, liability regimes, standards, oversight of platform policies and algorithmic systems, and the interaction between platform governance and public policy.
• Platforms and Socio-Economic Development: Platformization trajectories, local innovation ecosystems, informal economies, and societal impacts in emerging and developing contexts.

Timeline

• July 1, 2026: Open for submissions
• December 1, 2026: Submission deadline

Rainer Alt, Leipzig University

Rob Gleasure, Copenhagen Business School

Ke-Wei Huang, National University of Singapore

Mingfeng Lin, Georgia Institute of Technology

De Liu, University of Minnesota

Liudmila Zavolokina, University of Lausanne

FinTech emerged as a disruptive force in the financial industry around 2010, introducing innovative applications and business models. Now an established sector, FinTech has revolutionized payment, financing, lending, and insurance through platform-based, customer-oriented, and crowd-based processes. On the one hand, FinTech solutions have reached a maturity, which is characterized by well-adopted solutions that have reached a critical mass as well as by a growing degree of regulation. In practice, investments in FinTech start-up ventures have decreased and much research has also been published with four special issues in the Electronic Markets journal alone. On the other hand, ongoing technological advancements like agentic and generative artificial intelligence, blockchain/distributed ledger technologies, and quantum computing are driving further innovations.

Digital finance services are becoming more integrated with business processes and the interoperability between financial services has increased. Among the examples are innovative concepts like embedded banking where financial services are closely coupled with real economy processes, contextual banking where financial services adapt to where consumers are, silent banking where financial services are seamlessly integrated in business processes as well as open banking processes where banks offer their services via standardized interfaces on digital platforms. A variety of new services and business models (e.g., InsurTech, RegTech, and PropTech) has surfaced and enriched as well as transformed the landscape of the financial industry.

This special issue focuses on these developments from various perspectives (e.g., strategic, organizational, technological issues) and welcomes diverse methodologies, including theory development, qualitative studies, economic research, experiments, surveys, simulations, and design science.

Submissions should contribute novel insights to FinTech literature and practice while connecting to information systems research. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are welcome, provided the research exhibits strong methodological rigor. Contributions can take the form of conceptual and theoretical development papers, empirical hypothesis testing, position papers, case-based studies, and more. All papers will undergo a double-blind peer-review process.

Potential topics

• Interaction and integration between FinTech and traditional financial institutions (e.g., traditional banks, central banks, and central bank digital currencies)
• Study of segments of FinTech (InsurTech, PropTech, RegTech, Green FinTech and sustainable finance)
• Research on innovation processes in FinTech and analysis of (new) business models (e.g., crowd-based, digital platforms, decentralized business models)
• Upcoming concepts in Fintech (e.g., embedded, contextual, silent, open and ubiquitous finance and banking)
• Use of centralized (e.g., core banking/insurance systems) and decentralized digital platforms (e.g., blockchain and distributed ledger technology) for financial services
• Research on cryptocurrencies, crypto exchanges, and digital assets (e.g., tokenization, Initial Coin and Securitized Token Offerings (ICO/STO))
• Emerging standards in the financial industry (e.g., data/process standards and application programming interfaces) and regulations like PSD in Europe
• Adoption and business value of FinTech models and applications (e.g., financial inclusion and literacy, regulation and governance, diffusion and network effects)
• Emerging FinTech topics and applications (e.g., quantum computing, metaverse, Internet of Things, Agentic and Generative AI)
• Studies of innovative applications in FinTech (e.g., robo-advising, algorithmic trading, portfolio management, market making, and social trading)
• Innovative payment models and systems (e.g., payment networks, micropayments, mobile payments)

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Brian King, Texas A&M University

Babak Taheri, Texas A&M University

Danae Manika, Brunel University of London

Kyoung Jun Lee, Kyung Hee University

The aim of this special issue is to advance scholarly understanding of Responsible and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in tourism and hospitality, by assembling cutting-edge research, innovative methodologies, and critical reflections. As AI technologies become embedded in service delivery, marketing, operations, and consumer experience, transformative opportunities are accompanied by potential ethical challenges. Issues of fairness, accountability, transparency, and trust are particularly pressing as the sector adopts AI in pursuit of personalization, efficiency, and engagement. Responsible AI is linked with the concept of trustworthy AI, which reflects a stronger technological view and focuses on systems that are lawful, ethical, and robust throughout their lifecycle. Earlier research in tourism and hospitality has shown the need for interdisciplinary inquiry regarding the technical, managerial, legal, and societal dimensions of responsible AI adoption.

This special issue aims to provide a dedicated forum for interdisciplinary inquiry into the tensions and synergies that are evident between innovation, ethical responsibility, and human experience. It particularly encourages submissions that highlight the design, adoption, and governance of AI-enabled digital platforms, data-sharing ecosystems, and information infrastructures shaping tourism and hospitality. Papers may investigate the broader societal impacts of AI and topics such as bias and fairness in algorithmic decision-making, consumer trust in AI systems, sustainable and frugal AI applications, digital twins for experience innovation, and governance and regulatory frameworks and human-centered design. This builds on prior Electronic Markets contributions on responsible and trustworthy AI and extends them into the domain of tourism and hospitality. This special issue will foster dialogue across disciplines to highlight best practices as well as challenges in the design, deployment, and governance of responsible AI systems. Ultimately, it seeks to open up pathways that will ensure enhanced customer experiences through AI-driven innovation in tourism and hospitality, while upholding ethical, social, and environmental responsibility.

Electronic Markets is a Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)-listed journal in the area of information management and information systems. All papers should fit the journal scope. This special issue invites submissions that investigate the critical dynamics, challenges, and transformative potential of responsible and trustworthy AI in tourism and hospitality. We welcome studies that deploy quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods approaches, providing that they demonstrate methodological rigor and scholarly relevance. Suitable contributions may include conceptual and theoretical papers, empirical investigations, case-based analyses, position papers, and integrative reviews.

Potential topics

• Ethical AI frameworks in tourism and hospitality: fairness, accountability, transparency, and inclusivity.
• AI-driven consumer experiences: balancing personalization, convenience, and privacy.
• AI robustness and risk: testing booking, pricing, and chatbot vulnerabilities, modeling threats, and strengthening resilience.
• Trust, reliability and safety: building consumer trust, ensuring reliable performance, and managing risks.
• Auditing AI systems: ongoing evaluations in pursuit of fairness, accuracy, and compliance.
• Generative AI in marketing: pursuing responsibility in branding, engagement, and consumer journeys.
• Sociotechnical and cultural dimensions: cross-cultural and historical perspectives on AI adoption.
• AI, sustainability, and CSR: supporting or hindering responsible and sustainable practices in tourism and hospitality.
• Future directions: conceptual frameworks and policy challenges for responsible and trustworthy AI in service innovation and resilience.
• Social and labor impacts: the effects of adopting AI on employment, equity, and workforce well-being.
• Frugal AI and digital twins: cost-effective and resource-conscious applications for operations and guest experiences.
• Algorithmic transparency and rights: making AI decisions understandable and offering recourse for affected consumers.
• Dark side of AI: risks of manipulation, surveillance, over-automation, and addictive design.
• Corporate digital responsibility (CDR) in the age of AI within tourism and hospitality.
• AI on digital platforms: exploring recommender systems, marketplaces, and platform governance.
• Data ecosystems: sharing and leveraging user/usage data across digital travel and hospitality platforms.
• Trustworthy AI principles: ensuring AI systems in tourism and hospitality are lawful, ethical, and technically robust.
• Verification, validation, and explainability: designing AI that is interpretable and auditable for multiple stakeholders.
• Trustworthy AI and consumer journeys: balancing automation with transparency and user empowerment.

Timeline

• September 15, 2026: Submission deadline

Günter Prockl, Copenhagen Business School

Alexander Pflaum, University of Bamberg

Haozhe Chen, Iowa State University

Marcel Papert, University of Bamberg

The economic environment in which companies create value today is characterized by greater vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity than ever before. Natural disasters, geopolitical conflicts and other disruptions are affecting global supply chains and presenting great changes to established supply chain management models, processes and tools. In the meantime, Planet Earth has reached its limits; climate change and shortages of raw materials are forcing companies and supply chains to transition to more sustainable operations. The commoditization of high-tech products, which is evident in many sectors, is driving the servitization of the manufacturing industry. This presents a golden opportunity for companies to cope with the above-mentioned challenges with greater responsiveness and sustainability.

Tomorrow's supply chains must be able to react quickly to disruptions and changes. The concepts of resilience and responsiveness are key, as are flexibility, agility, adaptability and improvisation. The renewed battle for natural resources requires economic growth to be decoupled from the extraction of raw materials, ultimately forcing a transformation of established 'take, make, waste' supply chains into circular systems. R-strategies such as reduce, reuse, remanufacture and recycle play a special role in doing so. The ultimate aim is to increase resource efficiency in existing value chains, extend the service life of products, and close the loop.

Scientific literature agrees that digital technologies are key to realizing the responsive, servitized and circular supply chains of tomorrow. Important building blocks include the internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, digital twins for products and supply chains, blockchains and digital platforms. However, insufficient research has been conducted into how these building blocks support responsiveness, servitization and the transition to sustainability and circularity as a triple transformation.

This Special Issue seeks contributions that exemplify technology- or data-driven solutions for implementing resilient and circular supply chains, as well as the associated business models. Contributions employing a broad range of methodological approaches are encouraged, including but not limited to conceptual, qualitative, and quantitative research. It is essential that these contributions also derive and discuss managerial implications. We also welcome contributions addressing related topics not listed above.

Contributions should explore digital technologies in supply chain management within today's challenging business environment or specific industry contexts, such as automotive, chemicals, food, life sciences and healthcare, logistics service providers, manufacturing, or mining. Particularly interested are contributions that address the challenges and opportunities associated with digitalization, servitization and transition to sustainability and circularity across multiple supply chain tiers or at least in dyadic relationships.

All papers will be peer reviewed and should conform to Electronic Markets publication standards. Electronic Markets is a SSCI-listed journal with a 2024 Impact Factor of 6.8 and a 5-year Impact Factor of 10.0. Electronic Markets welcomes research from a technological, organizational, societal, and/or political perspective. Since Electronic Markets is a methodologically pluralistic journal, quantitative and qualitative research methods are both welcome as long as the studies are methodologically sound. Conceptual and theory-development papers, empirical hypothesis testing, and case-based studies are all welcome.

Potential topics

• Contribution of digital technologies to responsiveness, agility, flexibility, adaptability, improvisation, and resilience, sustainability, circularity, and regeneration
• Increasing supply chain visibility based on digital technologies
• AI methods supporting forecasting, planning, decision making and optimization
• Division of labour and interactions between humans and machines in AI-supported supply chains
• Virtualization and simulation of supply chains based on digital twins
• Blockchain and smart contracts in logistics and supply chain management
• The role of digital platforms in supply chain management
• Effects of smart product-service-systems on supply chains and supply chain management
• Ecosystems and federated data ecosystems enabling new data-driven R strategies
• Models, methods and tools enabling the triple transformation of supply chains
• Barriers and challenges hindering digitalization, servitization and transition to sustainability and circularity
• Data security and cyber security challenges in digital supply chain structures
• Legal aspects within the digital, servitized, circular supply chain
• Potential of digital technologies for ensuring compliance with legal requirements in the context of sustainability and circularity
• Relationship management mechanisms and governance structures in the era of digitalized supply chains

Timeline

• October 15, 2026: Submission deadline

Christian Bartelheimer, University of Göttingen

Daniel Beverungen, Paderborn University

Sara Hofmann, University of Agder

Lysanne Lessard, University of Ottawa

Digital transformation continues to reshape how organizations create, deliver, and capture value. At the same time, service has become a crucial lens for understanding contemporary information systems (IS) phenomena. Value is co-created across organizational boundaries, enacted through digital technologies, and embedded in networks, platforms, and ecosystems. The Topical Collection on Digital Transformation & Service at Electronic Markets seeks to advance theoretically grounded and relevant IS research at the intersection of digital transformation and service.

We invite submissions that foreground service and digital transformation as they are established, debated, and further developed within the IS discipline, and in particular in Electronic Markets. Submitted articles should demonstrate a clear engagement with core IS literature to identify a well-defined research gap that matters for practice and theory, and articulate a convincing contribution to recent IS conversations. We are particularly interested in papers that move beyond broad claims about the consequences of digital transformation and instead examine how information technology (IT) artifacts ought to be designed and how they can be applied to foster value co-creation.

A central expectation of this Topical Collection is that submissions 'white-box' the role of IT artifacts. We seek papers that explicate how IT artifacts shape and are shaped by the digital transformation of organizations, for instance by enabling or transforming customer relations, value propositions, and service exchange. Studies may focus on (smart) service systems or ecosystems at varied levels, including communities, organizations, inter-organizational arrangements, platforms, data spaces, and society. In contrast, we do not seek papers that treat information systems as 'black boxes' or limit their analysis to summative business implications without theorizing the underlying structures, mechanisms, and affordances of IT artifacts through which these implications emerge. Manuscripts presenting IT artifacts that use or expand large language models or other large-scale artificial intelligence technologies must also be unpacked and contextualized, and presented in a way that is theoretically anchored and generates contributions at the intersection of digital transformation, service, and information systems.

We invite contributions from various epistemological positions and methodological traditions common in the IS discipline. Suitable submissions may include (action) design science, conceptual papers, qualitative studies, including case studies and Delphi studies, quantitative research, including experiments, surveys, and data-driven studies, and mixed-methods work. Literature reviews are also welcome, provided that they deliver strong theoretical implications and develop a forward-looking research agenda that reaches considerably beyond reporting the current state of research.

We particularly encourage submissions that investigate the role of digital technologies in real-world service scenarios. Studies that focus on inter-organizational contexts such as service networks, digital platforms, data spaces, or business ecosystems are especially relevant, as they touch on core topics of Electronic Markets. Submissions may examine established organizations, start-ups, public-sector organizations, communities, or other actor constellations in which digital technologies enable, constrain, or transform service exchange and value co-creation.

Potential topics

• Digital transformation and service in information systems
• Design and application of IT artifacts to foster value co-creation
• Smart service systems and ecosystems at multiple levels (communities, organizations, inter-organizational arrangements, platforms, data spaces, and society)
• Customer relations, value propositions, and service exchange enabled by digital technologies
• Role of digital technologies in real-world service scenarios
• Inter-organizational contexts such as service networks, digital platforms, data spaces, and business ecosystems
• Digital transformation in established organizations, start-ups, public-sector organizations, and communities
• IT artifacts using or expanding large language models and other large-scale artificial intelligence technologies
• Generative AI and digital responsibility in service contexts

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Cristina Mele, University of Naples Federico II

Francesco Polese, University of Salerno

Jim Spohrer, International Society of Service Innovation Professionals

Bård Tronvoll, Karlstad University

The digital transformation characterizing business and society has opened up a whole new world of possibilities. The vast amount of online information facilitates data access and gathering, trend analysis, prediction, and prescriptions, and supports informed decisions. On the one side, actors have been strengthened in their decision-making capacities thanks to the prompt and easy access to a wide range of sources such as online databases, academic journals, online communities, social media, and search engines. On the other side, the conceptualization of service and service research needs to adapt and adhere to the fact that companies, communities, businesses, and society are in an era of significant change due to artificial intelligence, augmented reality, intelligence augmentation, the internet of Things, blockchain solutions, industrial automation and servitization. In other words, technology can enable value co-creation in multiple directions, not always through market sustainable behaviors.

Markets can be interpreted as service ecosystems, a perspective that frames a deep understanding of value co-creation dynamics between actors, also between human and non-human actors. Diverse actors' knowledge, intentions, and awareness of institutional arrangements and emergent properties can give rise to market emergence, market multiplicity in terms of multiple perspectives, purposive actions to create, maintain and change institutional arrangements market shaping and, definitely, market viability. The spread and adoption of technological advances, thus, generates opportunities and innovations that continually challenge markets, stimulating unforeseen emerging situations and contexts and new service platforms for service research opening up numerous exciting research streams.

Potential topics

• Service research and digital transformation
• Human-machine interactions and robots in value co-creation
• Technologies as enablers of market emergence and transformation
• Technologies and market shaping and market viability
• Phygital customer journey and metaverses
• Service research in complex industry settings (e.g., Industry 4.0)
• Business models to manage networks and service systems
• Emergence and institutionalization in service eco-systems
• Application of service-dominant logic to networks and markets
• Advances in combining network theory and service science

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Rainer Schmidt, Munich University of Applied Sciences

Rainer Alt, Leipzig University

Alfred Zimmermann, Reutlingen University

The Topical Collection on Artificial Intelligence-based Assistants and Platforms focuses on assistant systems (e.g. chatbots, recommenders) that are based on artificial intelligence and the interaction with users via declarative natural-language interfaces. They are present in various forms as well as industries and often assume a platform logic when services and devices from different providers are included.

The Topical Collection relates to a minitrack at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) and comprises research on novel methods, models, processes, and approaches related to the design, implementation, deployment, operation, and optimization of AI-based assistants and platforms for the digital economy.

Potential topics

• Design, implementation, and deployment of AI-based assistants and platforms
• Novel methods and models for AI-based assistants (e.g., chatbots, recommenders)
• Natural language interfaces and user interaction with AI systems
• Platform logic and integration of services from different providers
• Operation and optimization of AI-based assistants and platforms for the digital economy
• AI-based assistants in various industries and applications

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• September 28, 2026: Submission deadline

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• April 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue celebrates the 55th anniversary of Omega journal and marks fifty years since the introduction of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The special issue seeks to showcase the evolution of DEA from its origins as a tool for efficiency measurement to its current applications in intelligent data-enabled analytics and decision making.

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• May 31, 2027: Submission deadline

This special issue commemorates 50 years of Safety Science journal.

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• November 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• March 31, 2027: Submission deadline

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• October 1, 2027: Submission deadline

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• July 31, 2027: Submission deadline

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• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• July 17, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 11, 2026: Submission deadline

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• May 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• February 28, 2027: Submission deadline

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• September 15, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• September 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• November 2, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue focuses on industrial marketing management with a particular emphasis on the Baltic states region. The collection aims to advance understanding of how industrial marketing practices, strategies, and theories apply within the specific context of the Baltic economies and their integration into broader European markets.

Potential topics

• Industrial marketing in the Baltic region
• Regional market dynamics and strategies
• B2B marketing approaches in emerging markets
• International business relationships in Northern Europe
• Sustainable industrial practices and marketing

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• March 1, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• January 1, 2027: Submission deadline

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• January 15, 2027: Submission deadline

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• December 20, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 30, 2027: Submission deadline

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• September 30, 2027: Submission deadline

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• February 26, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

This is a coordinated four-part virtual special issue portfolio for the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal.

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• December 31, 2028: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue focuses on the transformative potential of Extended Reality (XR) technologies—including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR)—in enhancing decision-making processes and driving organizational transformation. As organizations increasingly face complex challenges requiring rapid, data-driven decisions, XR technologies offer innovative approaches to visualize information, simulate scenarios, and facilitate collaborative problem-solving in immersive environments.

The special issue welcomes original research contributions that explore how XR can improve decision support systems across various organizational contexts. We are interested in studies examining the effectiveness of immersive technologies in enhancing situational awareness, reducing decision-making time, improving decision quality, and fostering organizational innovation. Both theoretical frameworks and practical implementations are encouraged.

Potential topics

• Applications of XR technologies in decision support systems
• Immersive visualization for complex data analysis
• VR/AR/MR interfaces for business intelligence
• XR-based training and knowledge transfer for organizational learning
• Human-computer interaction in extended reality environments
• User experience and usability in XR decision support applications
• Integration of XR with artificial intelligence and machine learning
• Real-time collaboration in virtual/mixed reality spaces
• XR applications in crisis management and emergency response
• Organizational change management through XR adoption

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• January 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• April 30, 2027: Submission deadline

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• December 1, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue is associated with the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) 2026 and will be published in Information & Management.

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• June 1, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

This call invites research proposals focused on African financial markets and emerging markets research. The journal seeks high-quality submissions that advance our understanding of financial phenomena in African contexts and emerging market economies.

Potential topics

• African financial markets
• Emerging markets research
• Financial economics in Africa

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• May 30, 2027: Submission deadline

This call invites research proposals focusing on financial research topics relevant to African economies and financial systems. The special issue seeks to advance understanding of financial dynamics, institutions, and markets across the African continent.

Potential topics

• Financial markets and institutions in Africa
• Banking sector development and regulation
• Capital markets and investment in African economies
• Corporate finance and governance in African firms
• Financial inclusion and access to finance in Africa
• Macroeconomic finance and monetary policy in African countries
• Risk management and financial stability in African financial systems
• Fintech and digital finance innovation in Africa
• International trade finance and currency markets in Africa
• Real estate and infrastructure finance in Africa

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• May 30, 2027: Submission deadline

This call for papers invites research proposals focused on African financial systems, markets, and institutions. Research examining financial dynamics, institutional development, and monetary aspects of African economies is welcomed.

Potential topics

• African financial markets
• Financial institutions in Africa
• Money markets in Africa
• International financial connections to Africa

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• May 30, 2027: Submission deadline

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• December 31, 2029: Submission deadline

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• April 30, 2027: Submission deadline

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• September 25, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 31, 2027: Submission deadline

This special issue is focused on innovation governance through policy mixes. Policy mixes are combinations of different policy instruments aimed at governing innovation across multiple systems. The special issue welcomes research that examines how policy mixes emerge, co-evolve, and diffuse across different contexts and innovation systems.

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• October 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• July 15, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Potential topics

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in financial markets
• Algorithmic trading and high-frequency trading
• AI-driven market microstructure and price discovery
• Systemic risk and financial stability implications of AI
• Regulatory frameworks and governance of AI in finance
• Market efficiency and anomalies in AI-dominated markets
• Risk management and portfolio optimization with AI
• Ethical considerations and fairness in AI-driven finance
• Impact on market participants and trading strategies
• Data quality, bias, and robustness of AI models in finance

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• April 30, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• February 12, 2027: Submission deadline

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• June 1, 2027: Submission deadline

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• March 31, 2027: Submission deadline

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• February 28, 2027: Submission deadline

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• January 3, 2027: Submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• February 28, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• February 1, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• October 3, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• July 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue honors the contributions of Reinhard Selten to the fields of bounded rationality, behavioral economics, and game theory. The issue invites submissions that advance our understanding of how cognitive limitations and bounded rationality shape economic behavior and decision-making.

Contributions are welcome that explore the theoretical foundations and empirical applications of bounded rationality in various economic contexts, including but not limited to individual choice, strategic interaction, market behavior, and organizational decision-making.

Potential topics

• Bounded rationality and economic behavior
• Decision-making under uncertainty
• Behavioral economics
• Cognitive limitations in economic decision-making
• Game theory and bounded rationality

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• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue invites contributions that explore the intersection of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) and network science as applied to social systems and collective intelligence. The call seeks research that leverages both XAI methodologies and network science approaches to better understand, model, and explain complex social phenomena, emergent behaviors, and collective decision-making processes.

Potential topics

• Applications of explainable AI in understanding social systems
• Network science approaches to modeling collective intelligence
• Integration of XAI and network methods for social analysis
• Interpretability in multi-agent systems and social networks
• Transparency and accountability in AI-driven social platforms
• Graph-based methods for explaining collective behavior
• Knowledge graphs and social network analysis
• Fairness and bias detection in social AI systems

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• March 31, 2027: Submission deadline

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• September 1, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue invites submissions exploring how we might prefigure hopeful futures through research, creative practice, and imagination. The call seeks contributions that engage with optimistic visions of tomorrow while grounding these aspirations in rigorous analysis and critical engagement with contemporary challenges.

Potential topics

• Prefiguration and future studies
• Hope and optimism in futures research
• Imagining positive futures
• Alternative futures scenarios
• Speculative fiction and futures thinking

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• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• January 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue invites research exploring how collaboration between government, private sector, and civic organizations is reshaping the landscape of modern governance. We seek submissions that examine the mechanisms, challenges, and outcomes of public-private-civic partnerships in advancing government objectives and public service delivery.

Potential topics

• Public-private-civic collaboration in government
• Digital transformation in the public sector
• Government technology and innovation
• Collaborative governance models
• Public sector modernization

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• October 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• January 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• February 28, 2027: Submission deadline

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• October 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue examines how the development and global circulation of new weight loss pharmaceutical technologies raise urgent questions about moral meanings, social inequities, and the politics of health. We invite submissions that critically analyze the social, cultural, economic, and ethical dimensions of these technologies across diverse global contexts.

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• October 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• January 15, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• March 1, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue focuses on the critical challenge of decarbonizing transport through the development and implementation of multimodal transportation systems. Multimodal transport integration represents a key strategy for achieving substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and improving overall sustainability in the transportation sector.

Potential topics

• Integration of multiple transport modes to reduce carbon emissions
• Sustainable mobility solutions and transitions
• Life cycle assessment of multimodal transport systems
• Policy frameworks for decarbonizing transport
• Technology and infrastructure innovations for multimodal systems
• Behavioral and social aspects of multimodal transport adoption
• Urban and regional planning for sustainable transport
• Electric and alternative fuel vehicles in multimodal networks

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• February 28, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue seeks to explore how Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming methodological approaches in technology management research. We invite submissions that demonstrate innovative applications of LLMs as research tools, methodological enhancers, and theoretical instruments for advancing our understanding of technology management, innovation, and organizational change.

Contributions should address both the opportunities and challenges of incorporating LLMs into research practice, including questions of validity, reliability, ethical considerations, and the development of new theoretical frameworks that account for LLM capabilities and limitations in research contexts.

Potential topics

• Applications of LLMs in technology management research
• LLMs for data analysis and pattern recognition in technology studies
• Novel methodological approaches enabled by LLMs
• Theoretical frameworks for understanding LLM capabilities and limitations in research contexts
• LLMs for literature review and synthesis
• LLM-assisted qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Validation and reliability of LLM-based research findings
• Ethical considerations in using LLMs for academic research
• LLMs for forecasting technological trends
• Integration of LLMs with traditional research methodologies

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• January 1, 2027: Submission deadline

This special issue focuses on the mathematical and computational foundations necessary for developing trustworthy artificial intelligence applications in transportation systems. As AI increasingly influences critical transportation decisions affecting safety, efficiency, and equity, there is an urgent need for rigorous mathematical frameworks that ensure these systems are reliable, interpretable, and accountable.

The special issue welcomes contributions that advance the theoretical understanding and practical implementation of trustworthy AI in transportation. This includes work on mathematical models that enhance transparency, ensure robustness against adversarial attacks, quantify uncertainties, and address fairness concerns in transportation algorithms and systems.

Submissions should demonstrate how mathematical and computational approaches contribute to building trustworthy AI systems that stakeholders can understand, verify, and depend upon for critical transportation applications.

Potential topics

• Mathematical frameworks for explainability and interpretability in transportation AI
• Formal verification and validation methods for autonomous vehicles
• Trustworthy machine learning algorithms for traffic prediction and management
• Robustness and adversarial resilience in transportation systems
• Uncertainty quantification in AI-based transportation applications
• Fairness and bias mitigation in transportation decision-making systems
• Privacy-preserving techniques in transportation data analytics
• Game-theoretic approaches to multi-agent transportation systems
• Causal inference methods for transportation research
• Probabilistic and Bayesian methods in transportation AI

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• December 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• April 30, 2027: Submission deadline

This special issue invites submissions that explore the intersection of data-driven innovation, sustainable product development, and knowledge management. We seek research that examines how organizations can leverage data analytics, big data, machine learning, and knowledge management systems to drive innovation in sustainable product development. The focus is on understanding how data can be collected, analyzed, interpreted, and managed to support decision-making processes that lead to more sustainable products and services.

Potential topics

• Application of data analytics and big data techniques in sustainable product development
• Knowledge management systems for supporting data-driven innovation in sustainability contexts
• Integration of lifecycle assessment (LCA) data with knowledge management platforms
• Machine learning and AI applications for identifying sustainable product innovations
• Data governance frameworks for managing sustainability-related information
• Organizational learning and knowledge sharing in sustainable innovation processes
• Digital transformation enabling sustainable product development
• Real-world case studies of data-driven sustainable product innovation
• Challenges and barriers to implementing data-driven approaches in sustainability
• Tools and technologies for collecting, analyzing, and leveraging sustainability data

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• October 15, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue focuses on the development and application of higher-order network representations and advanced modeling methods to enhance our understanding of transportation resilience. Traditional transportation network models often fail to capture the complex, multi-way interactions and higher-order dependencies that characterize modern transportation systems. This special issue invites contributions that leverage higher-order network approaches, such as hypergraphs and simplicial complexes, to better represent the intricate relationships between transportation components and improve resilience analysis and management.

We welcome papers that present novel theoretical frameworks, empirical studies, computational methods, and practical applications of higher-order network representations in transportation contexts. Contributions may address how these advanced representations can help identify vulnerabilities, enhance system robustness, and support decision-making for more resilient transportation infrastructure.

Potential topics

• Higher-order network representations (e.g., hypergraphs, simplicial complexes) for transportation systems
• Modeling methods that capture complex interactions and dependencies in transportation networks
• Applications of higher-order networks to transportation resilience
• Resilience assessment and enhancement strategies using advanced network representations
• Interdependencies between transportation and other critical infrastructure networks
• Temporal and dynamic aspects of higher-order transportation networks
• Data collection and empirical studies on higher-order structures in transportation systems
• Computational methods and algorithms for analyzing higher-order transportation networks

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• March 14, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue seeks to explore the emerging concept of technological sovereignty and its implications for innovation policy, particularly in the context of securing critical technologies in an increasingly multipolar world. The special issue invites contributions that examine how nations and regions are developing strategies to govern, protect, and advance their technological capabilities while maintaining competitiveness and security.

Submissions are welcome that address theoretical frameworks, empirical analyses, and policy recommendations related to technological sovereignty, critical technology governance, innovation ecosystems, supply chain resilience, international technology competition, and the balance between openness and protection in innovation systems.

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• March 31, 2027: Submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue examines the intersection of information availability, institutional quality, and financial market dynamics in emerging economies. The collection seeks to advance understanding of how information flows, institutional frameworks, and market structures interact to shape financial outcomes in developing and transition economies.

Potential topics

• Role of information asymmetry in emerging market financial markets
• Institutional quality and financial market efficiency
• Corporate governance in emerging markets
• Information disclosure and transparency requirements
• Market microstructure in emerging economies
• Regulatory frameworks and their impact on financial markets
• Behavioral finance in emerging markets
• Information technology and financial market development

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• August 15, 2026: Submission deadline

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,

Social psychological interventions aim to change thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in beneficial ways. However, accumulating evidence suggests that such interventions sometimes backfire, producing effects opposite to those intended. This special issue seeks to advance our understanding of when, why, and for whom social psychological interventions produce unintended negative consequences.

Potential topics

• Boomerang effects and unintended consequences of social psychological interventions
• Reactance and psychological resistance to intervention attempts
• Individual differences in susceptibility to intervention backfiring
• Temporal dynamics of intervention effects (delayed backfiring)
• Mechanisms underlying when and why interventions backfire
• Cross-cultural variation in intervention effectiveness and backfiring
• Interventions targeting attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, or social norms that produce opposite-to-intended effects
• Meta-analyses or systematic reviews of intervention failures
• Novel theoretical frameworks explaining intervention backfiring
• Practical implications for improving intervention design and implementation

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• October 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• December 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue seeks to advance understanding of social entrepreneurship in rapidly transforming global contexts. We invite submissions that explore how social enterprises are adapting to new economic, technological, and social environments while maintaining their commitment to social and environmental impact.

Potential topics

• Social entrepreneurship in evolving markets and contexts
• Impact measurement and evaluation of social enterprises
• Hybrid business models combining social and commercial goals
• Digital transformation and social entrepreneurship
• Policy and regulatory frameworks for social enterprises
• Stakeholder engagement and partnerships in social entrepreneurship
• Scaling social impact
• Environmental sustainability and social entrepreneurship

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• October 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• April 30, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• January 31, 2027: Submission deadline

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• July 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• August 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• October 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue focuses on forensic finance research related to litigation, misconduct, and enforcement. The issue welcomes empirical and theoretical research that examines financial fraud, corporate misconduct, regulatory enforcement actions, and related legal proceedings.

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• October 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• November 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue invites submissions that provide on-the-ground empirical studies of auditing practices, processes, and institutions in the Majority World countries. We welcome research that examines auditing as it is actually practiced in real-world contexts, moving beyond theoretical frameworks to understand the lived experiences of auditors, audit clients, regulators, and other stakeholders.

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• December 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• October 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 15, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• January 30, 2027: Submission deadline

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• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• February 1, 2027: Submission deadline

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• October 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• July 1, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue of the Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation welcomes literature reviews that explore accounting, auditing, and taxation from an international perspective.

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• June 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• May 30, 2027: Submission deadline

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• October 15, 2026: Submission deadline

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• August 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• November 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue focuses on critical raw materials (CRMs) and their role in global resource and energy economics. Critical raw materials are essential to modern industries including renewable energy, electronics, defense, and advanced manufacturing, yet their supply chains face significant vulnerabilities including geographic concentration, geopolitical tensions, and limited recycling infrastructure.

The issue welcomes research examining the economic, political, and environmental dimensions of critical raw material markets. This includes analyses of supply chain resilience, market mechanisms, policy interventions, technological solutions, and corporate strategies for ensuring sustainable access to these essential resources.

Potential topics

• Supply chain security and risk assessment for critical raw materials
• Geopolitical dimensions of critical raw material markets
• Technological innovation and substitution strategies
• Recycling, circular economy, and material recovery
• Environmental and social impacts of critical raw material extraction
• Market dynamics and price volatility
• Policy frameworks and trade regulations
• Corporate strategies for resource security

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• July 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• August 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue focuses on research related to entrepreneurial finance, venture capital, and corporate finance topics.

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• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• January 10, 2027: Submission deadline

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• October 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 29, 2026: Submission deadline

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• August 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• July 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• October 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• August 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 15, 2026: Submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• November 1, 2026: Submission deadline

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• November 2, 2026: Submission deadline

India at the intersection of global commerce, technological capabilities, and cultural dynamics presents a unique context for strategic information systems research. This special issue seeks to explore how organizations in India are navigating rapid technological acceleration while maintaining distinct commercial practices and cultural values.

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• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue of The Leadership Quarterly seeks empirical research that advances our understanding of leadership through rigorous causal inference methods. We invite submissions that employ experimental designs, quasi-experimental approaches, longitudinal studies, or other methodologically sound approaches to establish causal relationships in leadership phenomena.

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• November 22, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• October 15, 2026: Submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• June 15, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue invites submissions exploring the applications, implications, and innovations of Large Language Models (LLMs) in the tourism industry and for enhancing tourist experiences. The rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence presents unprecedented opportunities and challenges for tourism stakeholders, from destination management organizations to hospitality providers to individual travelers.

Potential topics

• Applications of LLMs in tourism management and operations
• LLMs for personalized tourist experiences and recommendations
• Natural language processing applications in tourism marketing
• LLMs for tourism chatbots and customer service
• Language translation and communication in tourism contexts
• LLMs for travel planning and itinerary generation
• Sentiment analysis and tourist feedback analysis using LLMs
• LLMs for tourism research and data analysis

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• August 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• December 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue focuses on the intersection of transportation systems and ecological processes. It addresses the complex relationships between human mobility, infrastructure development, and natural ecosystems, examining both the negative impacts of transportation on biodiversity and environmental quality, as well as solutions that balance transportation needs with ecological conservation.

Potential topics

• Ecological impacts of transportation systems
• Wildlife-vehicle interactions and habitat fragmentation
• Air and water pollution from transportation
• Noise pollution and ecosystem effects
• Climate change impacts of transportation
• Sustainable transportation and biodiversity conservation
• Urban ecology and transportation planning
• Green infrastructure for transportation corridors
• Restoration ecology in transportation contexts
• Transportation policy and environmental management

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• July 30, 2027: Submission deadline

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Lorraine Eden, Texas A&M University

This special issue invites scholars to examine how political ideology influences international business activities in a world characterized by increasing political polarization. As countries become more ideologically divided and nationalism rises globally, understanding the role of political ideology in shaping international business decisions, strategies, and outcomes becomes increasingly important.

We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions that advance our knowledge of the complex relationships between political ideology and international business. Submissions may address the ideological orientations of firms, governments, or individuals (such as CEOs and managers) and their implications for international business.

Papers should offer novel insights into how political ideology affects international business activities at multiple levels of analysis—from individual managers and firms to industries and countries. We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives that bridge international business with political science, economics, and other relevant fields.

Potential topics

• How political ideology shapes international business strategies and operations
• The impact of ideological polarization on foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions
• Political ideology as a determinant of cross-border mergers and acquisitions
• Ideological differences and international business partnerships
• The role of home country political ideology in MNE behavior abroad
• Host country political ideology and its effects on international business entry and expansion
• Ideological distance between home and host countries and international business outcomes
• Political ideology and global supply chain management
• Ideological polarization and international business ethics and CSR
• The influence of political ideology on international trade and tariff policies
• Political ideology and technology transfer in international business
• Ideological factors in international joint ventures and alliances

Timeline

• May 29, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue of The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance focuses on the intersection of economics and politics, examining how electoral competition, voting mechanisms, political violence, and policy outcomes interact to shape economic and political systems.

Potential topics

• Electoral competition
• Voting behavior and analysis
• Political violence
• Policy outcomes
• Economics of politics

Timeline

• April 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• July 31, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue is jointly established by Annals of Tourism Research and Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights.

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• July 15, 2026: Submission deadline

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• November 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• October 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• August 27, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

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• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue explores the digitalisation of and by projects from a sociotechnical perspective, examining the consequences for project work and how digital technologies reshape project management practices, organizational structures, and professional roles.

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

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• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

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• September 1, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue focuses on transportation systems and human mobility during disaster situations. It covers research on how transportation networks respond to and support human movement during emergencies, including evacuation planning, emergency vehicle routing, disaster logistics, and the resilience of transportation infrastructure.

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• October 15, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue focuses on market-based measures and economic instruments designed to mitigate emissions from ports and the shipping industry. The collection seeks to advance understanding of how market mechanisms can effectively reduce environmental impacts while maintaining economic competitiveness in the maritime sector.

The issue welcomes contributions exploring various market-based approaches including carbon pricing, emission trading systems, green bonds, subsidies for clean technologies, and other economic instruments. Papers may examine these mechanisms from theoretical, empirical, or policy perspectives, with particular interest in their effectiveness, design, implementation challenges, and real-world outcomes.

Potential topics

• Market-based mechanisms for reducing port and shipping emissions
• Carbon pricing and emission trading systems in maritime transport
• Economic instruments for incentivizing sustainable shipping practices
• Port authority policies and market-based approaches
• Life cycle assessment and environmental impact of shipping
• Technological innovations and market adoption in emissions reduction
• Regulatory frameworks and market-based policy integration
• Case studies of successful market-based emissions mitigation strategies

Timeline

• August 28, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline

Timeline

• August 30, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue explores how identity diversity influences strategic decision-making processes within teams. We seek to understand the mechanisms through which diverse team compositions affect decision quality, creativity, and organizational outcomes. The focus is on examining both the benefits and challenges of managing identity-diverse teams in contemporary organizational settings.

Potential topics

• Identity diversity in teams and its impact on strategic decision-making
• Diversity management strategies and their effectiveness
• Team dynamics and interpersonal processes in diverse contexts
• Decision quality and innovation outcomes in identity-diverse teams
• Intersectionality and multiple dimensions of diversity
• Cognitive and affective processes in diverse team settings
• Organizational culture and inclusive practices
• Leadership approaches in managing identity-diverse teams

Timeline

• October 5, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• September 4, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• November 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• July 15, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• August 27, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• September 1, 2026: Submission deadline

This is a call for special issue proposals for the journal Computers in Human Behavior. Interested scholars are invited to submit proposals for special issues that address the intersection of computers and human behavior.

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline for special issue proposals

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• June 30, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue focuses on family business, entrepreneurship and corporate governance in the Pacific-Basin region. The issue invites research that examines the unique characteristics, challenges, and opportunities of family enterprises and their governance structures in this dynamic economic area.

Timeline

• December 31, 2025: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• July 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline

This special issue focuses on the intersection of sustainable maritime transportation and artificial intelligence technologies. Maritime transportation plays a crucial role in global commerce and logistics, accounting for a significant portion of international trade. However, the shipping industry faces considerable environmental challenges, including greenhouse gas emissions, fuel consumption, and pollution. Artificial intelligence and machine learning offer promising opportunities to address these sustainability challenges while improving operational efficiency.

The special issue welcomes contributions that explore innovative AI-based solutions for enhancing sustainability in maritime transportation. This includes research on optimizing vessel performance, reducing carbon footprints, improving safety protocols, and developing intelligent systems for port and logistics management. We are particularly interested in studies that demonstrate practical applications of AI technologies in real-world maritime contexts.

Potential topics

• AI and machine learning applications in maritime transportation
• Optimization of shipping routes and fuel efficiency
• Autonomous vessels and maritime automation
• Environmental impact assessment and emissions reduction
• Port operations and logistics optimization
• Maritime safety and risk management
• Data analytics for sustainable shipping
• Integration of renewable energy in maritime transport
• Smart navigation systems
• Digitalization of maritime supply chains

Timeline

• October 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• April 15, 2025: Submission deadline

Timeline

• February 15, 2025: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• March 31, 2025: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue calls for papers examining the intersection of innovation and entrepreneurship in high-cost economies. High-cost economies face unique challenges in maintaining competitiveness while managing elevated operational expenses, regulatory burdens, and labor costs. The issue seeks to understand how entrepreneurs and innovators navigate these constraints and leverage them as opportunities for creating sustainable business models and competitive advantages.

Timeline

• January 31, 2025: Submission deadline

Timeline

• July 31, 2024: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• December 31, 2023: Submission deadline

Potential topics

• Blockchain consensus mechanisms and protocols
• Smart contracts design, verification, and optimization
• Blockchain scalability and performance optimization
• Security and privacy in blockchain systems
• Blockchain interoperability and cross-chain solutions
• Supply chain management using blockchain
• Healthcare applications of blockchain
• Financial services and cryptocurrency applications
• Identity management and authentication using blockchain
• Data integrity and provenance tracking
• Blockchain governance and regulation
• Energy efficiency in blockchain systems
• Integration of blockchain with AI and machine learning
• Blockchain for IoT (Internet of Things) applications
• Enterprise blockchain implementations

,

,

This special issue examines how decision-making processes, choice behavior, and reasoning capabilities evolve from childhood through adulthood. Understanding the developmental trajectory of these fundamental cognitive and behavioral processes provides insight into the mechanisms that underlie human judgment and decision-making across the lifespan.

The collection seeks to integrate perspectives from developmental psychology, behavioral economics, cognitive science, and neuroscience to explore how individuals acquire, refine, and modify their decision-making strategies as they mature. Contributions may address the biological, cognitive, social, and environmental factors that shape the development of choice behavior and reasoning abilities.

Empirical studies, theoretical frameworks, and methodological approaches that advance our understanding of developmental decision-making are welcome. This includes research examining both normative development and individual variation in how people learn to make choices and engage in reasoning from early childhood through adulthood.

Potential topics

• Developmental changes in decision-making and choice behavior across the lifespan
• Cognitive mechanisms underlying reasoning development
• Economic decision-making in children and adolescents
• The role of emotions and affect in developing choice behavior
• Neural and biological substrates of reasoning development
• Individual differences in decision-making trajectories
• The impact of education and experience on choice behavior
• Temporal and risk preferences across development
• Social influences on reasoning and decision-making
• Irrational choice patterns and their developmental origins

,

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) face unprecedented challenges from exogenous shocks such as pandemics, natural disasters, geopolitical tensions, and supply chain disruptions. These major disruptions test the resilience and adaptability of global business operations and require strategic responses that span multiple countries and business units.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities and opportunities within global value chains and MNE operations. Understanding how MNEs learn from and adapt to such major disruptions is critical for both theory and practice in international business.

This special issue seeks to advance our understanding of how MNEs respond to, learn from, and build resilience against exogenous shocks. We welcome empirical and theoretical contributions that examine MNE adaptation strategies, organizational changes, and the factors that influence their ability to navigate major disruptions.

Potential topics

• How have MNEs adapted their global value chains in response to exogenous shocks?
• What organizational and strategic changes have MNEs implemented to build resilience?
• How has the pandemic affected MNE subsidiary autonomy, mandates, and roles?
• What is the role of digital transformation in MNE adaptation to exogenous shocks?
• How do institutional contexts shape MNE responses to major disruptions?
• What are the short-term and long-term implications of exogenous shocks for MNE competitiveness?
• How have MNEs managed stakeholder relationships during major disruptions?
• What lessons can be learned from MNE responses to past crises?

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime:

This special issue focuses on the applications and implications of Large Language Models (LLMs) in the tourism sector. We invite research exploring how LLMs can enhance tourist experiences, improve tourism service delivery, and support both tourism businesses and individual travelers. The issue welcomes empirical studies, theoretical frameworks, case studies, and critical analyses of LLM technologies in tourism contexts.

Potential topics

• Applications of LLMs in tourism industry
• LLMs for personalized tourist recommendations
• Natural language processing for tourism content
• Chatbots and virtual assistants in tourism
• Tourist information retrieval using LLMs
• Language translation for tourism
• Sentiment analysis of tourist reviews
• LLM-based travel planning and itinerary generation
• Multilingual tourism communication
• AI ethics in tourism applications

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

This call for papers invites research proposals focused on African finance and financial systems. We are interested in original research that advances our understanding of financial markets, institutions, and practices across the African continent.

Submissions should present novel findings and insights relevant to African financial contexts, including studies on market structures, regulatory frameworks, institutional development, and financial behavior in African nations and regions.

Potential topics

• African financial markets and institutions
• International finance and development in Africa
• Corporate finance in African companies
• Risk management in African financial systems
• Financial innovation and technology in Africa
• Economic development and finance in African countries

Timeline

• December 31, 2023: Submission deadline for research proposals

This special issue seeks to advance our understanding of demand management policies and strategies that contribute to more affordable, accessible, and efficient transport systems.

Timeline

• July 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

This special issue seeks to advance our understanding of demand management policies and strategies that contribute to more affordable, accessible, and efficient transport systems.

Timeline

• July 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Julian Birkinshaw, Western University

Thomas P. Lyon, University of Michigan

Denise M. Rousseau, Carnegie Mellon University

Majken Schultz, Copenhagen Business School

Mo Wang, University of Florida

Amid rising concern about the relevance of their contents, many scholarly journals mandate inclusion of a managerial implications section. This section may be relegated to a few paragraphs at the end of an article and comprised of speculative statements loosely connected to the paper's empirical or theoretical content. And there these unvalidated implications tend to remain, largely unaddressed in future research studies and having little relevance to practice or policy.

This special issue calls for original research that develops actionable solutions from previously published managerial implications. By developing actionable insights from underdeveloped or dormant implications, this special issue furthers the core function of any science: the development of a corpus of valid and reliable knowledge. An applied science has the added demand that knowledge be usable outside of academia.

The portfolio of Academy of Management journals forms a system of knowledge production in which each journal has a complementary specialization. Within this system, Academy of Management Perspectives papers provide actionable insights that guide practitioner behavior and influence policy decisions. These papers build on theory developed, tested, and organized in other journals and enrich these theories by revealing nuances and boundaries of their usefulness.

This special issue is limited to papers that analyze practice and policy implications previously published in any of the seven established Academy of Management journals: Academy of Management Annals, Academy of Management Collections, Academy of Management Discoveries, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Academy of Management Review, and Academy of Management Perspectives. The article containing the focal implication on which a submission is based must have been published in or fully accepted to any of these journals at any point up to 31 December 2026.

Submissions must conduct novel empirical or conceptual analysis. Academy of Management Perspectives does not accept managerial translations that restate previously published work in more practice-friendly terms. Moreover, papers that address managerial implications for which actionable solutions have already been adequately developed through prior publications are not accepted. Authors submitting to this special issue may be, but are not required to be, an author of the published article containing the managerial implication.

Academy of Management Perspectives' mission and format differ from many other leading academic journals. Though the format differs, the journal's analytical standards are the same as at any other Academy of Management journal, demanding robust analysis that fulfills current social science standards. Papers should be grounded in evidence or robust conceptual frameworks, address relevant real-world managerial and policy issues, offer actionable insights, avoid theory fetish, and be written in a style accessible to non-specialists and practitioners.

A Paper Development Workshop will be hosted at the Academy of Management 2026 Conference in Philadelphia for selected authors to further develop their manuscripts. Participation in this workshop is neither a guarantee nor a prerequisite for publication.

Potential topics

• Developing actionable solutions from previously published managerial implications
• Novel empirical or conceptual analysis of practice and policy implications
• Real-world problems of practice and policy overlooked in managerial implications sections
• Robust analysis providing specific guidance for practitioners and policy makers
• Building on theory developed in Academy of Management journals to enrich and reveal nuances of their usefulness

Timeline

• January 1, 2026: Call for papers opens
• January 31, 2027: Submission deadline at 23:59 ET

Associate editors

• Michael L. Barnett, Rutgers University

Miriam Moeller, University of Queensland

Dana L. Ott, University of Otago

Matevž Rašković, University of Technology Auckland

Sophie Hennekam, Audencia Business School

Timothy J. Vogus, Vanderbilt University

Joy E. Beatty, Eastern Michigan University

Judith Clair, Boston College

Business schools around the world are undergoing rapid transformation, reflecting questions about their social license, legitimacy and identity, changing student demographics, technological developments, and evolving understandings of social justice, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Amid this period of re-evaluation and change, recognition is growing that an estimated 15-20% of the global population is neurodivergent. With more than half of Gen Z now identifying as neurodivergent, it underscores the urgency of advancing theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical conversations about whom business school systems of teaching, assessment, and professional formation are designed to serve – and how they might evolve to achieve greater neuroinclusion.

Neurodiversity, a term collectively developed by neurodivergent individuals, refers to the full spectrum of natural variation in human cognitive functioning. Individuals who diverge from dominant neurocognitive norms are often described as neurodivergent, encompassing cognitive profiles such as Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, Tourette Syndrome, and other forms of neurodivergence. These forms of neurodivergence are not deficits to be 'fixed' but reflect different patterns of perception, attention, memory, and communication, which may entail both distinct challenges and unique strengths in educational and workplace settings. ADHD individuals, for example, may excel in high-energy, fast-paced problem-solving but face difficulties with sustained concentration during lengthy case discussions or traditional assessments. Dyslexic learners often demonstrate strong visual-spatial reasoning and creativity yet may encounter barriers when coursework relies heavily on time-pressured reading and written tasks.

There has been a marked increase in the number of neurodivergent learners entering higher education in recent years, driven by rising awareness and improved access pathways. In the UK, for example, up to 2% of university students may meet diagnostic criteria for ASC, with an additional 2-8% potentially being ADHD. Dyslexia is also widespread, with approximately 5% of higher education students being dyslexic. Nonetheless, these figures likely underestimate the true prevalence of neurodivergence in business and higher education as many learners remain undiagnosed or choose not to disclose their neurodivergent status.

Business schools traditionally tend to privilege narrow forms of learning, expression, and social interaction that assume neurotypicality and place the burden of adaptation on neurodivergent individuals. This approach fails to recognize that the challenges of neurodiversity are fundamentally breakdowns in mutual understanding between neurodivergent and neurotypical people grounded in differences in their patterns of attention, communication, and interpretation of social information—a double empathy problem rather than one party's mind blindness or lack of empathy. Failing to see the double empathy problem produces pedagogical expectations that can disadvantage those whose strengths and needs do not align with these implicit norms, limiting their ability to fully participate and succeed.

Pedagogically, group work, a core element of many business schools, similarly assumes strong relational and communication skills, which may not align with all neurocognitive profiles. Similarly, particularities of neurodivergent students, such as hyperfocus among those with ADHD or monotropism, referring to the tendency to focus one's attention on a small or singular number of interests, common among autistic students, are often ignored or positioned as irrelevant. Moreover, challenges faced by neurodivergent learners are intensified for postgraduate students, mature learners, and those diagnosed later in life, who often encounter disbelief, inconsistent support, or are completely overlooked by institutions.

Even when available, neurodivergent learners may be unaware of available support or may refrain from requesting accommodations to which they are entitled due to the fear of stigmatization. These students often attempt to conform to neurotypical norms, masking their difficulties or distinctive traits. They consequently tend to manage their challenges by themselves, a strategy that may prove unsustainable over time for them and their support groups. As a result, and despite being academically capable, degree completions remain low. For many, the consequences extend beyond poorer academic outcomes to diminished access to meaningful employment, an issue particularly stark for autistic individuals whose employment rates remain among the lowest of any disability group.

While several excellent special issues have advanced the conversation on neurodiversity in management and organizations, this special issue offers a fundamentally distinct vantage point. Whereas prior collections center primarily on neurodiversity in relation to employment, inclusion practices, and organizational systems and outcomes, this Academy of Management Learning & Education special issue uniquely foregrounds the importance of reimagining management learning and education to better serve all minds and to develop neurodiversity-informed managers who are equipped to make organizations more neuroinclusive.

For this special issue, we encourage conceptual and empirical work that envisions business schools as models of neuroinclusion. Our call also shifts the focus from 'accommodating and managing difference' to 'learning through difference' and understanding how difference, as a form of diversity, enhances learning and group capabilities. In doing so, it extends the dialogue beyond workplace adaptation to examining how neurodiversity both challenges and enriches the processes through which management knowledge is constructed, taught, and understood by learners, and how this also impacts emergent group functions (i.e., decision-making and morality). We therefore invite a more inclusive understanding of learning and knowing in management education, one that values diverse cognitive styles and experiences as integral to the co-creation of knowledge and practice.

In this vein, we invite contributors to explore diverse perspectives that enrich and expand conversations on neurodiversity in management learning and education. In particular, we encourage submissions that move beyond single-diagnosis approaches recognizing the breadth within and across neurodivergences, including: developmental (e.g., ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia), acquired (e.g., traumatic brain injury, epilepsy), mental health (e.g., anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder), and physical health conditions (e.g., chronic fatigue syndrome, hearing or vision impairment). These categories are not mutually exclusive and neurodivergent conditions often co-occur. For example, those who present with ADHD and anxiety, or those who are dyspraxic and autistic, may experience both distinctive challenges and synergies in learning and workplaces.

Furthermore, this special issue welcomes contributions that embrace conceptual plurality, engaging with alternative or adjacent conceptualisations of neurodiversity – whether framed as natural variation and ecology or through disability, misfit, being 'different' or other evolving terms that capture the complex ways individuals experience (mis)alignment with institutional learning environments and how this also impacts emergent group functions and group-level outcomes. Embracing such plurality also requires turning the lens toward academic and professional staff who shape these environments. Doing so exposes a broader empirical and theoretical blind spot in understanding the attitudes and experiences of academic and professional staff with disabilities and, in particular, those with neurocognitive conditions.

Of interest in this special issue also are how inclusive pedagogy, constructive alignment, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and learner partnership models can transform educational design and practice to better serve the full spectrum of learners. For example, a management educator might offer students multiple ways to demonstrate learning, such as a written essay, an infographic, or forms of digitalization, or a recorded presentation, thereby valuing diverse modes of cognition and communication. Similarly, predictable course rhythms and clearly scaffolded tasks can reduce cognitive load and anxiety for neurodivergent students while increasing engagement and clarity for everyone. Finally, incorporating learner partnership models—where students collaborate with educators to co-design learning activities, assessment criteria, or feedback processes—can cultivate a sense of shared ownership, agency, and belonging across the entire student cohort. For business schools, this will result in very real considerations of workload models, academic and professional staff training, and the redistribution of institutional resources to ensure that inclusive pedagogical intentions are supported by genuine structural and financial commitment.

Attention should likewise be directed to an intersectional perspective on neurodivergence, which acknowledges that intersecting identities—such as gender, race, and culture—interact and fundamentally shape how neurological differences are understood and enacted. For example, the experience of a dyslexic woman of color in academia or that of a neurodivergent international student navigating an unfamiliar education system may reveal unique intersections of cognitive, cultural, and structural differences, which offers an opportunity to explore the interactions of dispositional and circumstantial diversity. In particular, we encourage research and reflections from diverse cultural and national contexts which support and extend ecological understandings of neurodiversity and challenge dominant epistemological assumptions. Consequently, we provide a space to decenter Eurocentric and Anglophone paradigms of management learning and education, enabling more culturally grounded understandings of neurodivergence. These perspectives will ultimately challenge dominant Western deficit discourses and offer novel pathways for pedagogical and institutional inclusion, as well as opening promising frontiers for the application of institutional theory and intersectionality research.

At a theoretical level, management learning and education continues to be informed by approaches that presume and privilege neurotypicality and associate neurodivergence with medicalized deficits rather than as part of a natural ecology. We posit that institutions that implement inclusive teaching practices often do so without interrogating the deeper epistemic assumptions that define what counts as legitimate knowledge, effective pedagogy, or good learning. To illustrate, efforts to engage neurodiversity in practice and management learning and education research have largely been narrow and at the individual-level, overlooking a more ecological perspective that focuses on the interplay of factors at micro, meso, and macro levels. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory—which posits that individual development is shaped by multiple, interrelated environmental layers—may offer a valuable lens for examining how business schools can become more inclusive. For this special issue, we therefore encourage pursuing the above-mentioned ideas and contexts from various theoretical perspectives, epistemological assumptions, and levels of analysis.

In conjunction with the ecological systems view, a range of theoretical lenses, such as social identity theory and identity work, critical race or critical disability theories, queer theory and power lenses, but also decolonial perspectives may be pertinent to studying intersectional identities, forms of oppression, and co-occurring conditions. Social learning theory and especially self-efficacy beliefs, learned helplessness, and the internalization of negative beliefs about their competencies or stigma might likewise be relevant to studying educational outcomes as well as the school-to-work transition of neurodivergent students in business schools. This is supported by empirical research showing that neurodivergent students often report lower self-efficacy than their neurotypical peers, which may hinder confidence and career readiness.

In sum, we encourage contributions that critically examine how insights from neuroscience and neuro-ethics can inform, but should not uncritically determine, approaches to neuroinclusive management learning and education. We invite scholars, educational practitioners, business school leaders, policymakers, and even practitioners from across inclusive education, disability studies, critical management studies, organizational behavior and theory, and other fields to enrich neurodiversity discourse and contribute to a more expansive, socially just, and humanizing vision of management learning and education.

Potential topics

• How does neurodiversity help reimagine social justice and DEI in business schools?
• What tensions emerge between performance metrics and inclusion for neurodivergent students, academic and professional staff, and how are such trade-offs effectively managed?
• How do policies on reasonable accommodations align (or conflict) with institutional objectives and wider institutional logics?
• How is neurodiversity effectively addressed in non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) environments and institutional settings in higher education contexts?
• How does a country's legal context shape the expectations, obligations, and opportunities for business schools to develop and deliver more neuroinclusive pedagogy?
• How can existing practices and processes within business schools be adjusted and/or redesigned to be more neuroinclusive (e.g., recruiting and selection, onboarding, networking, and organizational culture)?
• How can business schools attract and retain neurodivergent talent (learners, academics and professional staff)?
• How can business schools support neurodivergent academic and professional staff and challenge ableism as an organizational paradigm?
• How do business schools address the neurodiversity of learners, academic, and professional staff at different levels (i.e., undergraduate, postgraduate, executive education) and in different cultural and institutional contexts?
• How do neurodivergent learners, academic and professional staff experience management learning processes differently and what unique challenges do they face?
• What are the experiences of learners and academic and professional staff with intersectional social identities involving neurodiversity?
• What is the role of institutional logics/culture, pedagogy, peer learners, and academic and professional staff in the way neurodivergent individuals and groups experience and navigate their management education, including from an intersectionality perspective?
• What insights can be gleaned from the experiences of neurodivergent learners and academic and professional staff regarding neurotypical norms in management education? What role do visibility and representation specifically play in this?
• How can cross-neurotype (between neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals) collaboration and connection be fostered and leveraged in the classroom and outside it (i.e., bridging the double empathy problem)?
• How do neurodiverse groups of learners (i.e., those with neurotypical and neurodivergent members) work together (e.g., the biases experienced or avoided, the interpersonal challenges) and perform (e.g., task performance, creativity)?
• How do neurodivergent individuals experience the transition into the workforce as well as from secondary school into management education? What practices, supports, and tools aid more successful transitions? How do these transitional practices vary across global cultures?
• What role does executive functioning, sensory processing, or divergent social cognition play in shaping reflection and feedback loops within learning processes?
• In what ways can experiential learning or study abroad be adapted for neurodivergent learners and educators?
• How does neurodiversity inform alternative models of learner identity and transformation?
• What is the impact of educational support on academic achievements and the employability of neurodivergent individuals?
• What role do internships and mentoring play in the academic achievements and work-readiness of neurodivergent management learners?
• How can business schools foster neuro-inclusion as a leadership and management capability?
• How can universal design for learning and inclusive pedagogy reshape management education?
• How can constructive alignment more effectively incorporate the needs and experiences of neurodivergent learners and educators across different levels and contexts?
• What can we learn from neuro-inclusive education in other fields? What best practices, policies, and procedures can be identified?
• How do assessment and participation norms impact neurodivergent learners' educational outcomes?
• How does neurodiversity intersect with other (potentially) stigmatizing attributes or sources of social identities, such as gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other disabilities among management learners?
• How do individuals with multiple co-occurring neurocognitive conditions navigate higher management education?
• What teaching innovations have emerged in neurodiversity-informed business courses and programs?
• How important is visibility and representation among academic and professional staff?
• How may internalized ableism and embodied pedagogy affect neurodivergent academic and professional staff?
• How do inclusive pedagogies engage with issues of masking, disclosure, and psychological safety?
• How can technology, and in particular artificial intelligence, be meaningfully leveraged to support neurodivergent learners in management education? How can such technologies be used to enhance cross-neurotype collaborations and relationships?
• How are higher education institutions and educators adapting AI-driven educational technologies to support neurodivergent learners in management programs?

Timeline

• May 13, 2026: Deadline for submitting 3,000-word proposal (including references) for optional professional development workshop in May 2026
• November 1, 2026: Special issue submission window opens
• December 14, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Associate editors

• Katrin Mühlfeld, University of Trier
• María José Murcia, IAE Business School

In cases in which results, whether present or not, may have important theoretical or practical implications, scholars are encouraged to submit a Registered Report. In this type of submission, authors submit the introduction, methods, measurement info, and analysis plan (but not the results) of a completed or planned study.

This abbreviated paper is then evaluated on the basis of the importance of the topic, the merit of the selected analytic approach, methodological rigor and quality, and potential for impacting down-the-road theorizing and/or practice/policy. As results are not included in the registered report, what was or is likely to be found has no bearing on the outcome of the evaluation. This is in line with the journal's willingness to publish papers reporting negligible or non-effects.

Potential topics

• Empirical studies with important theoretical or practical implications
• Research with rigorous methodological design
• Studies reporting null or negligible effects
• Organizational and management research

Timeline

• January 1, 2025: Call for submissions opens
• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Discoveries-through-Prose empower authors to craft their manuscripts in nontraditional ways that make for tighter, more engaging narratives.

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Jonathan Doh, Villanova University

Srividya Jandhyala, ESSEC Business School

Yadong Luo, University of Miami

Grazia D. Santangelo, Copenhagen Business School

Political turbulence is on the rise, as evidenced most dramatically in violent conflicts (e.g., wars, terrorism attacks), volatile political transitions (e.g., dramatic regime change, cuts to government employees, new geopolitical alliances, coups), and geopolitical tensions (e.g., trade wars, democratic backsliding, sanctions). This escalated political turbulence exacerbates geopolitical risks for organizations and their stakeholders.

Whether anticipatory (e.g., fear of cyberattacks) or actual (e.g., ongoing trade wars, competition over territories), rising geopolitical risks affect organizations in many ways. The rise of techno-nationalism, driven by national security and ideological concerns, challenges the resilience of global technology supply chains. With the rapid development of AI comes misinformation and disinformation that further aggravate political tensions and ideologies. Tariffs, sanctions, and protectionist trade restrictions bring escalating compliance risks. Rising populist sentiment drives immigration restrictions and is creating a shortage of high-skill talent for MNEs.

Political turbulence has long been a strategic consideration in some sectors such as energy and defense, but it is now affecting organizations in nearly all sectors, both at home and abroad. At home, organizations encounter scrutiny from civil society for their operations in countries with questionable international standing. Abroad, they may face interventions by host country governments that vary with their country of origin or type of ownership. All of this presents considerable challenges for managers and their organizations.

This special issue aims to provide actionable, evidence-based insights that clearly and credibly guide managers and their organizations in navigating the political turbulence that increasingly characterizes the international, national, and subnational landscape. We seek to fill in the 'glaring white space' of how organizations can best operate under political turbulence, providing robust insights on which practitioners and policy makers can rely.

AMP papers are managerially driven, not theory driven. Successful submissions clearly define the managerial issue from the outset and make a compelling case for its importance. They do not simply tack managerial implications onto a standard academic study. Rather, AMP papers evidence actionable insights that can credibly guide managerial behavior and influence policy decisions.

We welcome both conceptual and empirical papers that are grounded in rigorous analysis and directly evidence specific and significant managerial and policy actions. We welcome accounts of embodied, lived experiences of specific political turbulence and the use of reflexive methodologies. Quantitative analyses of large databases, qualitative comparative analyses, and extensive data analysis using linguistic programs and algorithms are also welcome. Papers should prove what can or does work in ways that managers and policymakers can use.

Potential topics

• Understanding Different Types and Forms of Political Turbulence
• Rethinking Corporate Political Strategies
• Reorganizing and Realigning Geographically Diversified Operations
• Managing Stakeholder Nationalism
• The Role of New Technologies
• Managing Corporate Innovation
• Navigating the Race for Talent

Timeline

• September 1, 2026: Submission window opens
• September 30, 2026: Final deadline for submissions at 23:59 ET

Associate editors

• Tazeeb Rajwani, University of Surrey

Academy of Management Perspectives (AMP) publishes papers that matter to managers. The journal seeks to realize the field's long-standing call for managerially relevant work. AMP papers must be managerially driven from the start, not theory-driven papers with managerial implications added as an afterthought. Papers rejected from theory-focused journals are not suitable for AMP unless they are fundamentally reoriented toward managerial relevance.

AMP papers must meet three core criteria: they must be RELEVANT, RIGOROUS, and READABLE. Relevant papers inform an issue of evident importance to managerial practice and/or policy. Rigorous papers engage in rigorous and original conceptual or empirical analysis. Readable papers concisely and clearly convey key ideas to a non-specialized audience. All three criteria must be satisfied.

While managerial relevance is the journal's most prominent characteristic, it does not come at the expense of rigor. AMP does not publish papers lacking rigorous original analysis. The analytical standards are the same as those of other elite journals. Opinions, overviews, descriptive arguments, and philosophical treatises are not within the journal's purview, even if they convey interesting perspectives on management. The managers who rely on AMP content need evidence, not conjecture.

AMP manuscripts differ in format from other Academy of Management journals to enhance accessibility for non-specialized audiences. The journal uses endnotes, places detailed analyses in supplements, and limits body pages to approximately 20 pages rather than the standard 30+. AMP papers favor plain language over jargon and make the practical case from the start rather than appending managerial implications at the end.

A typical AMP manuscript includes the following components: an engaging title and concise abstract of no more than 200 words; a concise introduction serving as an executive summary; a problem statement that clearly articulates the focal managerial issue and makes a convincing case for its importance; a review of relevant literature portraying baseline knowledge; identification of gaps in current understanding; rigorous conceptual or empirical analysis providing evidence to address the identified gaps; discussion of what has been learned including implementation steps and boundary conditions; and a brief conclusion restating the paper's contributions and significance.

Potential topics

• Papers that inform managerial practice and policy
• Work addressing issues of evident importance to managerial practice and/or policy
• Rigorous and original conceptual or empirical analysis
• Papers accessible to non-specialized audiences and practitioners
• Work grounded in evidence or robust conceptual frameworks
• Papers offering actionable insights for managers and policymakers

Timeline

• January 31, 2027: Submission deadline

In the 2020s, the business environment is changing faster and more profoundly than at any time since the middle of the previous century. Many of these trends increase the exposure to systemic risks for business, endangering their thriving, growing, and successful integration in their societies.

What are the implications of these trends for the private sector? Do companies need to worry about these changes? More academic research is needed to better understand the impact of the outlined trends on business.

Timeline

• October 6, 2025: Submission Deadline

Management Science (MS) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) are pleased to announce a joint conference focused on registered report proposals relating to audit-related topics.

The conference will be held in-person in Washington, D.C., on September 26-27, 2025. Researchers are invited to submit registered report proposals for consideration for presentation at the conference.

The PCAOB and MS conference aims to facilitate collaboration among academics, practitioners, and regulators to address emerging challenges in the audit landscape by stimulating academic interest in areas of significance to the PCAOB's mission.

Potential topics

• Audit-related research topics
• Areas of significance to the PCAOB's mission
• Emerging challenges in the audit landscape
• Collaboration between academics, practitioners, and regulators

Timeline

• May 15, 2025: Submission deadline for registered report proposals
• September 26, 2025: Conference in Washington, D.C.

The interdepartmental virtual special issue on AI for finance and business decisions aims to explore the transformative impact of AI and attract top-quality research on the economics, methodology, and applications of AI and novel data analytics in practice and research in finance and business decisions.

Both theoretical and empirical work is welcome, and studies developing new methods for decision making, optimization, inference and prediction, and interdisciplinary research are encouraged. The special issue especially welcomes submissions that transcend the departmental boundaries and explore unconventional frameworks.

Potential topics

• Economics of AI and machine learning
• Methodology and algorithms for decision making, optimization, inference and prediction
• Applications of AI and novel data analytics in finance and business
• Theoretical and empirical work on AI in practice
• Interdisciplinary research combining AI with business and finance
• Novel frameworks transcending traditional departmental boundaries

Timeline

• December 31, 2025: Submission deadline

In the ever-evolving landscape of finance, digital technologies have carved out a transformative path that challenges traditional paradigms and induces impactful financial innovations. The emergence of digital finance, encompassing everything from mobile banking and digital wallets to fintech innovations and robo-advisors, has not only reshaped consumer behavior, but also redefined the architecture of financial systems worldwide.

This digital revolution prompts a reevaluation of financial inclusion strategies, risk management frameworks, and the overall fluidity of capital and information. As these technologies advance, there is an increasing need for robust theoretical foundations and extensive empirical studies to guide their development, optimize their integration into existing financial ecosystems, and ensure that their regulation keeps pace with innovation.

The special issue aims to explore these themes, seeking contributions that address the systemic impacts of digital finance, propose novel methodologies for its analysis, and examine the broader economic implications of its rapid growth.

Potential topics

• Mobile banking and digital wallets
• Fintech innovations and robo-advisors
• Financial inclusion strategies in the digital age
• Risk management frameworks for digital finance
• Capital and information flow in digital financial systems
• Systemic impacts of digital finance
• Novel methodologies for analyzing digital finance
• Regulatory frameworks for digital finance
• Consumer behavior in digital financial environments
• Integration of digital technologies into existing financial ecosystems
• Economic implications of digital finance growth

Timeline

• June 30, 2025: Submission deadline

The special issue on the human-algorithm connection seeks to attract research that gives decision-makers a better understanding of the coexistence of humans with algorithms and how to improve it. The work must have an important human component (i.e., purely focusing on algorithms won't suffice) and algorithms can be understood in a broad sense including machines and apps.

Top quality papers in any of the research areas represented by Management Science are welcome, both theoretical and empirical. Interdisciplinary studies are also highly encouraged.

Potential topics

• Research on human-algorithm coexistence and interaction
• Decision-making with algorithms and machines
• Human factors in algorithmic systems
• Improving human-algorithm collaboration
• Applications of algorithms, machines, and apps in organizational contexts

Timeline

• December 22, 2022: Submission Deadline

Claudine Gartenberg, .pop

Sharique Hasan, .pop

Lamar Pierce, .pop

Christopher Bail, .pop

Hengchen Dai, .pop

Oliver Hauser, .pop

Hatim Rahman, .pop

Dennis Zhang, .pop

This special issue asks a fundamental question about artificial intelligence and social science: do we want it to produce faster, cheaper versions of what we already do, or do we want fundamentally new science? Returning to Organization Science's founding mission—Daft and Lewin's 1990 call to break out of the "normal science straitjacket" and March's "exploration of new possibilities"—we want to shift our focus to how AI is changing the production of science and how it can expand our knowledge, rather than merely increasing the number of papers through efficiency and reduced labor.

In this call for science, we seek contributions that reimagine what a social science research contribution is in an AI-enabled world, encouraging wild ideas and radical innovation over obvious incremental improvement. We are not looking for conventional full-length papers with AI-related content, nor "AI slop"—we want the innovative applications themselves.

The issue follows a three-stage process—a research proposal and prototype, a collaborative development phase with an in-person workshop, and finalization—culminating in short Science/Nature-style articles and shorter "letters," all treated as true peer-reviewed contributions. We welcome submissions from scholars across the social sciences and adjacent fields, so long as they address organizational or managerial implications, broadly interpreted.

Potential topics

• AI-enabled research loops under human direction
• Reusable research infrastructure
• New forms of measurement
• AI-enabled qualitative and theory-building work
• Synthetic social systems
• New approaches to established research designs
• Critical or boundary-setting work on the limits of AI-enabled science
• Reimagining social science research contributions in an AI-enabled world

Timeline

• October 1, 2026: Submissions Open
• November 1, 2026: Submissions Close

Paul Leonardi, .pop

Alex Murray, .pop

Frank Nagle, .pop

Nelson Phillips, .pop

Juliana Schroeder, .pop

Paula Ungureanu, .pop

Elisa Villani, .pop

Agency is central to organizational sciences and heavily debated. Assumptions about who can act, what acting requires, and who is answerable for results underlie theories of motivation, leadership, decision making, control, value creation, careers, institutions, and technological change. These views largely developed before intelligent technologies began participating in organizational action. As analytic, generative, and agentic AI increasingly participate in organizational action, intention, execution, and consequence—traditionally assumed to reside in a single human actor—are coming apart, and with them our settled sense of who exercises agency.

This special issue seeks theoretically ambitious work, whether conceptual or empirically grounded, that takes the changing production of action as its starting point. The issue is organized around two complementary aims: to reconsider agency itself—what it is, where it resides, and how it operates when action is co-produced by people and machines—and to understand how the changing nature of agency reshapes the phenomena in organizational fields, from organizational behavior and careers to management and control, strategy, entrepreneurship, institutions, the sociology of work, information systems, and the governance of autonomous action.

Submissions are welcomed from across the organizational sciences and from neighboring disciplines in sociology, economics, psychology, and the philosophy of action. Given the rapid pace of change in agentic technologies, the issue will follow an accelerated review process.

Potential topics

• Agency in organizations and how it changes with AI participation
• Co-production of action by people and machines
• Reconceptualizing agency: what it is, where it resides, and how it operates
• Impact on organizational behavior and careers
• Management and control in the age of AI
• Strategy and entrepreneurship with agentic technologies
• Institutional implications of changing agency
• Sociology of work and AI
• Information systems and autonomous action
• Governance of autonomous action
• Motivation, leadership, and decision-making with AI
• Value creation with intelligent technologies

Timeline

• February 1, 2027: Submissions due

Mahyar Eftekhar, Arizona State University

Serguei Netessine, University of Pennsylvania

Yanchong Zheng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

According to the International Monetary Fund, 152 countries—home to approximately 6.87 billion people—are classified as emerging and developing economies. Despite this, much of the research published in top operations management journals remains focused on industrialized nations. Emerging and developing economies, home to over 85% of the global population, remain underrepresented in top OM journals.

This special issue aims to expand the field by advancing Development Operations Management (DOM)—a subfield akin to development economics. DOM focuses on designing and implementing strategies, policies, and solutions to enhance economic prosperity and industrial competitiveness in resource-constrained environments, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This vision is inspired by impactful studies conducted by renowned development economists and Nobel laureates, whose work has shaped evidence-based approaches to addressing economic and social challenges in developing countries.

Although developed and developing economies may encounter similar supply chain and operations management issues, solutions effective in developed contexts often fail to translate due to structural differences. These include inadequate infrastructure, fragile institutions, political instability, currency fluctuations, and the prevalence of informal sectors. To tackle these complexities, it is vital to account for a range of local factors, including legal frameworks and foreign exchange risks, market dynamics, cultural norms, religious influences, and local content requirements such as reliance on domestic goods, services, and labor. Broadening the scope of research may necessitate incorporating new theories, tools, and methodologies designed to address the unique challenges that firms in developing nations face.

We welcome theoretical, empirical, and field-based research that focuses on the unique characteristics of developing countries—including market dynamics, institutional constraints, cultural factors, and local supply chains. Studies centered on multinational firms' operations in developing economies or humanitarian logistics fall outside the scope of this special issue.

Potential topics

• Extending OM theory to economies at the bottom of the pyramid
• Promoting economic prosperity in less-developed regions
• Enhancing OM practice by integrating innovations from developing economies
• Supply chain management in developing countries
• Market dynamics and institutional constraints in developing economies
• Cultural factors and local supply chains
• Infrastructure and institutional challenges in resource-constrained environments
• Currency fluctuations and foreign exchange risks
• Informal sector operations
• Local content requirements and domestic reliance

Timeline

• June 1, 2026: Deadline for submission
• September 1, 2026: First-round decision and feedback
• March 1, 2027: Second-round submission (for papers invited to revise)
• June 1, 2027: Final decisions (subject to minor revisions)

Jan C. Fransoo, Tilburg University

Dorothee Honhon, University of Texas at Dallas

Retail, defined as the activity of selling goods or services directly to the end consumers, is among the largest employers and largest industry sectors in both developed and developing economies. Research in retail operations has grown tremendously over the last two decades since the initial seminal work by Fisher et al. (2000). Since then, the retail landscape has changed enormously, specifically because the development of online and on-demand retail. This development has been characterized in a review of 20 years of research in this journal (Caro et al. 2020). Research in operations management has followed this change in industry structure, with both modeling and empirical papers studying a wide variety of retail formats and retail channels. However, with little exception, the focus of these studies is more or less entirely on profit-maximizing objectives of the retailer, without much attention to considerations of sustainability and social responsibility.

Within the wider scope of responsible operations, retail has an important and visible role to play that has received increasing attention in the society at large. We strongly believe that it is the role of academic research to address the wider scope of responsible operations in retail, beyond the mere profitability of companies and business models in the sector.

With this special issue, we call for innovative and impactful research that advances the theoretical and empirical understanding of responsible retail operations, and provides managers and educators with tools and insights to deploy more responsibility in retail operations. We are open to any research methods, including theoretical, empirical and behavioral work.

For a paper to qualify, two conditions need to be met: (1) The outcome variable/objective function needs to include a responsible metric, i.e., it is not enough to have a traditional cost/profit outcome variable/model that evaluates the effects on a responsible outcome, or a traditional cost/profit outcome variable/model that is set in a setting where responsible outcomes play a role. (2) The setting must be retail, defined as a directly consumer-facing activity, with the end-consumer (households or individuals) paying for a product or a service. In this definition, we decide to include not only physical stores and online retail for physical products, but also restaurants, banks, airlines, amusement parks, etc., but decide to exclude healthcare services.

Potential topics

• Waste in food, apparel and electronics retail
• Labor conditions in stores and delivery operations
• Carbon emissions generated by highly responsive online or on-demand retail operations
• The role of retail stores in the livability of rural communities
• The presence of food deserts and food banks in low-income urban communities
• The subsistence role of retail stores in developing countries and communities
• Data privacy concerns such as face recognition in stores or data tracking online

Timeline

• January 1, 2025: Deadline for confidential extended abstract scope check submissions
• August 1, 2025: Deadline for submissions
• November 1, 2025: First-round decisions and feedback
• May 1, 2026: Second-round submission for papers invited to revise
• September 1, 2026: Final decisions subject to minor revisions

Steven Ongena, University of Zurich

Nam Vu, Miami University

Kiet Tuan Duong, University of York

Luu Duc Toan Huynh, Queen Mary University of London

Ten years after the Brexit referendum, the financial system is operating in a markedly transformed environment characterised by rising protectionism, heightened geopolitical tensions, and an increasingly fragmented global trading system with constrained financial flows. This special issue examines how the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union both reflects and contributes to a broader shift towards economic nationalism, trade barriers, and financial fragmentation, viewed through the lens of European financial studies.

Drawing lessons from Brexit, the special issue seeks to advance understanding of how financial institutions, firms, and markets are adapting, or failing to adapt, to a world in which economic separation, sanctions, and regional blocs are becoming structural rather than transitory features. What initially emerged as a political and economic rupture between the UK, and the EU has unfolded alongside a wider global retreat from multilateralism.

Recent developments, including the re-election of Donald Trump and the aggressive reimposition of US trade tariffs in 2025, have amplified protectionist sentiment across major economies. These dynamics have led to increased interest in understanding the role of uncertainty arising from these policy changes in corporate finance, international finance, cross-border investment flows, and international policy coordination.

Potential topics

• The long-term effects of Brexit on UK and EU financial markets and financial services a decade after withdrawal
• The macro-financial implications of Trump 2.0 trade policies for the UK, particularly in the context of renewed tariff regimes affecting British exports and imports and their global financial spillovers
• The broader impact of overlapping trade barriers—including economic sanctions and retaliatory trade measures—on equity and debt markets
• Regional disparities and financial inequalities in credit access and banking systems are exacerbated by trade and financial fragmentation
• The resurgence of industrial policy and its effectiveness in promoting financial resilience under conditions of reduced international integration
• Institutional responses and the capacity of international and regional organisations to mediate and stabilise an increasingly fragmented economic and financial order
• Disparities in syndicated lending between UK and European lenders and borrowers, with particular attention to sustainable finance
• The role of regulation and policymaking in reconnecting, or further decoupling, British and European financial systems
• Barriers to financial technology diffusion following Brexit and the practical implementation of Brexit since 2020
• Financial behaviour and household finance (e.g., financial flows, savings, investment decisions, overreactions, and reversal effects) ten years after Brexit
• Changes in corporate governance among British and/or European firms, particularly shifts in board composition and the associated financial consequences

Timeline

• March 1, 2026: Submissions open
• September 30, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Andrea Antonio Cantone, University of Salerno

Dragan Ahmetovic, University of Milano

Paloma Diaz, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Giuliana Vitiello, University of Salerno

Immersive technologies, including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR), are increasingly being adopted in educational contexts to create engaging, interactive, and experiential learning environments. By enabling students to interact with digital content in three-dimensional, embodied and multisensory spaces, these technologies have the potential to transform traditional educational practices and support new forms of learning that are more active, contextualized, and collaborative.

Recent research from the educational technology, Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), and eXtended Reality (XR) communities has explored the potential of immersive technologies to enhance learning experiences, highlighting their impact on engagement, motivation, collaboration, and experiential learning. In parallel, accessibility and inclusive design research has emphasized the importance of incorporating accessibility principles into immersive environments to ensure that emerging technologies can support learners with diverse abilities and needs.

Immersive technologies offer significant opportunities to promote inclusive and accessible education. When carefully designed, XR based learning environments can support a diverse range of learners by providing adaptive interfaces, multimodal content, and personalized learning experiences that accommodate different abilities, learning styles, and needs.

However, despite their potential, many immersive learning applications are still developed without fully considering accessibility and inclusivity. Issues such as usability barriers, lack of accessible interaction modalities, and limited design guidelines can hinder the effective adoption of these technologies in inclusive educational settings. Ensuring that immersive technologies are designed with accessibility and inclusivity in mind is therefore essential to prevent the creation of new digital divides.

This Special Issue aims to explore how immersive technologies can be designed, implemented, and evaluated to promote equitable, inclusive, and accessible educational experiences. It seeks contributions that investigate the role of immersive technologies in supporting learners with diverse needs, including students with disabilities, neurodivergent learners, and individuals from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. The issue welcomes interdisciplinary research that integrates perspectives from Human–Computer Interaction, educational technology, accessibility research, learning sciences, and inclusive design.

Potential topics

• Design and development of accessible and inclusive immersive learning and training environments
• Inclusive design frameworks and guidelines for immersive educational technologies
• Immersive technologies supporting students with disabilities (e.g., cognitive, sensory, motor, neurodevelopmental conditions)
• Adaptive and personalized immersive learning and training experiences
• Accessibility challenges and solutions in XR educational interfaces
• Use of immersive technologies to support neurodivergent learners
• Evaluation methods for accessibility, usability, and user experience in immersive educational systems
• Immersive technologies for social skills training and behavioral learning
• AI-driven adaptive systems in immersive learning environments
• Multimodal and embodied interaction techniques for accessible XR learning
• Immersive simulations for inclusive education and special education
• XR technologies for experiential and collaborative learning in inclusive classrooms
• Ethical, social, and accessibility implications of immersive technologies in education

Timeline

• November 30, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Muhammad Imran Rasheed, University of Surrey

Barbara Rita Barricelli, Università degli Studi di Brescia

Waseem Ul Hameed, Universiti Utara Malaysia

Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming an interactive workplace technology through which employees communicate, collaborate, make decisions, and perform everyday work tasks. From generative AI assistants and algorithmic decision-support systems to intelligent monitoring tools and conversational agents, workers are engaging with AI systems on a continuous basis. Consequently, understanding how employees interact with AI technologies, experience AI-mediated work processes, develop trust in intelligent systems, and adapt their behaviours in response to AI-generated outputs has emerged as a central challenge for Behaviour & Information Technology research.

While existing research has extensively examined technological adoption and performance outcomes, comparatively less attention has been devoted to the behavioral, cognitive, relational, and psychological implications of intelligent systems in workplace settings. Emerging technologies are redefining human-computer interaction in organizational contexts and raising important questions regarding trust in AI, algorithmic transparency, digital autonomy, technostress, cognitive overload, human-AI collaboration, and behavioral adaptation.

While different special issues have recently focused on artificial intelligence in organisations, information systems and the future of work, little has been done to understand workplace AI from the perspective of human–computer interaction and human-centered design. Existing special issues have primarily addressed topics such as technological adoption, organizational outcomes, digital transformation, and AI implementation. In contrast, this Special Issue focuses on the human-intelligent system interaction, covering employee experience, trust calibration, behavioral adaptation, user engagement, explainability, cognitive processes, and the design of psychologically sustainable AI-enabled workplaces.

The Special Issue proposed is well aligned with the mission of Behaviour & Information Technology and brings together research on human behaviour, user experience, interaction design, intelligent systems and digital work. The special issue aims to contribute to a better understanding of not only what AI does in organizations, but also how employees experience, interpret, interact with, and adapt to intelligent technologies in everyday work settings.

In addition to empirical and theoretical contributions, the Special Issue strongly encourages design-oriented and design science research that develops, evaluates, and validates human-centred AI systems, intelligent interfaces, explainability mechanisms, trust-enhancing design features, and interaction designs that promote positive employee experiences and responsible AI use.

This special issue focuses on the intersection of intelligent technologies, workplace behavior, and information systems. Contributions examine how AI and digital systems influence individual, team, and organizational behavior in technology-mediated work environments. The issue is especially interested in studies investigating behavioral and cognitive responses to intelligent systems, human-AI interaction dynamics, digital work experiences, and the broader organizational implications of AI-enabled technologies. Contributions employing quantitative, qualitative, mixed-method, longitudinal, experimental, computational, ethnographic, and design-science approaches are highly encouraged.

Potential topics

• Employee interaction with AI-enabled systems
• Human reliance, overreliance, and resistance toward AI
• Behavioral adaptation to intelligent technologies
• Human-AI collaboration and hybrid decision-making
• Trust formation in intelligent systems
• Algorithmic transparency and explainable AI
• Employee perceptions of AI fairness and accountability
• Behavioral responses to opaque decision systems
• Technostress, digital exhaustion, and AI fatigue
• Cognitive overload and information processing under AI systems
• AI dependency and employee wellbeing
• Digital distraction and attention fragmentation
• AI-supported autonomy and employee empowerment
• Algorithmic management and behavioral control
• Digital surveillance and monitoring technologies
• Behavioral consequences of automated performance systems
• Ethical design of workplace AI systems
• Human-centered intelligent systems
• Responsible AI implementation in organizations
• Designing psychologically sustainable digital work environments
• AI-enabled learning systems and digital upskilling
• Employee agility and adaptability in AI-enabled workplaces
• Behavioral implications of reskilling and task transformation
• Human learning behavior in technology-mediated contexts
• AI-supported teamwork and collaboration
• Virtual collaboration and intelligent communication systems
• Social interaction patterns in AI-mediated environments
• Team trust and coordination under intelligent systems
• AI in healthcare, hospitality, education, finance, and public services
• Gig work, platform labor, and digital employment systems
• Cross-cultural and cross-national comparisons
• Remote and hybrid work environments
• User experience (UX) of workplace AI systems
• Human-centered design of intelligent workplace technologies
• Conversational AI and intelligent assistants at work
• Adaptive and personalized workplace interfaces
• AI usability and user acceptance in organizational settings
• Interaction design for human-AI collaboration
• Human oversight and human-in-the-loop systems
• Trust calibration in intelligent systems
• Employee engagement with AI-enabled technologies
• Interface design for responsible and ethical AI use
• User perceptions of agency, control, and autonomy in AI-mediated work environments

Timeline

• July 31, 2027: Manuscript submission deadline

Wanhao Zhang, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

Younghoon Chang, University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Sameer Kumar, University of Malaya

Smart systems are becoming increasingly central to contemporary information technology. Across homes, workplaces, healthcare settings, educational environments, mobility systems, public services and platform-mediated environments, they are no longer merely digital tools that support pre-existing human activities. They increasingly function as sociotechnical arrangements that sense, classify, predict, coordinate, recommend and intervene in everyday practices, reshaping relations between humans, machines, organisations and institutions. For the purposes of this call, smart systems are understood as digitally enabled sociotechnical systems that integrate sensing, data processing, algorithmic decision-making and automated or semi-automated actions to coordinate, mediate and shape human activities across social and organisational contexts. Such systems include, but are not limited to, AI-enabled platforms, intelligent service systems, smart health technologies, smart homes, digital workplaces, automated mobility systems, learning technologies, public-sector digital systems and hybrid human-AI systems.

Contemporary digital transformation is therefore not only a technical process of innovation, automation or optimisation. It also involves the reorganisation of relations between people, institutions, infrastructures, data, expertise and everyday routines. Work on everyday practices and social change is relevant here because it shows how technologies, meanings, materials, competences and future expectations become entangled in the transformation of social life. A key challenge is to understand how smart systems become socially consequential through design, use, institutional embedding, organisational routines, user negotiation, datafication and everyday practice. Interfaces, platforms, data architectures, algorithmic classifications, dashboards, monitoring systems and automated feedback mechanisms may all participate in shaping conduct, allocating responsibility, structuring choices and stabilising norms. The central concern is not only how smart systems are governed, but also how smart systems themselves become part of the governance of sociotechnical transformation. This includes questions of behaviour, interaction, coordination, authority, accountability, trust, resistance, inclusion, exclusion and power. Hybrid intelligence, human-centred AI and human-AI collaboration are especially relevant where they help explain how human and machine intelligence are combined, coordinated, contested or governed in organisational, institutional or everyday contexts.

This special issue invites contributions that examine smart systems not only as technical innovations, but also as systems of behaviour, interaction, coordination, authority and governance. Its broader aim is to advance human-centred, behavioural, organisational and sociotechnical understandings of smart systems and their role in contemporary digital transformation.

Potential topics

• Smart systems in homes, workplaces, healthcare, education, mobility, public services and platform-mediated environments
• Human-centred AI, hybrid intelligence and human-AI collaboration in organisational and everyday settings
• Conceptual, methodological and design-oriented approaches to studying governance in smart systems
• Algorithmic decision-making, coordination, compliance and accountability
• User adaptation, negotiation, resistance, appropriation and trust in relation to smart technologies
• AI ethics, information privacy, surveillance, transparency and asymmetrical power in digital systems
• Smart and digital health, care technologies and digitally mediated wellbeing
• Digital work, algorithmic management, robotic management and the reconfiguration of organisational routines
• Datafication, monitoring, prediction and automated feedback as modes of governance
• Inclusion, exclusion, vulnerability and inequality in smart sociotechnical environments
• Smart cities, digital government and platform-based public services
• Comparative, cross-cultural or interdisciplinary studies of smart systems and sociotechnical transformation

Timeline

• October 20, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Elena Vlahu Gjorgievska, University of Wollongong

Kiemute Oyibo, York University

Yugo Nakamura, Ritsumeikan University

The special issue will include selected papers from the 21st International Conference on Persuasive Technology. The special issue will be by invitation only.

This special issue is by invitation only. Invited papers must have at least 35% extra content from the conference paper. The additional content cannot be related work only or an extended discussion, but should include at least 35% of new results.

Potential topics

• Persuasive systems design
• Behaviour change support systems
• Interaction with persuasive systems, interfaces, and visualizations
• Interactive agents and (generative) AI for persuasion
• Tailored and personalized persuasion
• Gamification
• Evaluation and validation methodologies
• Smart environments, IoT, and contextual persuasion
• Digital marketing, eCommerce, and smart cities
• Motivation, cognition, perception
• Application domains: health, safety, sustainability, education, work
• Ethical considerations, privacy, and trust
• Counter-persuasion, resilience, and social media influence

Timeline

• September 1, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Stefano Guidi, University of Siena

Oronzo Parlangeli, University of Siena

Paola Palmitesta, University of Siena

The special issue will feature a selection of the best papers accepted for the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2026 (ECCE 2026). The authors of the 6 best long papers submitted to the conference will be invited to submit their paper which will undergo a review process.

Potential topics

• Cognitive ergonomics research presented at ECCE 2026

Timeline

• August 14, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Rita Rueff-Lopes, Esade, Universitat Ramon Llull

Russell Cropanzano, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado

José Navarro, Universitat de Barcelona

Ana Junça-Silva, ISCTE—Lisbon University Institute

We are honored to have Professor Russell Cropanzano serve as Honorary Guest Editor for this special issue. Professor Cropanzano is one of the original authors of Affective Events Theory (AET) and a leading figure in the study of emotions, justice, and well-being at work. His involvement in this special issue represents a unique opportunity to both honor the theory's intellectual origins and advance its development in light of contemporary work contexts. The participation of Professor Cropanzano underscores the special issue's commitment to theoretical rigor, historical continuity, and forward-looking innovation in affective science.

This special issue seeks to articulate the next generation of Affective Events Theory (AET, Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996) by revisiting its core propositions and extending them to the realities of contemporary work—characterized by knowledge intensity, datafication, digital interdependence, and AI-mediated experiences. Thirty years after its formulation, AET is uniquely positioned to explain how employees interpret, experience, and act upon the constant flow of affective micro-events that define modern work.

The AET highlights how discrete affective events at work generate emotional reactions that mediate the relationship between the work environment and employee attitudes and behaviors (Weiss & Beal, 2005). This approach enables a more refined understanding of a wide range of attitudinal and behavioral outcomes by incorporating the fluctuating and context-dependent nature of affective experiences within organizational settings, a consideration increasingly critical in today's evolving work environments. Research on AET has evolved significantly over the past three decades to reflect the changing contexts and eras in which it has been applied.

Initially formulated in the mid-1990s, AET focused on understanding how discrete workplace events evoke emotional reactions that influence job satisfaction and behavior, emphasizing stable job characteristics and global attitudes prevalent at the time. As organizational environments transformed with technological advances, globalization, and shifts toward knowledge-intensive work, AET research expanded to incorporate these new realities. Contemporary studies have extended the theory to digital, hybrid, and AI-augmented work contexts, recognizing novel affective triggers such as virtual collaboration, human–animal interactions or algorithmic feedback, among others. Methodological advancements, including intensive longitudinal studies and multimodal emotion sensing, have allowed dynamic and multilevel modeling of affective experiences over time and across organizational levels. Furthermore, research has increasingly integrated cross-cultural and individual differences and has linked AET with adjacent theories like emotional contagion and job crafting to capture the complex interplay of affect, cognition, and behavior in modern organizations. This evolution underscores AET's adaptability and continued relevance in explaining affective processes across distinct eras of work. These developments reflect the evolving nature of affective experiences in contemporary organizational settings and underscore the need to revisit and expand AET to better capture the complexities of affect in knowledge-driven, digitally interconnected workplaces.

We encourage scholars to engage boldly with AET—to challenge its assumptions, extend its mechanisms, and situate affective events within the complex socio-technical landscapes that define contemporary work. Submissions should offer novel theoretical insights, robust methodologies, and clear implications for both theory and practice. Interdisciplinary approaches and international perspectives are highly encouraged to reflect the diverse and evolving nature of contemporary work environments.

Potential topics

• Revisiting the structure and boundaries of AET in digital, hybrid, and AI-augmented work contexts
• Temporal, multilevel, and dynamic modeling of affective events in teams and organizations
• Affective events in knowledge-intensive work, professional services, and virtual collaboration
• Cross-cultural and individual differences in affective experience
• Methodological advances such as experience sampling, multimodal emotion sensing, and computational text or voice analysis
• Links between affective events and creativity, performance, well-being, and sustainability
• Integrations with adjacent theories including emotion regulation, relational energy, job crafting, and affective climate

Timeline

• May 31, 2026: Abstract submission deadline
• June 30, 2026: Decision on abstracts
• October 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline
• January 31, 2027: Review Round 1 completed
• February 15, 2027: First decision communicated
• May 31, 2027: First revision due
• July 31, 2027: Review Round 2 completed
• September 15, 2027: Second decision communicated
• November 30, 2027: Second revision due
• December 31, 2027: Final decision communicated
• February 1, 2028: Publication of special issue

René Riedl, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria & Johannes Kepler University Linz

Jan vom Brocke, University of Münster

Jella Pfeiffer, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Robert Gleasure, Copenhagen Business School

The advent of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems (e.g., large language models such as ChatGPT, diffusion models, graph neural networks, or vision transformers) used in domains such as healthcare, manufacturing, software development and finance, together with other contemporary digital technologies (e.g., autonomous cars, immersive worlds, and neuroadaptive interfaces), has fundamentally reshaped human interaction with information systems. As these technologies become embedded in work, consumption, private life, and society in general, the ways in which they affect human cognition, emotion, and social interaction remain poorly understood.

A growing body of research highlights that neurophysiological methods can provide unique insights into these phenomena across a broad range of IS contexts. NeuroIS—the interdisciplinary field that integrates neuroscience and psychophysiological approaches with information systems—has been at the forefront of this movement. Originating at the International Conference on Information Systems in Montréal in 2007, NeuroIS celebrates its 20-year anniversary in 2027. This milestone provides an opportune moment to reflect on the progress achieved, highlight challenges, and chart new directions for NeuroIS research in an era of rapid technological change.

Over the past two decades, NeuroIS research has established the potential of neurophysiological methods such as electroencephalography (EEG), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), eye tracking, and various other neurophysiological measures to enrich IS theory. These approaches have been shown to improve prediction accuracy of different IS phenomena, uncover hidden cognitive and affective mechanisms, and open new methodological horizons. A particularly important trajectory in this research stream has been the integration of neurophysiological and behavioral levels of analysis by linking neural responses to observable IS-related behaviors and self-report measures.

In an era of pervasive digitalization, this integration becomes even more essential. Understanding not only what individuals do when interacting with advanced digital systems, but also how their brains and bodies adapt, allows researchers to explain emergent behaviors such as overreliance, automation bias, algorithm aversion, new forms of collaborative cognition, or cognitive debt. Neurophysiological measures enable the study of phenomena that may remain inaccessible to self-reports or behavioral observation alone, such as unconscious biases, implicit trust, or neural markers of attention and memory.

Beyond neurophysiology, this special issue also welcomes work that integrates genetic perspectives into IS research. Prior publications have demonstrated the promise of genetics for explaining individual differences in IS-related behaviors. Combining genetic and neurophysiological approaches may provide a powerful multi-level framework to understand how contemporary digital technologies affect humans at both biological and behavioral levels.

This special issue seeks high-quality, theory-driven, and methodologically rigorous research that examines the neurophysiological and related biological foundations, mechanisms, and effects of contemporary IS technologies and sociotechnical systems—incorporating AI as an important case, but not limiting the scope to AI. We invite submissions from information systems scholars, neuroscientists, psychologists, computer scientists, geneticists, and other disciplines to advance understanding of how contemporary IS reshapes human cognition, affect, decision-making, and social interaction.

This special issue encourages contributions across the full range of IS research traditions. Neurophysiological and genetic insights may advance design-oriented research by informing new principles for human-centered and neuroadaptive system design. They may also enrich IS economics research by offering a biological basis for understanding productivity, well-being, or value creation in digitally mediated contexts. Studies grounded in organizational behavior, strategy, or societal perspectives are highly relevant if they integrate or reflect on neurophysiological evidence.

In line with EJIS' tradition of intellectual openness, this special issue explicitly welcomes visionary, provocative, and contrarian contributions that challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, problematize dominant narratives, or open up unconventional research directions.

Potential topics

• How does sustained interaction with AI-enabled systems (e.g., LLMs) and other advanced digital tools reshape neural networks associated with language, reasoning, and memory?
• Does reliance on AI systems and other forms of automation/digital decision support alter attentional control, working memory, metacognition, or problem-solving processes at the neurophysiological and behavioral levels?
• What are the implications of digitally augmented cognition for neuroplasticity, skill acquisition, and expertise development over time?
• How can integrated neurophysiological and behavioral measures provide a fuller picture of technology-mediated cognitive processes?
• How do individuals' brains respond to empathetic or anthropomorphic cues exhibited by conversational AI and other interactive systems?
• What neurophysiological correlates underlie trust, reliance, distrust, or skepticism toward AI systems and other algorithmic or platform-based systems?
• How does emotional regulation change when decision-making is mediated by AI support, algorithmic decision aids, or digital nudges?
• What are the neurophysiological mechanisms of stress, fatigue, or overload in contexts of AI-assisted work and other digitally intensified work settings?
• How does technological mediation in team collaboration influence the neurophysiological foundations of social coordination, empathy, and shared attention?
• What neural mechanisms underlie shifts in authority, leadership, and influence when AI becomes a co-decision-maker?
• How do cultural differences modulate neurophysiological responses to AI and other digitally mediated collaboration settings?
• How do gender, age, or personality differences modulate neurophysiological responses to IS artifacts?
• How might AI-driven systems and other algorithmic designs reinforce or mitigate cognitive biases?
• What neural signatures accompany ethical dilemmas and moral decision-making in AI-mediated contexts?
• How does long-term use of AI and other digitally intensive work systems shape neurophysiological well-being, stress, or mental health?
• How can neurophysiological insights inform the design of AI systems and other digital systems?
• What are the neurophysiological underpinnings of productivity, efficiency, or value creation in digitally mediated economic interactions?
• How can genetic and neurophysiological approaches together explain individual differences in the adoption and use of digital systems?
• Which neurophysiological tools are best suited for investigating contemporary IS phenomena?
• How can hybrid approaches combining neurophysiology with computational methods enrich IS theory development?
• How can multi-level research designs integrate genetic, neurophysiological, behavioral, self-report, and organizational data?

Timeline

• March 31, 2026: Two-page abstracts due
• April 30, 2026: Feedback on abstracts
• May 31, 2026: Paper development workshop (in person event in Vienna, Austria, and virtual)
• August 31, 2026: First-round paper submission
• November 30, 2026: First-round decisions
• February 28, 2027: First-round revisions due
• May 31, 2027: Second-round decisions
• August 31, 2027: Second-round revisions due
• October 31, 2027: Final decisions

Associate editors

• Bonnie B. Anderson, Brigham Young University
• Dinko Bačić, Loyola University Chicago
• Colin Conrad, Dalhousie University
• Verena Dorner, Vienna University of Economics and Business
• Nadine R. Gier-Reinartz, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf
• Milena Head, McMaster University
• Alan R. Hevner, University of South Florida
• Qiqi Jiang, Copenhagen Business School
• Marion Korosec-Serfaty, University of Québec in Montréal
• Alexander Maedche, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
• Gernot R. Mueller-Putz, Graz University of Technology
• Pierre-Majorique Léger, HEC Montréal
• Mario Nadj, University of Duisburg-Essen
• Fiona Nah, Singapore Management University
• Adriane Randolph, Kennesaw State University
• Ofir Turel, University of Melbourne
• Eric A. Walden, Texas Tech University
• Peter Walla, Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna
• Dezhi Wu, University of South Carolina

Iris K. Gauglitz, University of Bamberg

Peter Harms, University of Alabama's Culverhouse College of Business

Urszula Lagowska, NEOMA Business School

Birgit Schyns, NEOMA Business School

Kimberley Breevaart, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Leader behaviours and their perception across organisational levels are a critical and evolving area in leadership research. In particular, the distinction between leaders' behaviours and the ways in which these behaviours are perceived by others have been widely discussed in the field. While there have been recent calls among leadership scholars to focus more on leader behaviours rather than to rely on how they are perceived, understanding leadership requires an examination of how leader behaviours are enacted and interpreted across different levels of the organization.

The topic is relevant both for theory and practice as it relates to the ongoing debate on how leadership should be measured, developed, and defined. Research shows that to get a more complete picture of leadership effectiveness, there is a need to focus on both leader behaviours and how these behaviours are perceived and interpreted by different actors within the organization. Leadership research often splits behaviour and perception, sometimes even treating them as rival lenses. This special issue brings them together by asking how behaviour changes across settings and how different groups make sense of those changes.

By proposing such themes as a bilateral relationship between leader behaviours and their perception, as well as the dynamics of this relationship over time, this special issue hopes to showcase research demonstrating the value of studying both "sides of the coin". In addition, we hope to encourage submissions on many current and underexplored topics that would advance our understanding of leadership as a process in a complex, modern workplace.

Perceptions of leader behaviour outside of the dyad of leader and follower are not well understood yet. Also, more research is needed on discrepancies between leader intentions and follower perception of intentions, especially in polarized social contexts and new forms of work.

The topic has key importance for practice and the elaboration of leadership training programs. The effectiveness of such programs depends on a strong foundation of scientific evidence, which can only be achieved by gaining a deep understanding of both enacted leader behaviours and how they are interpreted by perceivers at different levels in the organization.

Incorporating within- and between-person methods at various levels of analysis is essential to fully capture the complexity of leaders' actions and their interactions with followers. In this special issue, we aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of leadership dynamics and to the development of more effective leadership practices.

Potential topics

• Theoretical models proposing new or conceptually advanced configurations of leader behaviour and its perceptions, which consider the role of new working contexts in shaping leader behaviours and their perceptions
• Multi-level conceptualizations of the impact of leader behaviour at multiple levels of organizations with a view to understand how and why perceptions across levels differ
• Studies including models that explain why and under which conditions leader behaviour and its perceptions affect workplace outcomes, notably when leaders and others differ in their perceptions/(perceived) intentions or when behaviour is perceived as inconsistent or ambivalent
• Research that investigates polarisation in follower perceptions—why perceptions of the same behaviour may diverge significantly
• Studies looking at leader and follower behaviour and their interaction, such as how behaviours from one party trigger behavioural reactions of the other party and what that means for an effective collaboration
• Studies considering the role of organisational hierarchy in how leaders behave and how their behaviour is perceived
• Contributions considering interactions between personality traits (e.g., leader–follower trait congruence) in shaping behavioural expressions and perceptual accuracy; team outcomes of leader behaviour, for example, perception differences between team members and how this affects outcomes; and relative leader behaviour, that is, perceptions of how one follower is treated compared to others
• Studies that develop and validate new measures of leader behaviour (e.g., behavioural indicators)
• Studies that develop new measures that allow for the measurement of perceptual biases in leadership ratings and studies using advanced statistical approaches (e.g., polynomial regression analyses, multilevel modelling, pattern approaches)

Timeline

• February 1, 2026: Abstract deadline
• April 1, 2026: Decision on abstract
• December 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline
• December 1, 2026: Review Round 1
• March 1, 2027: Decision on first revision communicated
• June 1, 2027: First revisions due
• June 1, 2027: Review Round 2
• September 1, 2027: Decision on second revision communicated
• November 1, 2027: Second revision due
• December 1, 2027: Final decision communicated
• February 1, 2028: Publication of special issue

Mariachiara Barzotto, University of Bath

Jennifer Clark, The Ohio State University

AI is increasingly understood as an emerging enabling technology with potentially far-reaching implications for regional development. As both an industry in its own right and a technology increasingly integrated across incumbent sectors, AI has the potential to reshape production systems, innovation dynamics, regional governance, and the organisation of economic activity across space. Its growth raises important questions about technological change, the spatial organisation of new industries, the evolving practices of regional development, and the transformation of existing sectors.

AI may also be understood as a technology that influences how knowledge is produced, legitimised, and acted upon. In this sense, its significance extends beyond industrial transformation alone: AI may also affect how regions are governed and planned. This perspective resonates with long-standing debates in Regional Studies on technological change, digitalisation, and place-based adaptation, where innovation has been shown to reshape both regional economic trajectories and the institutional capacities through which development is pursued.

There is growing interest in Regional Studies in identifying the regional implications of new technologies, such as AI as a platform technology integrated across incumbent industries. Recent scholarship has begun to engage some of these issues, including its role in green technology specialisation, global innovation systems and industrial rise, new path creation, and the role of system-building agency in new path creations. Yet these discussions remain fragmented across literatures, empirical domains, and scales of analysis. This Special Issue seeks to advance a more coherent research agenda that examines AI simultaneously as an emerging industry, as a tool and infrastructure of regional development governance, and as an enabling technology whose diffusion may alter the spatial organisation of existing sectors.

The Call for Papers invites conceptually robust, empirically grounded, and methodologically rigorous contributions that examine the regional development implications of AI as an emerging enabling technology. Contributions may address the economic geography of the AI industry, the effects of AI on the governance, administration, and planning of regional development, and the ways in which the diffusion and adoption of AI across incumbent sectors may reshape patterns of agglomeration, dispersion, and regional economic change.

Potential topics

• The economic geography of the AI industry: spatial organisation of AI production, agglomeration and dispersion patterns, factors determining spatial organisation (skills, capital, infrastructure, energy, regulatory regimes)
• AI and the governance of regional development: impact on administration and management, effects on decision-making processes and outcomes, changes to regional development and planning practices (citizen engagement, public administration, systems optimisation, transportation)
• AI diffusion and the restructuring of incumbent industries: how adoption alters regional geography of other sectors, substitution effects with other technologies, new patterns of concentration or dispersion, analogues from previous enabling technologies

Timeline

• October 16, 2026: Abstract deadline
• December 1, 2026: Full manuscript deadline

Kalliopi Chatzipanagiotou, University of Glasgow

Achilleas Boukis, University of Birmingham

George Christodoulides, American University of Sharjah

Raffaele Filieri, Audencia Business School

Luxury tourism is expected to grow faster than any other industry segment. Although scholarship on luxury tourism has expanded in recent years, much of this work focuses on its economic dimensions, often overlooking its broader sustainable, social and ethical implications. The relationship between sustainability and luxury tourism has received increasing attention in recent years, yet we know little about what sustainable luxury actually means, given the tension between exclusivity and responsible resource use. Furthermore, while many luxury tourists express concern for sustainability, there remains limited empirical evidence on how such concerns translate into actual decision-making or on the trade-offs they are willing to accept.

At the same time, the experiences of local communities and workers are largely overlooked, pointing to a broader gap around social inequality. Much of the discussion remains focused on minimizing environmental harm, with less attention given to how luxury tourism might actively support more regenerative and inclusive forms of sustainable development. Luxury tourism can amplify inequalities, concentrating wealth and privilege within exclusive enclaves while placing disproportionate burdens on local communities, ecosystems, and labour. These tensions between luxury value and impact raise critical questions about who benefits from luxury tourism, who is excluded, and how its growth reshapes societal dynamics, cultural authenticity, and environmental sustainability.

Technological innovation adds further complexity. Artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, and other immersive tools are transforming how sustainable luxury is produced, mediated, and consumed. These technologies may democratize access and enhance personalization, yet they also raise concerns about authenticity, cultural representation, and digital exclusion. Additionally, there is a lack of robust methods for assessing the real environmental and social impacts of luxury tourism, while questions about the role of technology are only starting to surface, particularly concerning its environmental footprint and issues of access and inequality.

This Special Issue aims to advance knowledge and debate on sustainable luxury tourism by inviting research that explores how it is defined, experienced, and measured in today's global environment and across various contexts. We also encourage studies of emerging forms of luxury travel, including wellness, medical, and experiential travel, which bring to the fore new environmental concerns and tensions such as the commodification of care and inequalities in access to health and well-being. Research on sustainable luxury tourism, whether theoretical, conceptual, or empirical, is encouraged, particularly those that adopt holistic approaches and connect sustainable luxury theory with practical applications. Mixed-method and multi-method submissions are welcomed. Studies focusing on more than one country and culture, as well as those with a longitudinal approach, will be prioritised.

Potential topics

• Designing and conceptualizing sustainable luxury tourism experiences
• Luxury tourism consumption practices and sustainable behaviors
• Emerging forms of luxury tourism through a sustainability lens
• Cultural authenticity and heritage in sustainable luxury experiences
• Personalization, exclusivity, and sustainability tensions in luxury tourism
• Storytelling, experience design, and sustainability communication
• The environmental and social dark sides of luxury tourism
• Local communities, inclusion, and social value creation in sustainable luxury tourism
• Labor practices and working conditions in sustainable luxury hospitality
• Destination branding, image, and sustainable luxury positioning
• Stakeholder collaboration and governance in sustainable luxury tourism
• Sustainable luxury within tourism ecosystems and power dynamics

Timeline

• November 1, 2026: Abstract deadline
• May 31, 2027: Manuscript deadline

C. Michael Hall, Massey University

The crisis in the Middle East marked by the Israeli and United States attacks on Iran, Israel attacks on Lebanon and Palestine, and attacks by Iran and their proxies on Israel and Middle East and Gulf states represents the greatest crisis for international tourism since COVID-19. The direct effects of the war on tourism in the Middle East and Gulf states is clearly substantial however it is also having broader effects throughout the global tourism system because of the significance on Gulf aviation hubs for international tourism as well as restrictions in airspace for Asia-Europe travel and shipping in the Straits of Hormuz. Moreover, Iran has directly threatened to expand its retaliatory attacks to include recreational and tourist sites worldwide.

Indirectly, the effects of the Middle East crisis also have enormous broader impacts on the cost of oil and gas, and therefore tourism aviation and transport, as well as on national and regional economies. According to the head of the International Energy Agency, the depth of the problem facing the globe because of the war on Iran is very serious, more so than the 1973 and 1979 oil crises, and more serious than the gas crisis sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. From a tourism perspective, aviation schedules are already being revised considering potential fuel shortages while the cost of petrol has implications for domestic tourist travel. The cost aviation fuel and travel uncertainty has hit the economics of the airline industry leading to concerns over the collapse of carriers. Moreover, in the longer term the crisis has implications for the sustainability of carbon-based transport networks and tourism infrastructure and may lead to further development of renewable energy-based tourism infrastructure or new energy trajectories given the geopolitical risks attached to carbon dependent tourism.

Given the significance of the crisis for international and domestic tourism worldwide and the associated economic, policy, destination and environmental effects, Current Issues in Tourism calls for contributions to a special issue on tourism and the Middle East crisis in international, regional, national, and destination contexts in order to provide the latest research on the crisis' impacts and government, industry, destination, and consumer responses.

Potential topics

• The effects of the Middle East crisis on international and domestic tourist attitudes, behaviour, decision-making, and flows
• The impacts of the Middle East crisis on destinations, attractions and businesses and policy and industry responses
• The Middle East crisis and destination image
• Resilience, adaptation, and vulnerability in tourism considering the Middle East crisis
• The geopolitics of tourism and the Middle East crisis
• The Middle East crisis and the aviation sector
• Energy futures for tourism
• Foreign policy and tourism
• The future of tourism in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean
• Substitute behaviour because of the Middle East crisis and the cost of energy
• Policy learning and the Middle East crisis
• The international and regional architecture of tourism governance and the Middle East crisis

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Edmund Goh, Les Roches Abu Dhabi Hospitality Academy

Jun Wen, Macau University of Science and Technology

Siamak Seyfi, University of Oulu

C. Michael Hall, Massey University

Xin-Jean Lim, Sun Yat-Sen University

September 2025 marked the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a global blueprint for achieving peace, prosperity, and planetary wellbeing. Over the past decade, the hospitality and tourism industries and destination communities have emerged as powerful platforms for advancing and contesting these goals. Hospitality and tourism encompass all 17 SDGs, either directly or indirectly, from economic growth and decent work (SDG 8) to responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17).

In hospitality and tourism research, SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) has guided studies on workforce inclusion, ethical employment, and skills development; SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) has inspired frameworks for food-waste reduction, sustainable procurement, and circular-economy innovation; and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) has informed investigations into heritage protection, destination resilience, and overtourism management. At the same time, SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) have underpinned studies on women's empowerment, migrant labour, and social inclusion across tourism enterprises. Research has also expanded around SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 14/15 (Life Below Water and Life on Land), addressing carbon measurement, biodiversity conservation, and regenerative destination practices.

While studies have advocated that tourism and hospitality can positively contribute to the fulfilment of the UN's ambitious 2030 Agenda, there remains a noticeable gap in how the SDGs are explicitly integrated within scholarly research. Many studies have investigated sustainability-related themes without explicitly aligning their objectives, frameworks, or findings to specific SDG targets, often downplaying or omitting the SDG lens altogether. This disconnect limits the sector's ability to evaluate progress, benchmark impact, and influence policymaking.

This Special Issue responds to those calls by encouraging tourism and hospitality researchers to explicitly reconnect their work to the SDG framework, to identify future research pathways, and to assist policymakers in addressing global challenges through evidence-based strategies. In particular, we seek contributions that illuminate the dynamic linkages between key stakeholders such as hosts, tourists, destinations, government, and industry to explore how these interrelationships can generate more sustainable and equitable outcomes.

This Special Issue seeks to critically assess the progress, limitations, and future directions of SDG-related initiatives in hospitality and tourism. We invite empirical, conceptual, and review papers that evaluate how far the sector has come but also envision pathways for a regenerative, inclusive, and just hospitality and tourism future beyond 2030.

Potential topics

• Reflecting on the First Decade (2015–2025) of SDG achievements and gaps
• Critical reviews of how research to date references SDGs and where conceptual or methodological gaps persist
• Evaluating tourism and hospitality's contribution to all 17 SDGs, including SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) through community tourism, local sourcing, and food redistribution
• Examining progress toward SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing) through wellness tourism, workplace health initiatives, and traveller safety
• Assessing SDG 4 (Quality Education) via tourism and hospitality curriculum transformation, sustainability literacy, and lifelong learning
• Policy coherence and alignment of tourism strategies with SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions), focusing on governance, transparency, and ethical practices
• Reviewing the role of SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) in sustainable destination design, transport systems, and smart tourism
• Integrating SDG 8 (Decent Work), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) through inclusive recruitment, fair wages, and leadership opportunities
• Advancing SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) via food waste management, circular hospitality systems, and sustainable event management
• Strengthening SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) by aligning urban tourism, heritage conservation, and destination capacity management
• Building SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) through cross-sector collaborations among government, academia, and private enterprises
• Linking SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) to energy-efficient hotel design, water conservation, and waste-water reuse
• Exploring SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and SDG 15 (Life on Land) through carbon-neutral travel, biodiversity protection, and eco-restoration tourism
• Applying SDG 9 (Innovation and Infrastructure) and SDG 16 (Institutions) in AI-driven sustainability measurement, blockchain transparency, and smart destination governance
• Embedding SDG 3 (Health) and SDG 11 (Communities) in wellness, resilience, and crisis recovery frameworks
• Integrating ethical, cultural, and spiritual perspectives on sustainability to support SDG 4 (Education) and SDG 17 (Partnerships)
• Conceptualising post-SDG paradigms such as regenerative tourism, circular hospitality, etc.
• Examining the intersections of sustainability with digital transformation, big data, and tourism intelligence systems
• Developing cross-SDG frameworks and metrics to capture interlinkages (e.g., SDG 8–12–13 synergies)
• Big data analytics, AI, and social media mining for SDG progress tracking and destination reporting
• Comparative cross-national or longitudinal studies assessing tourism's SDG impact
• Theorising host–guest–destination dynamics as a holistic system contributing to SDG 1–17 interdependence

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Selected Manuscripts Published
• May 1, 2026: Abstract (Systematic Review) Submission Deadline
• July 1, 2026: Abstract (Full Paper and Research Note) Submission Deadline
• December 1, 2026: Full Manuscript Submission Deadline
• January 1, 2027: Review Process

David Morris, University of Nottingham

Carlo Corradini, University of Reading

Lisa De Propris, University of Birmingham

Duygu Buyukyazici, London School of Economics and Political Science

Skills are central to regional development, influencing labour markets, industrial evolution, and economic trajectories. Yet despite their long-standing recognition, regional skills are often under-theorised and frequently conflated with education, human capital, or occupational structures. Conceptual frameworks that treat skills as multidimensional, place-based capabilities that emerge from the interactions of people, firms, and local institutions remain limited, and systematic empirical evidence on skill formation, mismatch, mobility, and utilisation across regions is still sparse. Meanwhile, rapid skill-biased technological change, digitalisation, and green transitions are reshaping jobs, tasks, and production systems, altering regional skill demands, reinforcing divergence in development paths, and raising urgent policy questions.

Building on emerging conceptual and empirical work, this Special Issue seeks to advance understanding of regional skills as active, context-dependent capabilities, and their role in economic transformation. We invite conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions that explore how regional skills are formed, adapted, deployed, and leveraged to support regional development, labour market inclusion, and industrial transformation. Submissions may address advanced, emerging, and developing economies, and analyses may cover sub-regional to supra-regional scales.

The Special Issue encourages early-career researchers and scholars from underrepresented regions, including the Global South, to submit contributions. We welcome both qualitative and quantitative studies, conceptual and theoretical analyses, as well as case studies that provide new insights into the formation and utilisation of regional skills. All submissions should ground their analysis in place-based contexts and address implications for theory, practice, or policy.

Potential topics

• The nature and dynamics of regional skills formation and transformation due to technological change (skills creation, resilience, obsolescence, disappearance)
• The links between education, skills transformation and job dynamics in the green and digital transitions of regional economies
• The drivers and barriers of a regional skills transition for the innovation, growth and resilience of regional economies
• The regional skill mismatch and skill formation in new labour spaces, e.g. green jobs, remote working, new platformised digital industries, gig economy
• The enablers and barriers of a regional skills transformation for the green and digital transitions of industrial clusters and regional economies
• Regional skills transformation and mismatch within shifting regional labour markets
• Regional skills transformation and mismatch in regions as open economies: skills mobility, remote skills and migration
• The opportunities and constraints of stranded and stressed regions: left-behindedness, regional low-skill traps, transitioning carbon-intensive regions
• The links between vocational education, lifelong training and on-the-job upskilling and regional skills transition in the context of technological change
• The opportunities and constraints of regional skills transition in emerging and developing economies
• Policy debates and policy experiences to address the regional dimension of skill mismatch, skill formation and skill transition for just and inclusive growth

Timeline

• June 12, 2026: Abstract deadline
• September 25, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Guendalina Anzolin, University of Cambridge

Simon Collinson, Zhejiang University

Federica Rossi, Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Elvira Uyarra, University of Manchester

Over the past two decades, the advent of digital technologies, the pressing need to shift productive structures towards greener systems, as well as recessions due to the Global Financial Crisis, Covid-19 and recent geopolitical tensions have increased the challenges for regions' structural transformation process. At the same time, organisations try to keep pace with increasingly rapid innovation processes by embracing open innovation and co-creation practices. These dynamics have opened a space for public intervention, to solve issues and to coordinate a growing number of stakeholders and activities related to innovation and industrial capabilities.

One of the ways in which governments can intervene is through the funding of innovation intermediaries (IIs). IIs can be organisations of several kinds, such as research and technology organisations, incubators, innovation centres, technopoles, knowledge-intensive business-services providers. They translate early-stage innovation into scale-up and usable products or processes, and they are key in orchestrating innovation and knowledge transfer by filling gaps along the innovation cycles, through the organisation of complex networks of players to solve complex problems. IIs increasingly act as market architects by shaping demand, standards, and regulatory frameworks that enable the emergence of new markets. The emergence of IIs as key actors in the process calls for in-depth analyses of the role, functions and activities that IIs play for regional development.

IIs are key players within regional ecosystems and are increasingly in a position to engage in regional restructuring and diversification processes. Even when IIs do not have an explicit regional mandate, they participate in a dynamic local ecosystem where institutional, technological and economic linkages evolve and shape the regional context. The structure of the ecosystem itself influences the design and the functioning of IIs and it is pivotal to support the processes of knowledge search and generation that IIs are supposed to contribute to. IIs can actively contribute to related and unrelated diversification processes and leverage their role as knowledge repositories, shapers and facilitators within and across industrial value chain structures in different ecosystems.

Effective regional development requires not just any institutions, but the right configurations and capacities in those institutions to adapt to a changing context. By examining IIs, this Special Issue aims to observe institutional work in action – how these organisations evolve new practices to meet emerging challenges like digitalisation or decarbonization. It also intends to provide further theoretical understandings of key concepts, such as the functions of IIs within an ecosystem, specifically addressing what the unique features of IIs and their functions are in the innovation life cycle and within the ecosystem where they operate.

This Special Issue invites conceptual, empirical and policy-focused papers that unpack the interrelations between evolving innovation IIs and regional economic change. We particularly encourage interdisciplinary approaches bridging economic geography, innovation studies, operations management, industrial economics and public policy, as well as studies based on qualitative or quantitative methods and mixed-method designs that combine qualitative case work with large-scale datasets. We also aim to include papers that cover a variety of empirical settings.

Potential topics

• Analyse how different configurations of IIs foster knowledge transfer, upgrade value chains and enable regional diversification or resilience
• Analyse what are the structural conditions (i.e., institutional, economic, production and technology related) that lead to the emergence of specific types of IIs
• Investigate how IIs shape – and are shaped by – place-based, mission-oriented or smart-specialisation policies
• Explore how IIs support regional sustainability goals, including decarbonization, circular economy initiatives, and the integration of social and environmental objectives into innovation strategies
• Explore the role of IIs as orchestrators of human-capital formation and labour-market transitions
• Examine how the activities, governance and revenue structures of IIs have adapted to new technological waves (e.g. digital or green transitions) and to changing public-private funding landscapes
• Analyse the impact of policy interventions on IIs in specific ecosystems (or comparing different regional ecosystems)
• Explore the different activities and functions that IIs perform depending on the sectoral needs, segments of the value chain and size of the firm
• Investigate how IIs contribute to market formation processes, including the creation of standards, certification schemes, and demand articulation for emerging technologies
• Develop novel typologies or metrics that capture the dynamic functions of IIs within regional innovation systems

Timeline

• June 30, 2026: Abstract deadline
• December 31, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Max Roessler, University of Greifswald

Crhistian Joel González-Cuatianquis, Gran Sasso Science Institute

Stefania Fiorentino, University of Cambridge

Grete Gansauer, University of Wyoming

Recent political developments related to place-based feelings of discontent and left-behindness draw urgent attention toward building scholarly understanding of the emotional, discursive, and narrative dimensions of contemporary regional inequality. The rise of populist movements, growing anti-establishment sentiment, and regional polarization in the US, Europe and other parts of the world have motivated scholarly and policy action toward not only understanding the root causes of such dynamics, but also policy strategies to equalize socioeconomic prosperity in places perceived as 'left behind'. As political attitudes harboured in 'left behind' places propel electoral shifts, spatial divides, and declining trust in political institutions, there is a need for research on how regional disparities materialise in, through and with regard to distinct places. In particular, there is a need to (re)consider how policy solutions meant to address territorial inequalities can take the deeply rooted feelings, perceptions, and spatial imaginaries of 'left behind' places and peripheralized regions into account.

This Special Issue particularly addresses the significance of the perceptual dimension. We invite contributions which examine the role of spatial imaginaries, narratives, regional visions, identities, emotional geographies and effects associated with regional inequality and their interrelationship with policy responses as part of an 'ideational turn' within Regional Studies. By focusing on regional actors' perceptions and perceived regional futures, the SI explores the intersection of the feelings and material conditions influencing 'left-behindness' and the policies designed to address it.

This Special Issue highlights international spatial variations and manifestations of left-behindness and their interdependencies with psychological perceptions and local cultural embeddedness. By discussing the broader material and structural conditions of 'left-behindness', the Special Issue shifts the focus to the perceptual dimension and the role of spatial imaginaries, examining the subjective, emotional, and symbolic dimensions of left-behindness at different territorial levels. It aims to explore how narratives, imaginaries, and historical preconditions shape local identities, feelings of exclusion, and thus visions of regional futures. The Special Issue will welcome studies that offer new ways of thinking about left-behind places and political discontent, moving beyond economic metrics to explore the emotional, symbolic, and narrative dimensions that shape and are shaped by spatial inequalities and regional futures. All contributions should ground their analysis in regional and place-based context, ensuring coherence with the journal's mission and spatial focus.

The guest editorial team particularly encourages early-career scholars in geography, regional studies, public and regional policy, and related fields, bringing fresh perspectives to the discussion under the high publishing standards of Regional Studies. Furthermore, submissions examining perceptions of 'left behind-ness' from the Global South are encouraged. Conceptual, theoretical and empirical submissions, both qualitative and quantitative, as well as case studies from different regions in the world are welcome.

Potential topics

• Theorisations and empirical examples of perceived left-behindness
• Construction of narratives and imaginaries of and within 'left behind regions'
• Significance of regional identities, histories, or social memories within peripheralized places for perceptions of the future
• Material effects of spatial imaginaries, emotional associations of marginality, or feelings of discontent/left-behind-ness on regional development policy and planning
• Epistemological assumptions and methodologies to examine imaginaries, narratives and visions within 'left behind' places and policy
• Policy responses and best-practice examples to tackle feelings of perceived left-behindness, and/or empowering local agencies, contrasting feelings of neglect and institutional mistrust
• The commonalities and differences of spatial imaginaries and perceptions of left-behindness across a variety of geographies (e.g., Global North versus Global South)

Timeline

• February 28, 2026: Extended abstract deadline
• September 11, 2026: Full manuscript submission deadline

Rosanna Fornasiero, CNR IEIIT

Luis M. Camarinha-Matos, NOVA University Lisbon

Xavier Boucher, Mines Saint-Étienne

Angel Ortiz, Universitat Politècnica de València

Hybrid Collaborative Networks (HCNs), involving human-AI collaboration, are emerging as central to value creation in digitally enabled, globally distributed and socio-technically managed ecosystems. Based on the complex interplay between humans and artificial intelligence, these networks combine very heterogeneous actors—such as organizations, individuals, intelligent systems, embodied AI, and platforms—interacting across physical, digital, and organizational boundaries. Understanding the dynamics of such networks is critical to ensure their design, management, resilience, adaptability and sustained performance in rapidly changing environments. Analysing and managing the dynamic nature of HCNs includes examining how hybrid collaborative structures emerge, evolve, adapt, and dissolve over time.

The dynamics of interactive performance and role distribution for such networks, but also the change of collaboration patterns over time, together with the managerial frameworks required to ensure adaptive governance of HCNs open strong scientific challenges, where technological added-value should be deeply associated with socio-human approaches.

The 26 years of scientific background developed by PRO-VE in designing and managing collaborative networks stands as the basis to design and manage the life cycle of hybrid human – AI collaborative networks. The very adaptative and changing nature of HCNs calls for a very open multidisciplinary science of collaborative networks, where engineering disciplines collaborate constantly with socio-human and managerial scientists. Beyond the complexity to ensure effective human-AI integration, scalability and evolution of AI systems or trust in hybrid collaboration, require defining innovative design methods and frameworks, adaptive governance and life-cycle management models.

PRO-VE 2026 is a forum for sharing and discussing current developments and experiences regarding the role of collaborative networks in the age of combined intelligence between humans and AI. Contributions to this special issue are selected from the papers submitted to the conference. A limited number of self-submission papers can be accepted for publication in this SI.

The SI aims to integrate multiple and diverse disciplines such as Engineering, Managerial and Socio-Human sciences: industrial and electrical engineering, computer science, manufacturing, organization science, logistics, management, and social sciences, among others.

Potential topics

• Digital platforms for HCNs
• Collaborative dynamics among human and AI teams
• Agile design and management of hybrid networks
• Design of AI teammates
• Knowledge life cycle in distributed cognitive systems
• Collaboration and coopetition in untrustworthy environments
• Life cycle of collaborative cognitive cyber-physical systems
• Combination of human expertise with AI systems
• Scalability and adaptability of HCNs
• Collective decision making, value creation and creativity
• Digital twins for HCNs
• Governance framework for HCNs
• Understanding and explainability of HCN decisions
• Advanced collaborative robotics
• Complex hybridization of collaboration – organizations, people, smart machines, intelligent systems
• Resilience & antifragility in HCNs
• Ethics, security, & trust in HCNs
• AI integration for logistics and transportation networks
• AI for collaborative risk and crisis management
• Society 5.0 and collaborative networks
• CN applications and case studies in multiple fields

Timeline

• March 31, 2027: Manuscript deadline

Guillermo Antonio Dávila, Universidad de Lima

Susanne Durst, Bangkok University

A growing number of organizations are facing political uncertainty, a knowledge-based economy with heterogeneous development, and technological upheavals that not only pose ethical and social challenges but also demand new business models and ways to maintain competitiveness. Many of these organisations operate in underdeveloped regions, geographically isolated areas, rural communities, conflict zones, post-disaster environments, or informal settlements. Others, like NGOs, operate in sectors with a lack of financial resources. These entrepreneurial contexts share characteristics such as financial constraints, difficulties in accessing and applying technologies, and a shortage of skilled workers. Organisations operating in these contexts must learn to innovate and remain globally competitive despite challenging conditions.

Given limited resources, institutional frameworks, and other uncertainties in today's world, companies should strive to make better use of their knowledge. Targeted and strategic KM enables organizations to maximize the value of their relevant knowledge. Research has shown that KM can mitigate the disadvantages associated with financial and technological constraints. In this sense, it might represent a strategic organisational capability that supports innovation, strengthens resilience, and fosters organisational learning.

Empirical evidence from different contexts supports the critical role of KM in this regard. Regarding innovation, KM practices have been associated with higher innovation performance in firms from Brazil and China. In terms of resilience, studies suggest that organisational resilience can be reinforced through knowledge-based resources and capabilities, including dynamic capabilities in Indonesian firms, the joint action of intellectual capital and generative AI in Turkish organisations, and knowledge transfer, integration, and sharing mechanisms in emergency management systems in China. Likewise, organisational learning has been linked to intellectual capital and knowledge process capability in Taiwanese firms. KM has also proven to be very beneficial for small and medium-sized enterprises and their development. When operating under constraints, it is crucial to understand the qualities of available resources, including knowledge, as it is not automatically an intrinsic asset. Against this backdrop, discussing risks related to knowledge is relevant, allowing the organisation to examine knowledge from both a positive and a negative perspective, which can lead to new ways of thinking and novel solutions for leveraging knowledge.

Although KM has become an established field in recent years, the focus of studies remains on relatively stable and well-institutionalized environments, i.e., developed economies and mature organizational environments. Contexts characterized by institutional weaknesses or resource constraints are comparatively under-researched, although emerging findings suggest that KM could play a crucial role in overcoming such constraints through mechanisms such as tinkering, socialization, and knowledge-sharing routines. Since SMEs constitute the majority of businesses in all economies, and approximately 61 percent of SMEs are from emerging economies, there is a significant need for more context-sensitive KM research that examines the roles KM can play in contexts characterized by resource and institutional scarcity.

This special issue aims to deepen the understanding of KM in contexts with limited resources and institutional frameworks. It seeks to identify mechanisms, capabilities, and theoretical perspectives through which KM enables organisational development and resilience despite such conditions. It welcomes the application or proposal of novel methodological approaches for investigating KM phenomena in such environments. By promoting context-sensitive research from underrepresented areas, this special issue aims to generate both theoretical and practical contributions that help to reduce the existing gap between established and underrepresented contexts.

This Special Issue welcomes a wide range of contributions, including conceptual papers, literature reviews, empirical studies, comparative and cross-country studies, theory-building research, practice-oriented studies, and methodological contributions, that advance understanding of KM in contexts characterised by resource and institutional constraints.

Potential topics

• KM as an enabler of organizational performance under conditions of resource scarcity
• Knowledge risk management as crucial function in environments characterized by internal and external constraints
• KM in underrepresented organisational settings, including SMEs, family businesses, informal organisations, low-technology firms, social organisations or geographically isolated regions
• Organisational learning processes in contexts characterised by institutional and resource constraints
• The role of KM in strengthening organisational resilience during internal and external crises and disruptions
• Necessary conditions and bottlenecks for organizational development empowered by KM
• The interplay between artificial intelligence and KM in overcoming organisational and institutional constraints
• The role of institutional ecosystems and inter-organisational networks in enhancing the effectiveness of KM
• Novel methodological approaches for studying KM in constrained and underrepresented contexts

Timeline

• March 15, 2027: Manuscript deadline

Weihua Liu, Tianjin University

Lei Xu, Civil Aviation University of China

Kannan Govindan, Adelaide University

Yang Cheng, Aalborg University

Driven by the deep integration of digital economy, intelligent manufacturing and modern logistics industry, low-altitude airspace resources have gradually become a key new carrier for breaking through the bottlenecks of traditional ground logistics. Low-altitude logistics, which is enabled by drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, intelligent terminals, digital platforms and low-altitude airspace management, has been emerging as a new frontier in logistics and supply chain management. Unlike traditional logistics systems that mainly rely on ground-based transportation, warehousing and distribution networks, it extends logistics operations into three-dimensional, air-ground integrated systems. This shift is closely related to the broader development of smart logistics, digital platforms and Industry 4.0, which have changed how logistics resources are connected, scheduled and governed.

Existing studies on drone-assisted parcel delivery, truck-drone coordination and drone-based logistics models have demonstrated the operational potential of this emerging mode. Meanwhile, research on urban air mobility and the environmental and societal implications of drone delivery suggests that low-altitude operations may reshape urban transport systems and logistics sustainability, although their value depends on network design, energy conditions, public acceptance, and regulatory readiness. Low-altitude logistics is therefore becoming an important application domain for last-mile delivery, emergency response, medical logistics, rural distribution and urban service logistics.

The International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications is well positioned to host this conversation. The journal has long published research on smart logistics, logistics technologies, supply chain risks, sustainable supply chains and logistics service networks, providing an important foundation for studying logistics systems shaped by new technologies and new organizational forms. More directly, recent influential studies have examined barriers to drone logistics implementation, consumer adoption of last-mile drone delivery, drone delivery logistics models for hyperlocal markets, and drones for supply chain management and logistics. These studies suggest that low-altitude logistics is not only a technological issue, but also a logistics and supply chain management issue involving adoption, coordination, governance, service design, sustainability and stakeholder acceptance.

The urgency of this Special Issue lies in the widening gap between fast-moving practice and still-fragmented academic understanding. Around the world, firms, cities and public agencies are experimenting with drone delivery, low-altitude mobility, emergency supply, medical distribution and air-ground logistics services, yet much of the existing research remains concentrated in routing optimization, technical feasibility or single-application analysis. How do logistics firms decide whether, when and how to adopt low-altitude logistics, given the organizational, regulatory and privacy barriers? How should low-altitude logistics be integrated with warehouses, fulfillment centers, ground fleets, urban distribution hubs and airport logistics systems, when hybrid logistics networks show both promise and complexity? How do consumers, communities and regulators respond to safety, privacy, noise, trust and airspace-use concerns, which have been shown to affect both drone delivery and urban air mobility acceptance? How can firms develop viable business models when low-altitude logistics requires new infrastructure, digital coordination, service guarantees and multi-stakeholder governance? Finally, how can low-altitude logistics contribute to sustainability, resilience and public value, while avoiding new externalities related to energy use, warehousing, unequal access and social acceptance? These questions reveal a pressing need for empirical research that connects technological experimentation with logistics and supply chain theory.

This Special Issue seeks to move low-altitude logistics research beyond isolated technological applications and toward a coherent logistics and supply chain research agenda. We call for empirically grounded studies that develop theoretical frameworks, uncover underlying mechanisms and examine scenario-based applications of low-altitude logistics in real organizational and institutional contexts. In particular, we invite research that explains how low-altitude logistics is adopted, organized, governed and evaluated; how it reshapes logistics networks, service processes and supply chain relationships; and how it affects logistics operational efficiency, resilience, sustainability, social acceptance and public value. As logistics systems face increasing pressure to become faster, greener, more resilient, and more responsive, the design, governance, and scaling of low-altitude logistics have become important questions for scholars, managers, policymakers, and practitioners.

Potential topics

• Theoretical frameworks and future research directions for low-altitude logistics
• Adoption, implementation, and diffusion of drone logistics
• Consumer acceptance and user perceptions of last-mile drone delivery
• Low-altitude logistics networks and air-ground collaborative distribution
• Smart logistics nodes, digital platforms, and infrastructure for low-altitude logistics
• Low-altitude logistics for urban last-mile delivery, instant retail, and on-demand services
• Drone-enabled emergency logistics, medical logistics, and humanitarian operations
• Low-altitude logistics for remote regions, islands, and mountainous communities
• Low-altitude logistics applications in airport cargo, air express, and air-ground freight connection
• Cold-chain, fresh food, and pharmaceutical delivery enabled by low-altitude logistics
• Low-altitude logistics for urban public services, infrastructure inspection, and smart city operations
• Business models, service innovation, and value creation in low-altitude logistics
• Supply chain coordination and governance in low-altitude logistics ecosystems
• Safety, privacy, regulation, and institutional challenges in drone logistics
• Sustainability, resilience, and social impacts of low-altitude logistics
• Empirical methods, data sources, and measurement issues in low-altitude logistics research
• Sustainability policies, governance mechanisms, and environmental impacts of low-altitude logistics
• Value chain development, industrial ecosystems, and empirical mechanisms in low-altitude logistics

Timeline

• July 30, 2026: Submission period opens
• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Hyun-Jung Kim, KAIST

Shu-Kai Fan, National Taipei University of Technology

Fugee Tsung, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Thomas Volling, Technical University Berlin

Jang Ho Kim, Korea University

Dong-Young Lim, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), optimization, and data-driven analytics are fundamentally transforming decision-making processes in complex systems operating under uncertainty. Modern industrial and service systems, including manufacturing, logistics, supply chains, transportation, energy, and healthcare, increasingly face dynamic and stochastic environments characterized by demand fluctuations, disruptions, incomplete information, evolving system states, and operational risks. To effectively manage such complexity, there is growing interest in intelligent decision-making methodologies that integrate learning, prediction, optimization, simulation, and adaptation. In particular, emerging technologies such as reinforcement learning, foundation models, generative AI, agentic AI, digital twins, and hybrid AI-optimization frameworks are enabling the development of more autonomous, adaptive, and data-driven operational systems. Despite these advances, significant challenges remain regarding scalability, robustness, interpretability, real-time implementation, and the successful deployment of AI-driven decision-making approaches in real-world industrial environments.

This Special Issue aims to provide a platform for cutting-edge research on AI-driven decision making under uncertain environments, with particular emphasis on methodologies and real-world applications that combine AI techniques with operations research, optimization, simulation, control, and industrial engineering approaches. The issue welcomes both theoretical and applied contributions addressing uncertainty-aware intelligent decision-making across a broad range of industrial and service systems.

The Special Issue is organized in conjunction with APIEMS 2026. Selected high-quality papers presented at the conference will be invited to submit extended versions for possible publication in the Special Issue. The Special Issue will also be open to general submissions from researchers worldwide. All submitted manuscripts will undergo the standard rigorous peer-review process of the International Journal of Production Research.

The Special Issue particularly encourages interdisciplinary studies demonstrating practical relevance, industrial applicability, and managerial insights for complex decision-making problems under uncertainty. To foster transparency, reproducibility, and cumulative scientific progress, open science practices such as the sharing of (synthetic) data, code, models, prompts, and comprehensive replication materials are strongly encouraged and highly valued.

Potential topics

• AI-driven decision-making under uncertainty
• Production planning and scheduling in stochastic and dynamic environments
• Reinforcement learning for uncertain industrial systems
• Stochastic optimization and robust operational strategies
• AI-enabled statistical quality control and process improvement
• Hybrid AI and optimization approaches for uncertain environments
• Data-driven optimization and prescriptive analytics
• AI-enhanced supply chain and logistics management under disruptions
• Real-time and adaptive decision-making systems
• Simulation-based optimization and digital twins under uncertainty
• Agentic AI and autonomous industrial systems
• Explainable and trustworthy AI for operational decision-making
• AI for resilient and sustainable operations
• Industrial applications and case studies of AI-driven decision systems

Timeline

• October 1, 2026: Submissions open
• January 31, 2027: Submission deadline

Cristina Alaimo, ESSEC Business School

Lauren Waardenburg, ESSEC Business School

Jonny Holmström, Umeå University

Lior Zalmanson, Tel Aviv University

Reza M. Baygi, VU Amsterdam

We are living through a profound epistemic shift in the history of computation. Contemporary AI systems learn from, operate through, and increasingly generate data at unprecedented scale. Unlike symbolic approaches associated with GOFAI (Good Old-Fashioned AI), advances in machine learning and deep learning have repositioned data—not rules—as the primary substrate of computational intelligence. This transformation compels us to rethink the foundations of AI scholarship within the IS discipline and to develop new theoretical vocabularies to understand the data-AI nexus as a complex socio-technical phenomenon.

Data are sociotechnical artefacts shaped by institutional practices, historical trajectories, cognitive frames, and semiotic conventions. As AI systems are built on data, learn from data, and reshape data through processes of classification, prediction, and generation, data are simultaneously increasingly crafted to meet the requirements of AI systems. Training datasets are curated, cleaned, labelled, augmented, and optimized with particular model architectures in mind. In this recursive dynamic, the boundary between data and AI becomes blurred, demanding renewed conceptual attention to how organisations' social fabric alters in the wake of AI.

Experts and organisations primarily encounter and shape AI through data practices: generating inputs, curating datasets, fine-tuning models, evaluating outputs, and conducting quality control. To understand AI in organisational contexts, we must therefore unpack the socio-cognitive and technical processes of data production, cleaning, transformation, and governance; that is, the data work embedded in everyday organisational routines. These processes extend beyond individual tasks to encompass institutional histories of data: organisational memory, sedimented classification systems, collective sensemaking, and enduring cognitive frames. Such historically layered infrastructures shape both how AI systems are designed and how their outputs are interpreted.

AI is no longer trained only on data understood as structured database entries. Today, AI systems rely on an expanding range of materials, digital and analogue alike, that are transformed into training input. For the first time, AI also generates data. Synthetic data—text, images, code, and other artefacts generated by machines—are becoming a key input for model training, fine-tuning, and evaluation. The growing use of synthetic data for training purposes may be motivated by performance considerations, but also by issues of privacy, scarcity, access, and governance. When synthetic data, disconnected from social practice, recursively feed new models, the challenge becomes institutional, as human actors defer to AI even where scepticism and independent judgment are needed for legitimizing AI-generated material.

We invite submissions that advance our understanding of the data-AI nexus by foregrounding a dialogue between existing research traditions on data and AI, which have often remained disconnected. We particularly welcome theoretically ambitious and empirically rich studies that move beyond purely technical accounts of AI to explore its socio-technical, organisational, and epistemic dimensions. We encourage submissions that interrogate how data shape AI systems, how AI systems reshape the data they consume, and what happens when data becomes increasingly detached from practices of representation and meaning making.

We aim to catalyse how IS scholars conceptualise and study the interdependencies between data, AI, and social practice. We seek contributions that treat the data-AI nexus not as a technical backdrop but as a core analytical problem that reshapes how knowledge is produced, validated, and institutionalized in digital societies. We welcome empirical and conceptual contributions embracing a broad range of paradigms, methodological approaches, and levels of analysis, valuing diversity in theories, methods, and genres.

Potential topics

• Data and AI co-constitution: exploring where and when intelligence in AI emerges in computational architectures, datasets, or their entanglement, and how choices about data selection, curation, labelling, and historical accumulation shape what AI systems can know and do
• AI as a data-maker: conceptualizing AI as an active producer of data that structures, generates, and transforms the data it relies on, including the rise of AI agents and recursive dynamics where synthetic data becomes input for other AI systems
• Data decoupled from practice: examining consequences of data production detached from institutionalized knowledge practices or situated practices of meaning-making, and implications for governance and decision-making
• The social life of the data-AI nexus: tracing institutional, historical, and cognitive trajectories of data as it is produced, curated, transformed, and mobilized, including how organizational memory and AI agents reshape institutional dynamics
• Theoretical and methodological advances: reconceptualizing constructs such as intelligence, data quality, ground truth, training, and synthetic data as relational, temporal, and emergent phenomena
• Cross-level insights: studying how assumptions about data and intelligence are embedded in AI systems and reshape organizational practices and societal outcomes
• Data work in organizations: examining curation, labelling, cleaning, evaluation, model development practices, and integration of generative AI into workflows
• Data, AI, and grand challenges: addressing climate change, public health, inequality, digital governance through responsible AI in contexts with incomplete, biased, or synthetic data

Timeline

• May 28, 2026: Call launch at the Theorizing Data & AI Conference
• January 15, 2027: Initial paper submission deadline
• April 15, 2027: First round authors notification
• May 1, 2027: Workshop for first round authors during Theorizing Data & AI Conference
• July 31, 2027: Invited revisions deadline
• October 31, 2027: Second round authors notification
• January 15, 2028: Final revision deadline

Associate editors

• Aleksi Aaltonen, Ida Asadi Someh
• Ioanna Constantiou, Domenico di Prisco
• Mayur Joshi, Ekaterina Jussupow
• Jannis Kallinikos, Tomislav Karačić
• Stan Karanasios, Alexander Kempton
• Angelos Kostis, Harris Kyriakou
• Christine Legner, Kalle Lyytinen
• Eric Monteiro, Jeff Parsons
• Mike Power, Jan Recker
• Paavo Ritala, Marta Stelmaszak Rosa
• Lauri Wesssel,

Yichuan Wang, University of Sheffield

Minhao Zhang, University of Bristol

Francesco Schiavone, University of Naples Parthenope

Within mere hours of returning to the White House, President Donald Trump took a dramatic step in reshaping the future of artificial intelligence (AI) by repealing the guardrails put in place by former President Joe Biden. This abrupt policy reversal has sent shockwaves through the tech community, sparking both optimism about accelerated AI innovation and apprehension about a new "wild west" of limited oversight. While high-profile supporters such as venture capitalist welcome fewer restrictions, others caution that the Biden administration's initiatives on AI safety and ethical standards, many of which already yielded research findings and policy recommendations, risk being mitigated. As new US government remains tight-lipped about how it will regulate advanced AI, the international community is left to speculate: Will this herald an era of fast-paced development that bypasses cautionary measures, or will additional safeguards eventually surface to address concerns around privacy, discrimination, and global competition? This unfolding scenario sets the stage for a reexamination of AI governance, investment, and cross-border collaboration, an opportune moment for researchers to analyze the interplay between regulatory shifts and technological progress.

Scholars have noted that changes in political and policy interventions can profoundly affect how nations or organizations invest in and govern emerging technologies, particularly in AI. For example, some countries may double down on government-led AI initiatives to retain technological sovereignty, while others may opt for more laissez-faire approaches that prioritize market-driven innovation. As these dynamics unfold, they reshape competitive advantages, strategic alliances, and pathways of innovation. At the organizational level, a potential relaxation in AI governance, such as easing compliance requirements or loosening data protection measures, could bolster corporate and industrial innovations in the short run. Firms might benefit from lower costs associated with regulatory compliance and gain rapid market entry for AI-based products and services. However, insufficient oversight can exacerbate risks related to data privacy, algorithmic bias, and ethical concerns. Kronblad et al. (2024) propose the concept of "institutional blackboxing," describing how the technical complexities and operational procedures of AI decisions are obscured or hidden within institutional frameworks. This blackboxing prevents scrutiny and accountability, allowing injustices to persist unaddressed within the systems' operations.

This lack of accountability and transparency can further lead to fragmented standards across regions, as weakened governance makes it increasingly difficult for multinational companies to navigate varying legal requirements and compete effectively on a global scale. The risks associated with fragmented standards underscore the critical role of key enablers identified by Pramanik et al. (2024), which influence AI readiness across both developed and developing economies. These enablers, scientific research output, internet infrastructure, and public consumption expenses, highlight the universal challenges and opportunities faced by nations in harnessing AI. As these enablers play a pivotal role in shaping AI governance models, they also reflect each economy's ability to strategically leverage digital transformation. Therefore, in managing their AI ecosystems, industries and governments must carefully assess these factors to effectively navigate the complexities introduced by varied political and policy landscapes.

In light of these developments, there is a pressing need for scholarly investigations into how international and political uncertainties shape AI innovation, especially in terms of governance models, investment flows, cross-border collaborations, and competitive dynamics. We invite submissions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes: (1) the influence of shifting geopolitical contexts on AI research and development priorities; (2) comparative studies of AI policy frameworks across different countries; (3) the implications of relaxed governance for ethical AI, data protection, and social welfare; and (4) strategies for multinational enterprises to navigate AI innovation in volatile regulatory environments. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary perspectives that draw on economics, political science, information systems, organizational studies, and operations management. By publishing in this special issue, authors will contribute to a deeper understanding of how AI innovation can be managed, sustained, and directed for societal benefit amidst evolving global uncertainties.

Potential topics

• How do shifting political contexts and leadership changes (e.g., the Trump administration's approach to AI) shape countries' AI R&D investments and strategic alliances?
• What are the short-term and long-term implications of relaxed AI governance on economic performance, data privacy, and algorithmic bias?
• Under what conditions can reduced AI regulations foster or hinder innovation ecosystems in sectors such as healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and transportation?
• How can policymakers and organizations balance the need for rapid AI innovation with the ethical and social risks arising from limited oversight or fragmented governance?
• How might relaxed AI governance in certain countries influence global competitive dynamics, international collaborations, and the uneven distribution of AI capabilities?
• What strategies can multinational enterprises adopt to navigate complex regulatory landscapes, protect intellectual property, and maintain data security while pursuing AI innovation?
• Which governance models or policy frameworks from different regions (e.g., EU vs. US vs. Asia) most effectively balance innovation, accountability, and social welfare in AI?
• How can scenario planning and forecasting methods be applied to model the impact of political volatility on AI investments, talent flows, and market structures?

Timeline

• November 15, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Jingsha He, Beijing University of Technology

Sohail S. Chaudhry, Villanova University

Galina Ilieva, University of Plovdiv

Against the backdrop of the rapid development of e-commerce enterprises and the increasing maturity of data intelligence technologies, the organic integration of the two has created innovative digital business models that transcend traditional e-commerce operations, such as enhanced commodity transactions through predictive analytics, deepened user interactions via personalized recommendations, and streamlined supply chain collaboration with real-time optimization. This has brought tremendous changes to e-commerce enterprises and has become a core engine driving enterprise upgrading. The e-commerce enterprises use big data analysis to optimize business strategies, improve user experience, and make informed decisions. For example, Amazon leverages data intelligence to conduct real-time analysis of massive transaction data. During promotional periods, it adjusts prices on a minute-by-minute basis based on factors such as competitors' prices and users' purchasing intentions, giving full play to the role of big data value mining in optimizing business strategies. The "Thousands of People, Thousands of Faces" system improves user experience and stickiness through intelligent data analysis. E-commerce platforms have established intelligent supply chain systems, which realize efficient collaboration of warehousing networks by integrating sales data, inventory data, and logistics data.

However, as e-commerce enterprises driven by data intelligence rapidly develop, many practical problems have emerged in areas such as operational efficiency, data handling, and competitive differentiation. The surge in orders brought by massive transactions makes it urgent to improve service efficiency and sales levels; the complexity of data processing and the dynamics of e-commerce (including difficulties in processing structured and unstructured data) lead to system processing delays, which further exacerbate this problem; over-reliance on historical data reduces recommendation accuracy, and similar algorithms across multiple platforms result in a lack of differentiation in enterprise competition, restricting the innovative development of e-commerce.

This special issue will explore the innovative development of e-commerce enterprises under data intelligence to address these current challenges. This special issue aims to explore feasible paths to overcome technical bottlenecks and enhance models by bringing together innovative academic theories and practical cases from e-commerce enterprises, offering forward-looking and practical ideas for enterprise development, and promoting exchanges and cooperation in the field of data intelligence among global e-commerce enterprises.

Potential topics

• Paths to enhance e-commerce efficiency driven by big data
• Data intelligence empowers innovation in e-commerce operations and service upgrading
• Optimization of complex data processing in e-commerce operations through data intelligence
• AI enables solving the problems of structured and unstructured data processing in e-commerce
• E-commerce marketing strategies and accurate capture of user behavior based on in-depth AI analysis
• AI enables optimization of the guidance effectiveness and accuracy of recommendation systems for e-commerce users
• Generative AI breaks through algorithm homogenization to realize personalized services in e-commerce
• Data intelligence promotes the format innovation of integration between e-commerce and physical retail

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission of manuscript
• November 15, 2026: First notification
• December 31, 2026: Submission of revised manuscript
• February 15, 2027: Final paper due

Aljona Zorina, NEOMA Business School

Ella Hafermalz, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Thomas Grisold, WU Vienna

Aron Lindberg, Stevens Institute of Technology

Mahya Ostovar, University of Galway

Digital visibility - the practice of making oneself or others visible through digital technologies - has become a defining condition of modern society, though it remains theoretically fragmented. Across organizations, platforms, and communities, algorithmic systems, digital and data infrastructures increasingly shape how individuals and collectives become visible, valued, and heard or alternatively are rendered invisible, precarious, and excluded. This creates ongoing reconfiguration to the conditions under which actors coordinate, communicate and collaborate.

A shift is underway where visibility is no longer a secondary organizational feature or a byproduct of digitalization but a primary mechanism through which strategy, performance, power, identity, and modes of organizing and collaboration are constructed. Digital technologies produce new forms of visibility by identifying patterns in human behavior to inform managerial action and decision-making. Digitally informed visibility shapes identity and recognition, redefines actor expertise and legitimacy, and determines who becomes empowered. In digital work environments, visibility becomes both a resource and a burden, generating pressure and fear of exclusion. In response, actors engage in visibility games - individual and collective strategies aimed at managing digital presence, algorithmic performance, and evaluative signals.

Control over digital identity assets and over who can see, circulate, and capture value is becoming a central concern of technical, legal, economic, and organizational leadership in the twenty-first century and defines who participates, and under what conditions. AI combined with digital visibility enables decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), where records and tracing from blockchain smart contracts reshape how trust and reciprocity can be granted to strangers.

These developments challenge longstanding assumptions that visibility is a desirable feature of how we organize and collaborate, as often emphasized in the literatures on open-source software, wikis, and open innovation. Automated tools increasingly shape visibility by highlighting valuable contributions, flagging problematic behavior, or recommending collaborators, thereby creating new hierarchies of visibility. Digital visibility filters community activity, enabling new ways to balance transparency and opacity. The rise of bots further complicates these dynamics, as automated agents can shape human visibility and even evade human oversight.

Where visibility and transparency were once predominantly viewed as virtuous organizing principles enabling accountability and widespread participation, the contemporary landscape reveals a far more contested picture. The rise of surveillance capitalism demonstrates how platforms weaponize visibility to extract behavioral surplus from consumers and gig workers. The spread of digital authoritarianism reveals how state actors leverage visibility infrastructures to monitor and punish dissent, forcing actors to actively manage digital invisibility as a matter of safety and survival. In these contexts, increased visibility is not necessarily a benevolent condition but a potential instrument of control and extraction. This raises key questions: whose visibility serves whose interests, under what conditions digital visibility becomes beneficial or harmful, and which factors and processes shape who sees and who is seen.

While digital visibility dramatically transforms all aspects of modern organizations, theories for understanding such changes systematically are lagging. Established theoretical frameworks were largely developed for bounded, human-mediated and non-digital visibility and require re-thinking to grasp contemporary forms of visibility that are algorithmic, synthetic, and infrastructural in nature. There is an urgent need for new conceptual frameworks, research agendas and empirical insights that can account for how digital visibility can be understood, designed, analyzed, and leveraged in modern organizing.

This Special Issue focuses on the implications of digital visibility and invisibility and how they are altering the nature, scope, and stakes involved in organizing and managing the activities of human and non-human agents. By bringing together research on design, infrastructures, work, organizing, technology, power, agency, decision-making, and data, this Special Issue seeks to advance a coherent and timely research agenda on digital visibility and its implications for the present and future of organizing.

This Special Issue adopts an intentionally broad and inclusive scope, welcoming contributions not only from the Information Systems field but also from related disciplines such as organization studies, the sociology of technology, science and technology studies, strategy, accounting and control, and adjacent fields concerned with digital, algorithmic, and data-driven forms of organizing. Submissions may address topics such as social media, platforms, data and analytics, system design and development, digital innovation, governance, and emerging digital infrastructures.

A wide range of methodological approaches are invited, including empirical and conceptual work, theory-building and philosophical contributions, qualitative, quantitative, computational, simulation, econometric, critical, and design science research, as well as opinion and commentary pieces, and methodological innovations that develop new ways of studying digital visibility.

Potential topics

• Technologies and Infrastructures of Visibility: How new technologies (e.g., blockchains, algorithmic social media feeds, and AI-generated content) selectively produce visibility and concealment; The architecture and construction of data and compute infrastructures that shape digital visibility; The development of systems for trust, such as through blockchain and automatically enforced transactions, and its role in enabling cooperation without central authority.
• Non-Human Agents and Automated Systems: The design and deployment of non-human agents (e.g., bots, digital twins, or avatars) as participants in constructing visibility, including visibility constructed by non-humans for non-humans; The role of automated systems in mediating what becomes visible or invisible.
• Data Practices and Visibility Construction: Inquiries into data practices and the systems that influence what data is captured, included, or omitted in various artifacts, such as summaries or analyses produced by generative AI technologies; How design choices in data collection, storage, and analysis shape what becomes visible and invisible; The politics of data inclusion and exclusion.
• Decision Support and Critical Systems: The design of systems that mediate critical decisions in domains like healthcare, security, engineering, and hiring, and how they influence what is visible to human observers and experts; How visibility design in decision support systems shapes organizational outcomes and stakeholder experiences; Design considerations for balancing visibility and opacity in high-stakes decision-making contexts.
• Experiences and Social Dynamics of Digital (In)visibility: Experiences of digital (in)visibility and the effort required for visibility work (e.g., keeping a topic on the agenda); Experiences, construction and resistance to siloed experiences of digital (in)visibility (e.g. isolation, filter bubbles, and hyper-personalization); The trade-offs of being digitally present or absent; Interactions with non-human representations (e.g., digital twins, proxies, avatars) and dematerialization of experience and social connection; Theorizing actor experiences of digital visibility compared to foundational social theories (e.g., the simulacra, expression games, symbolic interactionism); Temporal and spatial shaping of digital visibility, including how visibility emerges, fades, shifts, or reappears.
• Strategy, Power, and Digital Identity Management: How actors strategically manage visibility, including engaging in dancing for algorithms, and the emergence of digital visibility games; Controlling digital identity assets and who can see and capture value from them, which is crucial for technical, legal, economic, and organizational leadership; Power dynamics associated with being (in)visible and em(de)powered; Digital visibility as a transformational factor of open strategy; The governance of infrastructures and apparatus of visibility.
• Non-Human Governance and Political Economies: Network-based approaches to understanding visibility and organizational structures; The role of non-human governance of humans and bots, including the shift from algorithmic to agentic management, games of attention and concealment, and backstage non-human politics (e.g. AI organizing to elude human oversight); Digital visibility in blockchain.
• Trust, Truth, and Security: Security and privacy safeguards in digitally visible environments; Trust and truth in what is made digitally visible (e.g., through verification and watermarks; tools to differentiate between the digital and the real in the age of synthetic and algorithmic visibility).
• Individual and Societal Impacts: Impacts of digital visibility on individual well-being, identity formation, and autonomy; How digital visibility systems reshape social relations and community formation; The distributional consequences of visibility systems; Effects on democracy, public discourse, civil liberties, and human rights; Cross-cultural and contextual variations of digital visibility.
• Organizational and Workplace Consequences: Long-term organizational impacts of digital visibility on trust, autonomy, and innovation; The transformation of work practices, performance evaluation, and managerial control; How digital visibility affects organizational learning, knowledge sharing, and collaborative dynamics; Unintended consequences and hidden costs of visibility systems, including surveillance fatigue, performative behaviors, privacy costs, and resistance strategies.
• Ethical & Governance Consequences: Ethical dilemmas and moral consequences of digital visibility systems; Accountability mechanisms and governance addressing negative consequences of visibility systems; The role of different stakeholders (platforms, regulators, civil society, users) in shaping responses to visibility-related harms; Historical trajectories and future scenarios for the evolution of digital visibility and its consequences; New forms of organizing with digital (in)visibility in the center; Conceptualizations and typologies of digital visibility and invisibility.

Timeline

• September 7, 2026: Optional abstract submission due
• October 5, 2026: Feedback on abstracts (via email)
• December 1, 2026: Invited five-page abstract due
• December 9, 2026: Online Paper Development Workshop
• March 31, 2027: First-round submissions to the journal due
• June 30, 2027: First-round decisions expected
• July 30, 2027: Revision Plan Meeting with SI Editors (optional)
• September 30, 2027: Second-round revisions due
• November 30, 2027: Second-round decisions expected
• February 28, 2028: Third and final revisions submissions due
• April 30, 2028: Final decisions expected

Associate editors

• Andreas Eckhardt, University of Innsbruck
• Robert Fichman, Boston College
• Andreas Hein, University of St. Gallen
• Mayur Joshi, Telfer School of Management
• Lise Justesen, Copenhagen Business School
• Waldemar Kremser, Johannes Kepler University
• Virginia Leavell, Cambridge Judge Business School
• Julian Lehmann, Arizona State University
• Silvia Masiero, University of Oslo
• Afshin Mehrpouya, University of Edinburgh Business School
• Josh Morton, Leeds University Business School
• Stella Pachidi, King's Business School
• Mariia Petryk, George Mason University
• Ursula Plesner, Copenhagen Business School
• Carolina Alves de Lima Salge, University of Georgia
• Karla Sayegh, Cambridge Judge Business School
• Lisen Selander, University of Gothenburg
• Maha Shaikh, ESADE
• Maura Soekijad, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Marta Stelmaszak-Rosa, UMass Amherst
• Elmira Van den Broek, Stockholm School of Economics
• Joao Veira Da Cunha, IESEG
• Bei Yan, Stevens Institute of Technology

Varun Grover, University of Arkansas

Nik Rushdi Hassan, University of Minnesota Duluth

Tina Blegind Jensen, Copenhagen Business School

Paul Lowry, Virginia Tech

Kalle Lyytinen, Case Western Reserve University

Angsana Techatassanasoontorn, Auckland University of Technology

The pervasive and unprecedented digitization of organizational and human experience represents a major challenge to past and existing theorizing methods. Recent efforts emphasize that with the rise in complexity in this digitized world, we need to rethink our theories and create new theories to guide us. What is needed are new theories that connect new concepts to grasp the unprecedented and link them to existing concepts or other new concepts, that explain and answer why such phenomena are happening.

This special issue calls for native IS theories that explain the nexus between digital technology and social and organizational phenomena. Building theories is highly challenging, but essential to establish the field as a socially and intellectually influential discipline. Theory should not be restricted to causal mechanisms or viewed too inclusively, but rather take the form of scientific understanding and systematic explanation that contains logically interconnected sets of propositions, symbolic conjectures, and empirical generalizations, tied to the IS discourse.

To fulfill the criterion that theory be tied to IS discourse, the special issue seeks studies that focus on the uniqueness of phenomena, assumptions, boundary conditions, concepts, and logic to IS. Every theory proposed should be tied to an explicit why question about an IS phenomenon. Articles may apply one of two major approaches: either deeply engage with existing theory and demonstrate how these theories address or don't address unprecedented IS phenomena, or propose novel native IS theories that are different from established theories and explain why new theoretical positions are needed.

The special issue seeks articles that either deeply engage with existing theories or propose new native IS theories on unprecedented emergent IS phenomena. Researchers are encouraged to investigate emerging phenomena that are capturing the attention of society and in need of better explanations, such as digital technologies shaping public opinion, algorithmic amplification of social tendencies, threats to cybersecurity and privacy, deepfakes and synthetic newsrooms, ethical and legal implications from emerging technologies, disruption from artificial intelligence generative content, and societal impacts from misinformation and disinformation. There are also opportunities in areas such as energy informatics, green IS, and sustainability digital initiatives that can benefit from native IS theories.

Potential topics

• Digital strategy and technology-enabled business models
• IT-enabled fake news, misinformation, and disinformation
• Technology-infused hyperconnected society and social networks
• Disruptive technologies and their organizational impacts
• Surveillance capitalism and privacy concerns
• Big Data analytics and implications
• Social media effects and algorithmic amplification
• Generative artificial intelligence and AI-generated content
• Deepfakes and synthetic media
• Cybersecurity threats from technology-enabled organizations
• Ethical and legal implications of emerging technologies
• Energy informatics and green IS
• Sustainability digital initiatives
• Digital transformation and technological change
• Public opinion shaping through digital technologies

Timeline

• June 29, 2026: Deadline for Extended Abstracts
• December 1, 2027: Deadline for Paper submissions

Kieran Conboy, University of Galway

Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa, The University of Texas at Austin

Brian T. Pentland, Michigan State University

Efpraxia D. Zamani, Durham University

Technology has fundamentally transformed the way we experience time and temporality, having permeated all aspects of our lives. It influences the way we work, how we live, and aspects of our identity, by shifting the way we communicate with others, accelerating information flows and enabling constant connectivity. As technologies evolve and digital infrastructures increasingly shape organisational and societal life, questions of temporality—speed, duration, sequencing, rhythm, and timing—become central to how we design, adopt, use, and study Information Systems (IS).

While time is an inherently complex, multifaceted, subtle concept and is by nature socially embedded, it is often examined simplistically, adopting a clock-time perspective, with the focus being on speed and duration. Some disciplines such as Organisation Studies are making significant progress in understanding and theorising various aspects of temporal complexity and structuring. Yet, within the IS discipline, IS researchers are often quick to highlight the impact of information systems on the speed of organisational and social life, but can be slow to address the polymorphous, complex and nuanced nature of time in IS research. Despite a few notable exceptions, studies with a temporal dimension tend to address temporal complexity partially rather than comprehensively. Time remains theoretically elusive in contemporary studies of information systems, often excluded or included only as a 'hidden dimension'. IS literature on time and temporality emerges as fragmented and lacks the cumulative tradition and theoretical glue necessary. As the field matures, treating time as a central concept and construct is essential to theory development and progress.

This is particularly problematic in IS, given the centrality of time to many aspects of study in the field. Time, and more specifically speed, is often the raison d'etre of emerging technology, with promises of enabling real-time decision-making and implementation of action at unprecedented speed and scale. Data typically has a time value, where a data report five minutes before a meeting may be incredibly valuable, but one second after the meeting the value drops to zero. However, data can also increase in value over time as it is combined or new uses are found. Technology is usually developed under time pressure, with a rarely questioned assumption that organisations' use of technology must help them survive and thrive in the seemingly never-ending environment of dynamism and acceleration. IS researchers often use speed as a methodological proxy and even a synonym for IS value and success. However, technological speed and acceleration can undermine learning and collective creativity, and limit participation by those who are irreversibly impacted.

Temporality in information systems manifests across multiple temporal scales, ranging from moment-to-moment interactions to decades-long institutional transformations. The special issue encourages submissions that illuminate how digital technologies shape, mediate, or are embedded within temporal structures, rhythms, paths, and trajectories at any of these scales.

Across all temporal scales, the special issue especially welcomes work that advances theoretical and methodological discussions of time in Information Systems research. This includes analyses of flows, sequences, rhythms, tempos, trajectories, paths, and path nets, with more explicit attention to how temporal constructs are represented, theorised, and operationalised in IS scholarship.

The special issue also encourages contributions that link IS, temporality, and grand challenges such as climate change, pandemics, inequality, and social movements, which require multi-generational coordination, long-term data stewardship, and sustained digital infrastructures. Additionally, the special issue seeks cross-level insights into how temporal assumptions are embedded in IS and how they reshape experiences and outcomes.

The majority of empirical IS studies use time from a methodological perspective to merely strengthen causal claims. The special issue contends that the IS field is uniquely positioned to not just apply temporal techniques gleaned from other disciplines, but to inform and lead how the study of time and temporal complexity can be conducted. IS researchers can now analyse vast amounts of trace data on an unprecedented scale and engage in computationally intensive theory construction, with many emerging techniques that could be used or adapted for studying the complexities and nuances of time and technology.

The special issue envisions providing a deeper understanding of time to clarify and enhance knowledge that can explain phenomena important to IS. While contributions from other disciplines are welcome, papers where the IS artefact is foregrounded, being the central focus of the paper, are prioritised. The special issue welcomes empirical and conceptual contributions, all methodological approaches and paradigms, and studies at different levels of analysis. The journal values contrarian papers that challenge conventional assumptions, theories, and methods.

Potential topics

• How digital interfaces, notifications, and data streams reconfigure everyday temporal experience, including attention, interruption, multitasking, and asynchronous collaboration
• How people make sense of their digital pasts through data archives or online traces, and how they anticipate algorithmic or digitally mediated futures
• How workflow systems, dashboards, collaboration platforms, enterprise analytics, or predictive tools recalibrate shared temporal expectations and influence coordination
• How temporal orientations embedded in tools or analytics shape decision processes, innovation, or strategic flexibility
• Digital artefacts' temporal properties—update cycles, data retention logics, algorithmic refresh rates, and security time horizons—and how they interact with user and organizational temporal practices
• How data governance, privacy regimes, or AI systems handle conflicting temporal demands
• Temporal sensemaking challenges in artefact-centred networks, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), or other digitally constituted arrangements
• Why certain digital transformations accelerate rapidly while others evolve slowly and unevenly
• How digital standards, platforms, and protocols sediment, diffuse, or become institutionalised over time
• How temporal imaginaries, time horizons, or long-term digital trajectories shape fields, industries, and societies
• Theoretical and methodological discussions of time in IS research, including analyses of flows, sequences, rhythms, tempos, trajectories, paths, and path nets
• Explicit attention to how temporal constructs are represented, theorised, and operationalised in IS scholarship
• Linking IS, temporality, and grand challenges such as climate change, pandemics, inequality, and social movements
• Cross-level insights into how temporal assumptions are embedded in IS and how they reshape experiences and outcomes
• Algorithmic schedules, design and development methods such as design science, agile, continuous development and flow, and real-time vs. asynchronous communication
• How temporal assumptions align or collide with individual or cultural constructions of time
• Methodological papers and techniques for studying time and temporal complexity in IS research

Timeline

• November 1, 2026: Initial paper submission deadline
• February 1, 2027: First round authors notification
• April 15, 2027: Invited revisions deadline
• July 15, 2027: Second round authors notification
• September 30, 2027: Final revision deadline

Associate editors

• Jeremy Aroles, University of York
• Reza M. Baygi, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Catriona Burke, University of Limerick
• Omar El Sawy, University of Southern California
• Anne-Laure Fayard, NOVA School of Business and Economics
• Thomas Grisold, Vienna University of Economics and Business
• Amir Haj-Bolouri, University West
• Susan Hilbolling, Aarhus University
• Robin Holt, University of Bristol
• Astri Moksnes Barbala, SINTEF
• Rohit Nishant, Queen's University
• Mahya Ostovar, University of Galway
• Omid Omidvar, Warwick Business School
• Henri Pirkkalainen, Tampere University
• Frantz Rowe, University of Nantes
• Markus Salo, University of Jyväskylä
• Yingqin Zheng, University of Essex
• Aljona Zorina, NEOMA

Alexandra Brintrup, University of Cambridge

Thomas Choi, Arizona State University

George Huang, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Dmitry Ivanov, Berlin School of Economics and Law

Recent advances in Agentic Large Language Models (LLMs) are reshaping the discourse on how autonomous decision systems might operate in complex environments such as supply chains. The motivation for the special issue is to facilitate rigorous research in the transformative potential of agentic technology for Supply Chain Management (SCM). A key objective is to foster collaboration and unlock synergies by merging diverse perspectives from operations and supply chain management, AI, complexity science, and industrial engineering.

An AI agent is characterised as one that has a predefined or emergent goal and uses cognitive tools to achieve its objectives, such as situational awareness, data-driven learning and prediction, decision optimisation, negotiation, and problem-solving with human or other AI agents. Supply chain management scholars have long studied agent-based systems, especially multi-agent systems (MAS) since the 2000s. However, research has stalled as MAS were slow to develop, difficult to code, debug and scale, and were prone to severe coordination problems. Most supply chain agent research was not adopted in the industry.

Recent advances in LLMs have now brought in a new paradigm that might reverse this trend: LLM agents are widely expected to usher in a new era where specialist programming knowledge is no longer required. LLM agents utilize a large language model as their information processing unit for core reasoning, planning, and decision-making. They can also utilize bespoke tools and recall past actions and conversations to generate contextual awareness. Whereas in the past, specialist MAS agents required rigorously defined rules and frameworks to operate, LLM agents begin their operation having already learned from vast amounts of open data. A generic knowledge base enables LLM agents to adapt to complex environments in real-time. This new paradigm makes agents much more flexible and scalable. LLM agents can interact with humans in natural language, coordinate or compete with other LLM agents, use custom tools to perform tasks such as search and optimisation, query documents and databases, and search the web.

Large multi-national corporations like Walmart and Siemens are already experimenting with agentic LLMs to automate their supply chain tasks. Supply chain information system providers, such as SAP, Microsoft, and Google, are actively developing supply chain agent platforms and interoperability initiatives to enable cross-organizational supply chain automation.

Academic agentic supply chain research is in its infancy, with research fragmented across computer science, operations research, and manufacturing engineering. Early research points to its potential for overcoming supply chain inefficiencies through rapid access to data, improved planning, and cross-organisational negotiation, but also warns against agentic AI mirroring human bias, challenges in the verification of output and lack of precise language leading to wrong decisions. As this field continues to evolve, it is crucial for researchers to stay informed about the latest developments, raise awareness of potential challenges, and contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the application of agentic AI in supply chain management.

This Special Issue seeks to integrate multi-disciplinary research from various perspectives on shaping agentic automation in the supply chain. A variety of submissions and perspectives are welcome. Technical solutions, advanced modeling, mixed-methods, rigorous quantitative and qualitative empirical research, experimental and analytical methodologies with practical industry, managerial, and policy implications are welcome.

Potential topics

• Discourse on utilising agentic systems for complex scenarios in supply chain management: Risk and disruption management, logistics and supply chain optimisation, transportation routes, inventory management, quality control, demand forecasting, and warehouse planning and location, and cash flow predictions
• Supply network design with agentic technology: Supplier relationship configurations, agentic digital twins to simulate inventory flows, sustainability implications across the supply chain, circular supply chains, supply chain visibility, and supply chain financing
• Interorganisational agentic systems: Effective multi-agent negotiation and coordination, the design of mediative and persuasive agentic systems, preservation of organisational privacy during multi-agent communication
• Hybrid systems: Integration of agentic systems with blockchain, IoT, Omniverse, and traditional multi-agent systems
• Emergence and Complexity: Unintended consequences of agentic deployment at the system scale, governance, trustworthiness and safety, centralised versus decentralised control, human-in-the-loop agentic systems
• Technical challenges: Performance evaluation, efficient task division, ablation analysis and back testing, sensitivity analysis, agentic architectures operating in high uncertainty environments, long-term horizon reasoning, overcoming hallucinations

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Lauri Wessel, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

Melanie Reuter-Oppermann, Maastricht University

Roxana Ologeanu-Taddei, University of Montpellier

Hannes Rothe, University of Duisburg-Essen

Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa, The University of Texas at Austin

Digital health is associated with the use and development of digital technologies to improve health. Use, development, and design of the according technologies have in recent years led to a considerable shift. Specifically, practices affecting an individual's health have been shifted from inside hospitals into wider digital health ecosystems where providers, patients, their loved ones, and laypersons interact to jointly shape how care is provided. IS research has greatly advanced in terms of better understanding the technological foundations of this shift such as artificial intelligence (AI) applications, sensor-based technologies, and smartphone apps. However, at least two major trajectories of research arise from this shift and its underlying technologies.

First, creating value in digital health ecosystems demands to take into account diverse kinds of value to be potentially created through these technologies. Financial value is an important kind of value to be created in digital health ecosystems; however, it is by far not the sole kind of value that matters in these settings. It is important to understand which kinds of value technology helps to create as well as how, why, and when it does so. Second, creating value is not per se synonymous with distributing it so that an important line of inquiry is about how to distribute value among ecosystem participants and over time.

We are asking for papers speaking to these topics and see two broad ways in which submissions to our special issue could do so. The first is cumulative and much in line with how research in IS and adjacent fields such as computer science, management, and medicine is conventionally done. It resides in furthering our understandings and toolkits for creating value in digital health ecosystems. However, the more data are available the higher is arguably the potential for misuse, especially when genomic and bio data are in question. This is why research about creating value from data logically calls for research about how to distribute value among ecosystems participants.

The second way to address the abovementioned research trajectories is consistent with promoting contrarian studies. We see much promise of contrarian studies investigating the creation and distribution of value in digital health ecosystems. Research about digital health is replete with assumptions touching on the outcomes that large volumes of data are likely to generate. This stands in stark contrast to the fact that on the ground floor where most clinicians work the data are hardly ever available in the format, quality or volume needed to even remotely live up to these expectations. It is, therefore, paramount to offer fundamentally new ways of thinking about creating and distributing value in digital health ecosystems.

Potential topics

• The role of data management and data sharing in digital health ecosystems
• Designing for measuring kinds of value arising from new digital technologies like XR, 5G, web 3.0, and machine or hybrid learning in digital health ecosystems
• The role of digital health ecosystems during pandemics or natural disasters; specifically with an eye toward how data help to distribute value among ecosystem participants
• (Data-driven) change of professional roles, identities, and institutions in digital health ecosystems
• The difference between creating value for intervention vs. for prevention
• Design of inclusive and responsible digital technologies for healthcare and well-being
• Digital tools and use of digital health data to connect different participants of health service networks, to support decision making and to improve organizational processes
• Negative consequences of digital technologies implementation in healthcare, such as health givers burnout and patients' anxiety
• The role of digital tools like virtual coaching for autonomy of health care providers and patients

Timeline

• March 1, 2026: Submission of extended abstracts/declaration of interest to submit papers to the special issue
• November 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline
• March 31, 2027: First round decisions due
• September 30, 2027: Revisions due
• December 15, 2027: Second round decisions due
• February 28, 2028: Third round revisions due (if necessary)
• May 31, 2028: Final decisions due

Associate editors

• Aleksi Aaltonen, Stevens Institute of Technology
• Saeed Akhlaghpour, University of Queensland
• Aycan Aslan, IT University Copenhagen
• Anna Essén, Stockholm School of Economics
• Heiko Gewald, HS Neu-Ulm
• Martin Gersch, Freie Universität Berlin
• Camille Grangé, HEC Montréal
• Maike Greve, Copenhagen Business School
• Farkhondeh Hassan Doust, University of Auckland
• Alexander Kempton, University of Oslo
• Charlotte Koehler, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
• Johann Kranz, LMU
• Jan-Marco Leimeister, University of St. Gallen
• Wolfgang Maaß, Saarland University
• Bogdan Negoita, HEC Montréal
• Lemai Nguyen, Deakin University
• Guy Paré, HEC Montréal
• Scott Thiebes, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
• Manuel Trenz, University of Göttingen
• Cristina Trocin, Católica Porto Business School
• Marjolein van Offenbeek, University of Groningen
• Polyxeni Vassilakopoulou, University of Agder
• Till Winkler, Fernuniversität Hagen

James Vardaman, University of Memphis

Feigu Zhou, University of Montevallo

Eric Liguori, Florida State University

Shuai Jin, Jiangsu University

Weiwen Li, Sun Yat-sen University

The Theories of Family Enterprise Conference is pleased to partner with Jiangsu University to host a special TOFE research colloquium focused on the future of Chinese family businesses (TOFE China). Submissions will be considered for fast-track review and publication in a forthcoming Journal of Small Business Management (JSBM) special collection. This collection is affiliated with a colloquium scheduled for January 9th, 2027, at Jiangsu University in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, China. Scholars from around the world are invited to submit to the colloquium, with a special invitation to scholars who inhabit the Chinese context. The colloquium provides an opportunity for authors to receive developmental feedback directly from JSBM editors and a pathway to publication in the special collection, subject to JSBM's standard peer review process.

The economic reforms initiated in 1978 fundamentally altered the trajectory of private enterprise in China. By loosening restrictions on private ownership and enabling market-oriented activity, the reform era created conditions under which family businesses could emerge, survive, and ultimately become one of the defining organizational forms shaping China's economy. Over the decades that followed, many of these firms evolved from founder-led ventures into large and influential enterprises that now occupy central positions within domestic and global markets.

Yet the historical conditions that enabled the rise of Chinese family firms also create a unique contemporary challenge. As we approach the 50-year anniversary of Reform and Opening, many founder generations are approaching or actively navigating succession. As leadership transfers unfold, questions once centered on founding, growth, and legitimacy are increasingly giving way to questions of continuity, identity, legacy, and preservation.

This timing is particularly important as succession in Chinese family firms raises questions extending beyond ownership transfer or governance design. Succession often involves renegotiating what aspects of the enterprise should endure, what should change, and whose values define the future of the firm. These issues bring socioemotional wealth (SEW) to the forefront.

SEW perspectives suggest family firms pursue goals beyond economic performance, including preserving family control, maintaining family identity, sustaining social ties, protecting emotional attachment to the firm, and ensuring transgenerational continuity. As Chinese family businesses enter second- and third-generation transitions, these noneconomic priorities may become increasingly salient and contested. Founders and successors may differ in the importance they attach to legacy preservation, family influence, entrepreneurial renewal, internationalization, professionalization, and social status.

At the same time, Chinese family firms provide a uniquely important context for advancing family business theory and, in particular, SEW scholarship. Unlike family businesses in many Western economies that have evolved across multiple generations within relatively stable institutional environments, most contemporary Chinese family firms emerged only after China's market reforms and are now experiencing large-scale waves of intergenerational succession. As a result, successors are assuming leadership amid shifts in economic institutions, governance expectations, family structures, and societal values. Traditional Confucian principles emphasizing family continuity, filial piety, and hierarchical authority remain influential, yet these norms increasingly coexist with modern market logics, professional management practices, global stakeholder expectations, and changing attitudes toward gender and inheritance.

This special collection in Journal of Small Business Management seeks research that advances socioemotional wealth perspectives in Chinese family businesses. We welcome conceptual, quantitative, qualitative, mixed-method, and historical approaches.

The generation of Chinese family firms born from the reforms of 1978 now faces a defining moment. As founders transition authority and successors redefine what should endure, Chinese family businesses offer an unparalleled context for understanding how families preserve, adapt, and renew both economic and socioemotional legacies. The goal of TOFE China is to capture this moment and use it to advance a richer theory of family enterprise.

Potential topics

• Founder succession and leadership transfer in post-reform family firms
• Successor identity formation and legitimacy
• Preservation versus erosion of SEW during succession
• Tensions between family control and professionalization
• Emotional attachment, family identity, and transgenerational intentions
• SEW and strategic renewal
• Long-term consequences of Reform and Opening for family enterprise
• State–family business relationships over time
• Family and nonfamily employee experiences
• Shared identity and organizational identification

Timeline

• October 15, 2026: Extended Abstract Submission Deadline
• November 15, 2026: Proposal feedback delivered
• January 9, 2027: TOFE China Colloquium at Jiangsu University
• May 1, 2027: Full Manuscript Submission Deadline
• September 1, 2027: Decisions on first round of submissions
• March 1, 2028: Second round submissions due
• June 1, 2028: Decisions on second round of submissions
• December 1, 2028: Special collection published

Matej Černe, University of Ljubljana

Marko Orel, Prague University of Economics and Business

Fabiola Mancinelli, University of Barcelona

Stefanie Reissner, Durham University

Brian Harney, Dublin City University

Digital nomadism combines location-independent, digitally mediated work with sustained or recurring geographic mobility. It has often been discussed as a lifestyle, tourism, migration, or mobility phenomenon, including in research on transformational travel, destination ecosystems, workation practices, and digital nomad visas. Yet, digital nomadism also raises central questions for human resource management: how organizations attract, organize, support, govern, develop, and retain workers whose employment relationships, work locations, and social embeddedness are increasingly fluid. This special issue invites HRM scholarship that treats digital nomadism as both a distinctive empirical setting and an analytically powerful context for rethinking work, workforce, and workplace in an international and digitally mediated economy.

The special issue is motivated by a simple premise: digital nomadism exposes the limits of HRM models built around stable organizational membership, fixed work sites, nationally bounded employment systems, and co-located employment relationships. It foregrounds the spatial, contractual, social, and institutional fragmentation of work and speaks directly to recent calls to rethink HRM in light of distributed, fragmented, and fluid work arrangements. It also brings together developments that are usually studied separately, including remote and hybrid work, global mobility, platform and freelance work, flexible staffing, coworking, workation practices, digital infrastructures, destination ecosystems, and transnational employment regulation. In this sense, digital nomadism sits at the intersection of new global ways of working, technology-enabled change, and the shifting boundaries of talent management and careers.

We seek theory-driven conceptual and empirical papers that use digital nomadism and related forms of mobile, distributed, or location-independent work to advance HRM theory and practice. Recent reviews show that digital nomadism is a growing but still fragmented research field, with much of the literature developing outside HRM and organization studies. At the same time, emerging work on digital nomads' online conversations shows how this form of work is deeply connected to career management, community building, portability of career capital, and the broader future of work. Papers should make clear how their arguments speak to HRM phenomena, systems, practices, functions, or outcomes. We are especially interested in contributions that move beyond describing digital nomads as a lifestyle group and instead examine the implications of mobile digital work for organizations, workers, HR professionals, and institutional actors.

We welcome conceptual papers and empirical studies using qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method, longitudinal, comparative, multilevel, ethnographic, experimental, diary, or archival designs. We particularly encourage studies that capture movement across places, organizations, roles, communities, and regulatory environments, and studies from underrepresented regions including Africa, Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Potential topics

• Work design, job demands and resources, autonomy, flexibility, isolation, insecurity, time-zone dispersion, infrastructure variability, and performance
• Leadership, coordination, voice, psychological safety, performance management, and feedback in mobile and distributed work arrangements
• The implications of digitalization, AI, algorithmic management, and digital platforms for where, how, and under what contractual conditions work is performed
• Talent attraction, selection, retention, and employer branding for mobile and location-independent workers
• Careers, employability, career self-management, protean careers, sustainable careers, and boundaryless or globally mobile talent pathways
• Wellbeing, recovery, work-nonwork boundaries, social embeddedness, loneliness, identity, and community among digital nomads and other mobile workers
• Onboarding, socialization, belonging, organizational identification, informal learning, and knowledge sharing when workers are geographically mobile
• Destination ecosystems, coworking spaces, local communities, employers, governments, and intermediaries as actors shaping mobile digital work
• Comparative research on digital nomadism across countries, regions, sectors, occupations, employment forms, and regulatory regimes
• Employment relationships, psychological contracts, commitment, fairness, inclusion, and duty of care in remote, freelance, contractual, hybrid, or employee-based arrangements
• International HRM, global mobility, digital nomad visas, taxation, labor law, social security, cross-border compliance, data protection, and institutional complexity
• HR architecture and governance: balancing flexibility, autonomy, coordination, control, equity, risk management, and organizational support

Timeline

• April 30, 2027: Manuscript deadline

Himadri Roy Chaudhuri, Xavier School of Business (XLRI)

Mark Tadajewski, University of York

Andrew Perchard, Otago Business School, University of Otago

Zoi Pittaki, University of Dundee School of Business

This special issue examines Indigenous entrepreneurial agency under colonial rule, treating colonial institutions as both economic constraints and sociopolitical structures that shaped market access, legal standing and accumulation strategies.

It invites business historical accounts of how entrepreneurs in colonised societies navigated, contested and reworked the rules of commerce, especially where access to courts, licensing, property rights, banking and credit markets was restricted or selectively enforced.

Contributions drawing on primary sources such as company records, court records, licensing files, banking archives, trading accounts, petitions, newspapers and vernacular-language materials are particularly encouraged.

Potential topics

• Entrepreneurship under legal and financial exclusion: responses to constraints in courts, licensing, taxation, banking, property rights, labour regimes and credit markets.
• Institutional negotiation and boundary work: how entrepreneurial actors exploited institutional gaps, navigated plural legal orders, reinterpreted colonial rules and mobilised intermediaries or brokers.
• Resilience as strategy: cooperative, mutual-aid and associational forms; diasporic, kinship and inter-regional networks; and late-colonial economic nationalism and early decolonisation as sites of institutional reconfiguration.
• Innovation as resistance: technology adoption and adaptation through which entrepreneurs offered alternatives that subverted or circumvented colonial hegemony.
• Comparative or connected histories that use the shared conceptual lens across cases.
• Submissions may use archival research, oral history, biography, microhistory, and comparative or connected history, and may engage postcolonial scholarship, subaltern studies, and critical perspectives on firms, markets and institutions.

Timeline

• October 1, 2026: Abstract deadline
• May 1, 2027: Manuscript deadline

Sandra Fisher, FH Münster

Janet Marler, University at Albany - SUNY

The 10th e-HRM Conference in Muenster, Germany (June 2026) provided a platform for scholars from around the world to share research and leading-edge insights into electronic/digital human resource management in the midst of another major technological revolution. This special issue highlights key research papers presented at the conference and also invites authors who were unable to attend the conference to submit their related research to this special issue.

Artificial intelligence and robotics may prove as transformative for economic growth and human potential as electrification, mass production, and electronic telecommunications in their eras. The release of ChatGPT in November 2022 highlights the rapid advance of AI technologies, illustrating that such advancement is not necessarily continuous but can occur in sudden bursts. Previously heralded as a tool for automation and increased efficiency, narratives about AI now make a broader claim of a new era of human-AI collaboration in which AI performs routine tasks freeing professionals to take on more value-added work. But this claim is not new. Such promises were made 20 years ago with the introduction of the internet and the expansion of electronic telecommunications, and use of ERP and HRIS technologies.

One goal of the conference is to examine the ways in which AI can advance the science and practice of human resource management, but we also want to remain mindful of the potential limitations and boundaries of AI, such as concerns with inequality and bias, hallucinations, lack of transparency, issues with trust or distrust in the technology and skill erosion. Given these limitations, which HRM processes and workflows can or should be automated, and which augmented? What other technologies might be used along with AI or instead of AI? What can we imagine is next after the big wave of AI?

To advance scholarship and to provide evidence-based, independent guidance, academic researchers have a crucial role to play in influencing how AI technologies are used in organizations to improve outcomes for all stakeholders. It is important therefore to build on the well-developed management literature that already exists. Over the last two decades research on e-HRM, also referred to as digital HRM or d-HRM, shows how a wide range of configurations involving computer hardware, software and electronic networking resources which both enable intended or actual HRM activities not only automates but also transform HRM processes in intended and unintended ways. Digital transformations have also been extensively researched in the traditional HR functions of recruitment, selection, leadership, learning and development, and compensation.

Research in e-HRM has been enriched with such concepts as cloud computing, big data and people analytics, social media, chatbots, gamification, the internet of things, robots, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other emerging technologies. E-HRM has also evolved to include new forms of organizing, such as industry 4.0 and digital-platform business models. Industry 4.0 redefines the relationship between human workers and machines, and requires a new approach to HRM, or HRM 4.0. Moreover, the emergence of advanced systems, software agents and/or robots which work alongside human workers has resulted in human-robot 'white-collar teams'. The platform or gig economy has created a new type of contingent worker, gig workers who have little or no connection to job providers, who are managed algorithmically through platforms. The digital platform is an important vehicle of their employment relationship, since it creates a new ecosystem for employment/work relations and institutes the use of algorithms/software robots for executing HRM activities. These developments pose new challenges to and opportunities for the e-HRM field, as well as expand and enrich its scope.

With the release of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, generative AI and AI agents now make communicating with and accessing information from information technology much easier, democratizing insights from HR data and HR analytics. There has been an explosion of AI for HRM start-ups. Despite these impressive advances, the question remains, what is different about AI in the e-HRM context? Do many of the traditional challenges and agendas of e-HRM remain or are there other characteristics that need further study? How is AI different from the preceding electronic technologies and how does this make a difference to the practice of HRM?

AI has three specific material characteristics—constant change, invisibility, and inscrutability—that may challenge traditional approaches to the study of technology and work. Individually these characteristics are not problematic but in combination they challenge applying earlier research frameworks to the study of AI in organizations. The production and use of AI involves a broad swathe of stakeholders in and across organizations whose assumptions and interests influence design, development, implementation, and use. This calls for a broader view, tracing interactions across contexts and expanding analysis upstream from use.

To deliver value for all stakeholders, HR professionals need to be aware of the technology-driven context in which they work and the assumptions about HRM processes and practices that are embedded in the technology. Rather than accepting the dictates of software developers external to the organization, HR leaders need to develop HRM practices that deliver value to their organization and employees. Thus, the aim of much current e-HRM research is to uncover e-HRM outcomes or consequences that lead to an enhanced value of HRM for both organizational members and other stakeholders, eschewing determinative technological pressures. Given that e-HRM aims to create value within and across organizations for targeted employees and management and covers all possible integration mechanisms and content between HRM and Information Technology (IT), this call invites papers dealing with a broad scope of technology application to managing people inside and across organizations.

Potential topics

• New theories and methodologies to study AI/HRM
• New HRM strategies
• AI-Human collaboration at work
• e-HRM/AI value propositions
• AI/Technology-enabled HR roles
• AI Agents' roles and intended and unintended outcomes in HRM
• AI/Technology-enabled HR functions: recruitment, selection, performance management, leadership, training and development, coaching, compensation and employee relations
• Algorithmic management of employees or gig workers
• Gig-worker management and employment/work relations
• e-HRM and employee experience
• e-HRM and employee wellbeing
• AI and Bias in decision-making
• AI and job design/crafting
• HR data management and confidentiality
• People Analytics and AI
• Digital talent management
• Employee and digital onboarding systems
• Gamification in HRM
• Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) in HRM
• Employer branding and digital communication
• AI/e-HRM and trust/ethics

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Special issue completed
• July 1, 2026: Submission portal opens
• October 31, 2026: Special Issue Submissions due

Elizabeth Couzineau-Zegwaard, PPA Business School

Nathalie Fabbe-Costes, Aix-Marseille Université

Olivier Meier, Université Paris-Est Créteil

Globalization of trade, intensification of environmental pressures, and construction of a binding European regulatory framework in a context of successive crises are profoundly redefining expectations for supply chains. With fewer than 10% of consumer goods currently being recycled globally, resource scarcity and climate urgency are forcing companies to articulate economic competitiveness with sustainability requirements. In this context of polycrisis and permacrisis, non-financial performance, measured through environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, is emerging as a strategic lever influencing access to financing, organizational reputation and resilience to systemic risks. Continuous measurement of non-financial performance also helps develop dynamic management of supply chains subject to contradictory and evolving injunctions.

The integration of these non-financial criteria into supply chain management, however, raises considerable methodological and operational challenges, particularly in terms of impact measurement, traceability and inter-organizational coordination. This special issue aims to explore the tensions and synergies between non-financial performance and supply chain management, by crossing academic, regulatory and managerial perspectives.

Non-financial performance has become an essential complement to traditional economic evaluation, under the effect of three converging dynamics: the evolution of stakeholder expectations in favor of increased transparency, the financialization of sustainability through the growth of ESG funds and green bonds, and the rise of systemic risks revealed by recent health and geopolitical crises. Supply chain management is therefore no longer solely a tool for logistics optimization, but a vector for creating sustainable value and a factor of competitive differentiation.

In Europe, several legislative texts now structure the field of action for companies. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD, 2023) extends the obligation for non-financial reporting to nearly 50,000 companies according to harmonized standards (ESRS), including Scope 3 emissions, biodiversity and social risks. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD, 2024) establishes a duty of care across the entire value chain, with sanctions. The European taxonomy (2020, revised in 2023) imposes strengthened traceability of financial and logistics flows, while the deforestation regulation (EUDR, 2023) conditions the importation of certain raw materials on evidence of compliance. Added to these measures is the regulation on ecodesign of sustainable products (ESPR, 2024), which progressively generalizes the digital product passport and strengthens traceability requirements throughout the life cycle.

These measures create an unprecedented normative framework, where compliance becomes a strategic imperative but also a source of complexity, particularly for data collection and verification. They also pave the way for international benchmarking of companies, which explains the stakes surrounding the definition and adoption of European standards versus standards from other economic blocs.

However, this regulatory expansion movement is experiencing a major inflection. The 'Omnibus' simplification package, proposed by the European Commission in early 2025, provides for raising thresholds for applicability, postponing certain deadlines and easing obligations related to Scope 3 and duty of care. This simplification dynamic (or even partial retreat) introduces unprecedented normative instability: companies engaged in costly compliance trajectories face a shifting framework, raising questions of path dependency, sunk costs and trade-offs between regulatory anticipation and wait-and-see approaches, even greenwashing versus greenhushing. The tension between stated ambitions, operational feasibility and revealed results thus constitutes a research object in its own right.

The adoption of sustainable practices generates tangible benefits. The circular economy (reuse, recycling, eco-design) reduces costs related to raw materials and waste management. Companies with strong ESG performance benefit from favorable financing conditions (green loans) and increased resilience to external shocks. However, several obstacles persist: the complexity of impact measurement, particularly for Scope 3 emissions, the risk of greenwashing when stated commitments do not translate into operational transformation, and trade-offs between sustainability and resilience, particularly regarding relocation.

Digital technologies (also called 4.0) appear to constitute a central transformation vector. Blockchain allows certification of raw material origin and data security, artificial intelligence and Big Data help optimize flows and anticipate risks, the Internet of Things (IoT) facilitates real-time monitoring of flows and activities to calculate ESG indicators. These innovations, however, raise questions about data protection, accessibility for SMEs and interoperability between actors. While they facilitate automation of reporting, they leave entirely open the strategic choice of whether or not to reveal the actual level of non-financial performance of supply chains.

Potential topics

• Sustainable regulations and supply chain management strategies: effects of CSRD, CSDDD and European taxonomy on supply chain structuring and associated logistics choices (relocation, supplier diversification), methods for integrating ESRS into non-financial reports, tools and methodologies for compliance
• Circular economy and innovation: circular business models (reuse, repair, recycling), eco-design levers, contribution of digital technologies (blockchain, AI, IoT) to the transition towards more sustainable or even regenerative supply chains
• Measurement, transparency and risks: indicators and methodologies for assessing impact (Scope 3, biodiversity, human rights), comparative uses of GRI, SASB and ESRS frameworks, identification of greenwashing signals and best practices for credibilizing ESG commitments, strategy for disclosing objectives vs results regarding non-financial performance of supply chains
• Non-financial performance measurement and supply chain management: impact of non-financial performance measurement on supply chain design, decisions and trade-offs between cost control, profitability and value creation other than financial. Does work around measuring and improving non-financial performance stimulate logistics innovations?

Timeline

• November 15, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Aneeqa Suhail, Tilburg University

Steven Kilroy, Trinity College Dublin

Robin Bauwens, Tilburg University

Sut I Wong, BI Norwegian Business School

Sasa Batistič, Tilburg University

Managing people in organizations requires a combination of Human Resource Management (HRM) and leadership, often referred to as 'people management'. While HRM provides formalized systems, practices, and architectures that structure employment relationships, leadership shapes how these systems are enacted, interpreted, and given meaning in everyday work. Therefore, the outcomes traditionally associated with people management do not emerge from HRM or leadership in isolation, but from their ongoing interrelationship across organizational levels.

Despite this inherent interdependence, research on HRM and leadership have largely developed as parallel research streams, with limited theoretical and empirical integration. Although a growing body of research has begun to examine HRM–leadership linkages, this fragmentation still persists and some original calls about 'leader-HRM fit' remain unanswered. On a practical level, it is important to understand not only what constitutes well-designed HRM systems or how leaders behave, but also how they interact and influence one another in organizations. For future HRM scholarship, disregarding the two components of people management risks overestimating leaders or overlooking leaders' agency in HRM system implementation, or even neglecting the boundary conditions under which HRM and leadership influence, undermine, or reinforce each other.

A particularly underdeveloped issue concerns the alignment and misalignment between HRM systems and leader behaviors. Alignment between HRM and leadership can be conceptualized as the degree of fit between these two systems of people management, such that their underlying values, modes of influence, and enacted signals converge, complement, or filter one another in shaping employee and organizational outcomes. While alignment is often implicitly assumed to be beneficial, emerging work indicates that alignment may take different forms with distinct consequences for employee attitudes, well-being, and performance. Additionally, HRM systems may partially or fully substitute for leadership by structuring work, clarifying expectations, and shaping employee behavior independently of leaders' actions. Understanding how HRM systems and leader behaviors align, misalign, or substitute for one another is essential for a comprehensive understanding of people management. The limited empirical research on HRM and leadership combinations has largely focused on employee well-being outcomes only and has largely focused on a select few leadership behaviors. As such, there is a need to explore a wider range of leadership behaviors and extend the range of outcomes studied to performance and the interrelationship between well-being and performance.

Existing research has documented the dark sides of HRM systems such as work intensification, employee strain, and performance–well-being trade-offs and leadership forms such as destructive or dysfunctional leadership behaviors. However, studies that examine a critical perspective on HRM or look at destructive forms of leader behaviors have largely evolved in isolation. We know remarkably little about how negative outcomes emerge at the intersection of HRM and leadership, such as when well-intended HRM systems are enacted through coercive leadership, or when empowering leadership operates within controlling or compliance-oriented HRM systems and architectures. The joint pathways through which HRM and leadership generate unintended, ambivalent, or harmful consequences remain largely unexplored.

These gaps in our understanding are particularly consequential given the rapidly evolving context of digitalization and organizational change. Digitization should not be understood merely as the adoption of new technologies, but as a broader transformation of how work is organized, coordinated, and controlled, most visibly reflected in the rise of remote, hybrid, and digitally mediated work arrangements. In such contexts, HRM systems increasingly structure work in the absence of physical proximity, while leadership is enacted through mediated interactions rather than direct, co-located supervision. Understanding which configurations of HRM systems and leadership behaviors strengthen or weaken remote and hybrid work is therefore central to advancing theory on contemporary people management.

Beyond transforming work arrangements, digitization also reshapes the way HRM systems and leadership interact in guiding employee behavior and interpretations. In contemporary organizations, the integration of digitalized HRM systems and leadership behavior creates a complex, multilayered influence on both employee outcomes and organizational effectiveness. As HRM systems become increasingly digitalized, they often manifest through real-time performance tracking, data-driven evaluation, and algorithmic management practices. While such systems can enhance coordination and transparency, they may also heighten employee awareness of surveillance and intensify concerns about monitoring and control. Within this digital framework, leadership becomes a critical interpretive layer through which employees make sense of these systems.

A multilayered perspective suggests that leadership does not merely supplement HRM systems; rather, it can amplify, reinterpret, or even contradict the signals embedded within them. At the same time, leaders may also have to balance consistent HR implementation with responsiveness to individual needs. When leadership behaviors and HRM systems are aligned, they can create a strong organizational climate that provides consistent cues to employees about valued behaviors and expectations. However, tensions may arise when these signals diverge. For example, a digital HRM system that emphasizes rigid, data-driven performance indicators may conflict with leadership behaviors that encourage flexibility, experimentation, or developmental learning. Such contradictions can create cognitive dissonance, role ambiguity, and uncertainty among employees. In these situations, employees may perceive the organization as sending mixed messages, where the formal system communicates one set of expectations while leaders communicate another.

Despite the increasing prevalence of digitalized HR architectures, we still know remarkably little about how employees interpret and respond to these potentially conflicting signals. Misalignment between digital HRM systems and leadership behaviors may weaken the clarity and credibility of organizational signals, thereby undermining trust, psychological safety, and the effectiveness of people management systems. At the same time, alignment between HRM and leadership in digitally mediated contexts may amplify both positive and negative consequences, shaping employee well-being and performance in ways that remain insufficiently understood.

Understanding these dynamics is crucial for advancing theory on people management in contemporary organizations. In particular, HRM and leadership are now understood as dynamic, temporally unfolding processes that evolve during periods of change rather than being static inputs. However, research to date rarely examines how their interplay and associated consequences for employee well-being and organizational performance develop over time.

This Special Issue seeks to advance scholarly understanding of how HRM systems and leadership behaviors jointly shape employee and organizational outcomes in contemporary organizations. Rather than treating HRM and leadership as parallel or additive influences, this issue foregrounds their interdependence by addressing their alignment, misalignment, and cross-level interaction. Specifically, it invites new theoretical perspectives that explain how HRM and leadership can reinforce, substitute for, or contradict one another. Knowledge on this topic will allow organizations to ensure that the intended aims of both their HRM systems and leadership materialize.

The Special Issue encourages scholarship that shifts attention from static to temporal and context-embedded understandings of HRM–leadership relationships, particularly within evolving work arrangements such as remote and hybrid settings. By integrating diverse epistemological perspectives, theoretical traditions, and methodological approaches, contributions can illuminate how people management systems develop, adapt, and co-evolve over time, generating a more nuanced understanding of people management as a dynamic, multi-level phenomenon rather than a collection of isolated practices or behaviors.

From a practical perspective, this Special Issue aims to generate actionable insights for organizations, HR professionals, and leaders seeking to design coherent and effective people management systems. By clarifying when HRM practices and leadership behaviors align, misalign, or substitute for one another, the contributions can inform more consistent implementation of HR strategies, improve employee experiences, and support sustainable organizational performance. By adopting temporal and context-sensitive perspectives, such as in remote and hybrid work settings, the Special Issue can guide practitioners in adapting people management approaches over time, responding to shifting work arrangements, and navigating emerging tensions between flexibility and control, autonomy and coordination, well-being, and performance.

This Special Issue welcomes diverse methodological approaches to advance theory on the interplay between HRM and leadership and for ensuring a strong alignment between research designs and the complexity of real-world people management challenges. In particular, contributions are encouraged that leverage longitudinal, qualitative, experimental, and computational methods to capture the multilevel, relational, and dynamic nature of people management systems. Only studies that consider both leadership behaviors/approaches and HRM practices/systems instead of examining them in isolation will be considered.

The proposed Special Issue has the potential to reinvigorate HRM scholarship by moving beyond static and isolated conceptualizations of HRM systems or leadership behaviors toward a more integrated, multilevel, and dynamic understanding of people management. By encouraging contextualized research across digitalized, remote, hybrid, and changing work environments, the Special Issue responds directly to contemporary transformations in the world of work while reinforcing IJHRM's commitment to methodological pluralism and international relevance. Additionally, the Special Issue will generate actionable insights for organizations seeking to design coherent people management systems that balance employee well-being, performance, flexibility, and sustainable organizational effectiveness.

Potential topics

• How HRM systems and leadership behaviors interact in shaping employee and organizational outcomes across organizational levels
• How different forms of alignment between HRM and leadership (e.g., supplementary fit, complementary fit, perceptual filtering) produce distinct employee and organizational outcomes
• When and how HRM systems function as substitutes for leadership, and what are the resulting consequences for employee and organizational outcomes
• How misalignment between HRM systems and leadership behaviors emerge, persist, or become institutionalized within organizations
• When alignment between HRM systems and leadership amplifies negative outcomes such as work intensification, role overload, or employee strain
• How employees interpret and respond to situations in which HRM systems substitute for, constrain, or contradict leadership behaviors
• Which configurations of HRM systems and leadership forms strengthen the effectiveness and sustainability of remote and hybrid work arrangements
• How leaders enact, adapt, or resist HRM systems when leading employees at a distance, and how does this shape employees' sensemaking and experiences of people management
• How employees experience alignment, misalignment, or substitution between HRM systems and leadership in remote and hybrid work settings, and how do these experiences affect employee and organizational outcomes
• How HRM–leadership configurations evolve over time and how do these experiences affect pertinent employee and organizational outcomes
• How alignment, misalignment, and substitution between HRM and leadership shape employee well-being and performance over time
• How temporal shifts in leadership behaviors or HRM systems alter the balance between substitution and complementarity

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Expected publication date of special issue
• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Leighton Andrews, Cardiff University

Matthew Collins, Cardiff University

Ministers and civil servants operate within formally shared constitutional arrangements but increasingly divergent professional cultures. Ministers are drawn from, and remain accountable to, a political environment defined by electoral cycles, media scrutiny, and their parties. Civil servants, by contrast, are shaped by institutional norms of political impartiality and long-term organizational continuity. Where those two paradigms were once held in productive tension by well-understood constitutional conventions, that tension has now become corrosive. Ministers have grown more likely to publicly attribute blame to officials (particularly at the most senior level, with at least 10 permanent secretaries being removed from post early since 2020). Parliament has pressed for the personal accountability of named civil servants, and civil servants have responded by becoming more risk-averse and, in some cases, more deferential to ministerial preference than honest analysis would support. The consequences for the quality of policy advice, and for policy performance more broadly, are both substantive and cumulative.

We recognize that constitutional settlements which order the relationship between ministers and officials are neither natural nor permanent, but were forged at particular moments and have endured precisely because they proved adaptable to the pressures subsequently placed upon them. The Westminster model has been taken up and remade across its various jurisdictions at successive moments of acute strain, very often in the aftermath of war or state crisis. The recurrence in our own time of anxieties about honesty, impartiality, blame and accountability should not let us forget that these questions have been asked, and provisionally answered, before. Reflecting on that history may therefore help us gain perspective on contemporary pressures, and deepen our understanding of where present events might yet take us.

This PMM theme issue invites theoretical and empirical contributions that examine the minister–official relationship and its implications for how policy is made and delivered. We welcome papers that focus on either side of the relationship, or on the relationship itself, provided there is a clear connection to questions of policy performance or governance. The primary focus of this PMM theme is the Westminster model, but comparative contributions that engage with one or more Westminster model jurisdictions are welcome. Papers that draw on Westminster experience to engage with broader theoretical frameworks in public administration will also be considered. We welcome submissions using qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods designs, as well as conceptual and theoretical contributions that deepen understanding of the relationship and its implications.

Potential topics

• The nature and dynamics of trust between ministers and civil servants
• The politicization of advice and its consequences for advisory quality
• Risk aversion, deference, and the suppression of honesty
• Ethical and conduct standards
• The role of special advisors in mediating the minister-official relationship
• The consequences of ministerial turnover for policy continuity
• The impact of organizational or departmental culture
• Parliamentary accountability and the personal exposure of named officials
• The constitutional position of ministers and/or civil servants
• Historical perspectives on the cycle of strain and reform in the minister-official relationship, particularly those that reflect the impact of crises

Timeline

• January 31, 2027: Deadline for research articles
• March 31, 2027: Deadline for debate and new development articles

Hanna Reinikainen, University of Helsinki

Essi Pöyry, University of Helsinki

Jason Weismueller, University of Western Australia

Rory Mulcahy, University of the Sunshine Coast

Politics is growing more divisive and marketers are under increasing pressure to respond. Since early 2025, the socio-political climate has remained highly charged, shaped by geopolitical conflict, authoritarian and populist tendencies, and deepening tensions between states, markets, citizens and households. For marketing scholars and practitioners alike, politics is no longer a background condition. It is an active force shaping marketplace meanings, consumer expectations, corporate communication and brand risk.

The effects of divisive politics are difficult to isolate because politics now extends well beyond formal institutions, elections and state power. It is equally embedded in lifestyles, identity claims, cultural narratives and consumption choices. The concept of lifestyle politics captures how consumers enact politically inflected ways of living in pursuit of social change. As a result, practices once treated as neutral are increasingly interpreted as value-laden and ideological. Brands are therefore scrutinised not only for what they say, but for what they refuse to say.

A growing body of work demonstrates that politics enters marketing and consumption through multiple routes. Research has examined how brands align with sociopolitical causes, how consumers respond emotionally and behaviourally to those efforts, and how political ideology shapes consumer evaluations including food preferences and brand attachment. Other studies have explored how boycotts, buycotts and political consumerism affect marketplace outcomes, while others have traced the rise of far-right consumer culture and resistance to liberal ideals and political correctness in marketing.

Recent work highlights the growing importance of politically engaged intermediaries and digital infrastructures. Social media influencers can mobilise participation in political issues, curate hybrid political-commercial identities, and shape audience responses to contested causes. Online environments facilitate the spread of misinformation, falsehoods and distorted political narratives which, in turn, affect information sharing, opinion formation and contribute to polarisation. Under these conditions, brands may seek silence or neutrality, but silence itself can function as a political signal, carrying its own risks and inviting backlash.

Over the last decade, the Journal of Marketing Management has published work on the politics of community and market transformation, racial dynamics in markets and marketing systems, social movements and consumer culture theory and critical approaches to social marketing. More recent contributions address consumer activism and alternative consumption, ethical and morally reflexive influencer cultures, cancel culture and possibilities for brand forgiveness, the politics embedded in consumer culture theory itself and brand activism under conditions of permacrisis. This Special Issue builds on those conversations while extending them to the broader question of how political forces shape marketing and consumption in an increasingly divisive world.

Important questions remain unresolved. Under what conditions does political engagement enhance rather than erode brand value? Why do some consumers reward political positioning while others respond with resistance, backlash or disengagement? How do algorithmic environments, misinformation and influencer ecologies amplify, refract or distort political signals in the marketplace? How do race, nationalism, populism, anti-DEI criticism and geopolitical conflict reshape legitimacy, inclusion and exclusion across markets?

This Special Issue seeks contributions that examine how political forces enter the marketplace, how they shape consumer responses, and how marketers navigate the opportunities and hazards that follow. Conceptual, theoretical, methodological and empirical work is welcome, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method and interdisciplinary research. Submissions that clarify when political engagement creates value, when it deepens polarisation, and when silence or neutrality becomes untenable are particularly encouraged. Submissions from a wide range of cultural and geopolitical contexts are especially welcomed. Traditional text-based manuscripts are welcome, as are alternative representational formats where appropriate and consistent with Journal of Marketing Management policy.

Potential topics

• Political ideologies, identities and lifestyle politics: How do political forces shape consumption choices, brand perceptions, media use and information processing?
• Explicit political stances, silence and neutrality in brand communication: When, why, and how does taking a political stance, or the refusal to engage in such, generate support, scepticism, backlash or disengagement?
• Consumer activism, boycotts, buycotts and cancel culture: How do consumers mobilise for or against brands, and what determines escalation, forgiveness or longer-term market consequences?
• Influencers, creators and political-commercial hybrids: How do influencers, celebrities, and other intermediaries blur the boundaries between promotion, identity politics, advocacy and civic participation?
• Digital platforms, algorithms and misinformation: How do platform design, governance, recommendation systems and mis/disinformation shape exposure to and responses to political marketplace content?
• Race, nationalism, populism and anti-DEI movements: How do contested political projects reshape inclusion, exclusion, legitimacy and representation in markets?
• Ethics, responsibility and governance: What normative, regulatory and strategic questions arise when market actors seek to leverage political issues or influence public discourse?
• Methodological and theoretical innovation: What new concepts, frameworks and methods are needed to study politics in contemporary marketing and consumption?

Timeline

• February 1, 2027: Manuscript deadline

Yung Kyun Choi, Dongguk University

Tae Hyun Baek, Sungkyunkwan University

For most of advertising's history, creative work has been relatively slow, scarce, and expensive. A campaign moved from brief to concept to finished asset through weeks of human labor, and the cost of producing each execution limited how many ideas a brand could test and how finely it could tailor them. Generative AI is potentially collapsing those constraints. Tools that draft copy, generate images and video, and produce thousands of message variants in minutes are now becoming embedded in the daily workflow of agencies, brands, and platforms. The result is not a marginal efficiency gain but a potential reordering of how advertising creative is imagined, made, evaluated, and valued. For an industry whose competitive advantage has long rested on creativity, arguably few developments matter more.

Creativity has always been central to how advertising works. Decades of research establish that creative advertising, generally defined as work that is both divergent and relevant, drives attention, processing, memory, and ultimately sales. Yet what counts as creative has never been settled. It is judged differently by creatives, account managers, and clients, and it turns on originality, artistry, and strategic fit in ways that resist easy measurement. Generative AI forces these questions open again. When a model can produce a polished, on-brief execution in seconds, the premium may shift from craft and execution toward ideas, taste, judgment, and the ability to direct the machine. Early evidence is mixed: AI appears able to lift the measured creativity and effectiveness of individual work, in some field settings to apparently superhuman levels, while tending to push outputs across many users toward sameness. Whether AI expands the creative frontier or flattens it is now an empirical and managerial question of importance.

These dynamics are touching every stage of the creative process. In ideation and concepting, AI can act as a brainstorming partner that generates and recombines directions faster than most teams, shifting the human role toward editing, curating, and directing. In asset production, text-to-image and text-to-video systems are compressing the cost and time of finished creative, making volume and localization feasible where they were once uneconomic. In personalization, the same tools make it possible to generate near-infinite variants tuned to context, audience, and moment, reviving long-standing ambitions for dynamic, one-to-one creative while raising fresh questions about distinctiveness and brand coherence. Each shift promises scale, but scale at the expense of differentiation may be a poor trade for brands that compete on standing out.

The people and organizations that make advertising are being remade alongside the work. Generative AI is reshaping which skills are scarce, which tasks are automated, and how value is captured across the agency and client relationship. It raises hard questions about the future of creative talent: which roles disappear, which are augmented, and which new ones, such as prompt strategist, AI creative director, or model curator, emerge. It may also unsettle agency business models built on billable hours and production fees as the marginal cost of production approaches zero. How agencies, in-house teams, and platforms reorganize creative labor, and how they preserve the human judgment clients still pay for, is likely to shape the structure of the industry in the coming years.

Building on a fast-growing body of scholarship, this special issue invites theoretically rigorous and managerially useful research on how AI is changing advertising creativity. Consistent with the mission of the Journal of Advertising Research and its strong practitioner readership, submissions should make a clear contribution to advertising theory while offering actionable guidance for the creatives, agencies, brands, and platforms living through this transition. The special issue is especially interested in work that moves past the observation that AI is disruptive to specify how, where, why, and for whom it improves or degrades creative outcomes.

Potential topics

• How does AI change the way creative ideas are generated, selected, and refined, and where in that process is human judgment most valuable?
• When does AI assistance widen the range of creative directions a team explores, and when does it narrow it?
• How should briefs, brainstorming, and creative workflows be redesigned around generative tools?
• What is the most effective division of labor between human creatives and AI across ideation, drafting, and refinement?
• How does near-zero marginal cost production change what advertising creative gets made, and how much of it?
• What is gained and lost when finished assets are generated rather than crafted?
• How does AI-produced creative compare with human-produced work on effectiveness, quality, and cost?
• How does production at scale change media planning, creative testing, and iteration?
• How does generative AI change dynamic creative optimization and one-to-one message tailoring?
• How can brands produce thousands of variants without eroding distinctiveness and brand consistency?
• When does personalized AI creative outperform a single strong idea, and when does it not?
• How do consumers respond to creative that is visibly machine-tailored to them?
• How are agencies, in-house teams, and platforms reorganizing creative labor around AI?
• Which creative roles and skills are being automated, augmented, or newly created?
• How does AI reshape the agency and client relationship, the pitch process, and value capture?
• What happens to agency business models when the cost of production approaches zero?
• Does AI change how creativity is defined, judged, and rewarded in advertising?
• How should originality, distinctiveness, and craft be valued when execution becomes commoditized?
• Does widespread AI use homogenize advertising creative, and how can brands resist sameness?
• How should creative awards, evaluation standards, and quality benchmarks adapt?
• What methods best capture the effect of AI on creative outcomes?
• How can creativity itself be measured at scale across large volumes of AI-generated work?
• How can researchers study homogenization, distinctiveness, and the diversity of creative output?
• When does AI-generated creative help or hurt brand building and long-term equity, and what guardrails keep it on-brand and effective?

Timeline

• January 15, 2027: GMC Tokyo 2027 submission deadline
• July 22, 2027: GMC Tokyo 2027 conference
• September 1, 2027: Special issue submission window opens
• October 15, 2027: Special issue manuscript deadline

Michele Acciaro, Copenhagen Business School

Martin Jes Iversen, Copenhagen Business School

Ioannis Lagoudis, University of Piraeus

Iryna Savelieva, Odesa National Maritime University

Dong Yang, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Kum Fai Yuen, Nanyang Technological University

Critical infrastructure (CI) systems, such as energy, transportation, telecommunications, and water, form the backbone of modern economies. These systems face unprecedented challenges from technological disruptions, geopolitical tensions, environmental pressures, and evolving security threats, from cyber-attacks and supply chain vulnerabilities to climate impacts. Virtually no firm can consider itself independent from CI, as infrastructure disruptions cascade through supply chains, energy failures halt production, and transportation bottlenecks constrain competitiveness.

The deep interconnection between innovation and security, conceptualized as the 'security-innovation nexus', has emerged as a defining feature of contemporary political economy. Understanding CI security innovation requires engaging with complex interdependencies where technological capabilities, industrial structures, geopolitical strategies, and security co-evolve. Innovation systems frameworks offer powerful analytical lenses for this purpose, yet CI systems remain relatively understudied within innovation studies despite their strategic importance.

The integration of innovation and security objectives presents important governance challenges. Poorly designed security governance can undermine innovation by fragmenting knowledge networks, while innovation without security governance increases systemic fragility. These tensions manifest across multiple levels: at the firm level, companies must balance security investment with innovation focus; at the sectoral level, CI operators must coordinate heterogeneous actors; at the policy level, governments must manage trade-offs between openness and security controls.

These tensions also generate pressing ethical dilemmas, most visibly around dual-use technologies whose civilian and security applications cannot be cleanly separated. Such dilemmas place renewed demands on corporate responsibility, responsible innovation, and on assessments of the social value created—or eroded—by security-oriented technological change in CI sectors.

Recent geopolitical developments, including the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-US war on Iran, the US-China technology competition, and strategic contests over semiconductors, critical raw materials, and telecommunications infrastructure, have heightened the urgency of this research agenda. Critical raw materials have emerged as a key concern especially in relation to green technology transitions, with implications spanning from renewable energy infrastructure to shipbuilding and defence industries. Digital transformation across CI sectors, including autonomous systems, AI, IoT, and cyber-physical systems, is simultaneously reshaping capabilities and creating new vulnerabilities. High-profile cybersecurity incidents in energy, transportation, and telecommunications networks demonstrate how cyber resilience has become a core dimension of infrastructure security.

From an organizational perspective, security concerns in CI create innovation opportunities for dependent firms while reshaping CI provision itself. Firms perceiving infrastructure vulnerabilities, e.g., geopolitical risks threatening supply chains, cybersecurity threats to networks, or climate impacts on energy grids, develop organizational innovations to reduce dependency and enhance resilience. Importantly, these innovations frequently diffuse back into CI sectors and adjacent industries, constituting a bidirectional dynamic that remains a crucial but understudied dimension of CI innovation.

Potential topics

• Innovation Systems, Governance, and Geopolitics - Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) approach for CI security and how security-focused innovation systems emerge and evolve
• Innovation Systems, Governance, and Geopolitics - Sectoral and technological innovation systems in CI security, knowledge bases, and actor networks
• Innovation Systems, Governance, and Geopolitics - Regulatory innovation and multi-level governance approaches balancing security, safety, and economic efficiency
• Innovation Systems, Governance, and Geopolitics - Geopolitical competition, technology sovereignty, and industrial policy effects on CI innovation systems
• Firm Strategies, Organizational Innovation, and Resilience - Organizational innovation and adaptation in response to CI system vulnerabilities
• Firm Strategies, Organizational Innovation, and Resilience - Firm strategies, organizational innovation, and business models for infrastructure security
• Firm Strategies, Organizational Innovation, and Resilience - Resilience, supply chain security, and infrastructure interdependencies
• Digital Transformation, Sustainability Transitions, and Human Factors - Digital transformation, automation, and cybersecurity in critical infrastructure
• Digital Transformation, Sustainability Transitions, and Human Factors - Sustainability transitions and the security-environment nexus
• Digital Transformation, Sustainability Transitions, and Human Factors - Socio-technical transitions, ethics, and human factors in CI sectors
• Multi-Level Transitions and Sectoral Applications - Multi-level dynamics of transitions with focus on critical infrastructure
• Multi-Level Transitions and Sectoral Applications - Sectoral applications including energy, transportation, telecommunications, water, financial systems, healthcare, and space infrastructure

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Publication of the special issue
• December 15, 2026: Submission opens
• January 31, 2027: Submissions due

Paresh Wankhade, Edge Hill University

Giles McClelland, Edge Hill University

Increasingly, disasters, emergencies and crises have become defining challenges for contemporary public management scholarship. Global security threats, floods, wildfires, terrorist attacks and pandemics require a swift response from the authorities and emergency services. This involves continuous translation, boundary spanning and brokerage across professional, organizational, and jurisdictional boundaries. Such conditions place intense pressure on public organizations to anticipate risks, co-ordinate across fragmented systems, communicate with the public, maintain legitimacy and learn from failure.

This theme issue invites contributions that examine the changing relationship between disaster management, emergency services, inclusion and public governance. There is particular interest in the movement from a narrow model of emergency response towards a broader concern with inclusive resilient governance. Existing scholarship further suggests that effective crisis management involves good leadership, sense-making, organizational support, effective co-ordination, clear communication, accountability, legitimacy and learning.

Public management scholarship has highlighted the importance of governance capacity, institutional design and legitimacy in crisis systems, signalling the role and value of collaborative and network governance during turbulent times. This highlights the difficulties of co-ordinating multiple actors under conditions of urgency, uncertainty, threat and risk. Resilience scholarship further reminds us that disaster preparedness and recovery depend not only on formal state capacity, but also on social capital, community capabilities, information flows, local knowledge and uneven patterns of vulnerability.

Existing scholarship also emphasises the actions employees take to promote and protect their own personal resilience. Job crafting has been found to be positively associated with favourable outcomes for job holders, teams and organizations. Due to its bottom-up nature, job crafting has been identified as potentially beneficial for dynamic and turbulent work environments in which managers require employees to demonstrate initiative and adaptive capabilities. Exploring any mutually beneficial job crafting behaviours to improve workforce resilience, staff engagement and wellbeing will offer interesting insights into contemporary emergency service management.

Exposure to disasters including preparedness, evacuation, response, and reconstruction processes are not socially neutral events and are also shaped by gender and identity relations, social norms, institutional cultures and unequal distributions of power and resources in how the risk is produced, experienced and managed.

This theme welcomes conceptual, theoretical, empirical and comparative papers addressing disaster management, emergency services, job crafting, diversity and resilience from a public management theory and practice perspective. There is particular encouragement for submissions that connect emergency and disaster studies with debates in public administration, public policy, governance, organizational theory, collaborative governance, gender studies, public service management and institutional resilience. There is particular interest in studies that explore how emergency service managers and employees craft and reshape their roles to promote and protect their personal resilience.

Potential topics

• How are emergency services adapting to more complex, frequent and interconnected crises?
• What forms of governance capacity are needed to manage compound and cascading risks?
• How do public organizations co-ordinate across organizational, sectoral and jurisdictional boundaries during disasters?
• What are the strengths and limitations of command-and-control, networked and collaborative models of emergency management?
• How do emergency services balance centralized command with local discretion, improvisation and community knowledge?
• How do frontline responders reshape tasks, relationships and meanings during disaster preparedness, response and recovery?
• What forms of job crafting support workforce resilience, engagement, wellbeing and service continuity?
• What role do leaders and managers play in influencing the job crafting behaviours of teams and individuals?
• How do public organizations maintain trust, legitimacy and accountability during and after crises?
• What role do identities such as women and gender-diverse actors play in community resilience, mutual aid and local crisis leadership?
• How do inequalities shape exposure to disaster risk, access to emergency services and recovery outcomes?
• What role do communities, civil society organizations, volunteers and private actors play in building resilience?
• How do governments and emergency services learn or fail to learn from inquiries, reviews and past disasters?
• How are digital technologies, data analytics, AI, early warning systems and crisis communication platforms transforming emergency management?

Timeline

• May 1, 2027: Deadline for research articles
• August 1, 2027: Deadline for debate and new development articles

Louis Fauger, Amazon Research & Georgia Institute of Technology

Markus Gerschberger, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria

Matthieu Lauras, KEDGE Business School

The Physical Internet (PI) is moving from vision to reality. Beyond foundational concepts, organizations are now experimenting with pilots, demonstrators, living labs and large-scale initiatives that test how PI principles can be implemented, governed and scaled. This Special Issue seeks rigorous, practice-oriented and empirically grounded contributions that provide actionable insights for managers, policymakers and supply chain stakeholders. The Special Issue is associated with the IPIC 2026 International Conference (June 2026, France), but submissions are open to all authors.

We welcome papers focusing on the implementation and operationalization of the PI, including empirical studies (qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods), case studies, pilots, demonstrators and living labs, practice-based research and industry-driven innovations, and funded projects and cross-industry initiatives. Conceptual contributions are welcome only if strongly connected to real implementation challenges and managerial implications.

All submissions are expected to adopt a sound scientific methodology while clearly demonstrating managerial relevance and actionable lessons learned.

Potential topics

• PI use cases, pilots and demonstrators
• Business models and value creation in open and shared logistics
• Governance and coordination mechanisms for interoperable networks
• Supply chain intelligence, data sharing and digital platforms
• Transition pathways, roadmaps and maturity models
• Managerial and organizational challenges of PI adoption
• Public policy, regulation and public–private collaboration
• Sustainability, circular logistics and environmental performance
• Empirical studies (qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods)
• Case studies, pilots, demonstrators and living labs
• Practice-based research and industry-driven innovations
• Funded projects and cross-industry initiatives

Timeline

• June 1, 2026: Submission platform opened
• November 30, 2026: Paper submission deadline

Adèle Fouché, Université de Tours

François Fulconis, Aix-Marseille Université

Gilles Paché, Aix-Marseille Université

Logistics and supply chain management are currently well-structured, stabilized fields dominated by normative, technicist and performance-oriented approaches. Classical themes such as flow and process optimization, rationalization of logistics infrastructure, supply chain resilience, global supply chains and sustainability, emerging technologies and digital transformation of data flows have contributed to establishing the scientific and managerial legitimacy of the discipline. However, such normalization carries a risk of reducing analytical perspective, leading to the invisibility of practices, actors and dynamics that are nonetheless constitutive of logistics logics.

In response to this observation, this special issue proposes to explore another path: that of heterodox logistics, understood as a scientific approach aimed at questioning the blind spots of the field, displacing analytical frameworks and opening new, even iconoclastic perspectives. The goal is to move beyond conventional approaches to understand logistics as a social fact traversed by historical, political, cultural and sometimes transgressive issues.

From this perspective, logistics is not limited to the efficient management of licit and visible flows of products and information. It can also be examined through fields and objects considered 'non-standard' or 'sensitive': informal economies, parallel networks, illicit circulations, clandestine systems, controversial historical devices or marginal social practices. Such configurations, often relegated to the margins of academic discourse, nevertheless offer powerful empirical spaces for understanding the materiality of flows, alternative forms of coordination and power logics that structure supply chains.

Research can interrogate the logistical dimensions of phenomena such as trafficking (drugs, weapons, organs, counterfeits, etc.) or human trafficking economies (past or contemporary slavery systems, sexual exploitation, forced labor, constrained begging, irregular migration, as well as parallel circuits and black markets during wartime). These contexts highlight highly sophisticated organizational forms, capable of articulating physical constraints, human coordination and informational devices in uncertain or even hostile environments.

Beyond these different fields, heterodox logistics also invites revisiting more classical objects from a renewed perspective: long history of infrastructures, military logistics, colonialism and resource circulation, logistics of humanitarian crises, or governance of flows in fragile institutional contexts. These approaches reveal continuities and ruptures between so-called 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' logistics, as well as increasing hybridizations between the two.

This special issue aims to gather ambitious interdisciplinary contributions, mobilizing varied theoretical frameworks (sociology, history, geography, industrial economics, economics, politics, anthropology, legal sciences, political science, etc.) to enrich understanding of logistical phenomena. Critical, reflexive and exploratory approaches are particularly encouraged. Theoretical, empirical or methodological contributions proposing original and rigorous analyses are invited. Works based on atypical fieldwork, historical archives, in-depth qualitative surveys or comparative approaches will be particularly valued. Purely descriptive or strictly normative articles do not correspond to the spirit of this special issue, which aims to contribute to broadening the scope of research in logistics and supply chain management, assuming an exploratory and critical posture. It addresses researchers wishing to question established views, displace the boundaries of the field and propose alternative readings of contemporary and past logistical phenomena.

Potential topics

• Logistical practices in informal, illegal or clandestine contexts
• Rethinking classical supply chain management concepts (performance, resilience, coordination, visibility) through non-standard configurations
• Continuities between historical logistics (slavery, colonization) and contemporary systems
• Organization of flow circulation in constrained, uncertain or hostile environments
• Role of infrastructure, institutions and technologies in alternative systems
• Post-COVID-19 supply chain disruptions and the just-in-time model
• Heterodox logistics approaches for industrial sovereignty and relocalization
• Short supply chains as central elements of heterodox logistics
• Construction and recomposition of licit/illicit boundaries in supply chains
• Ethical, political and societal implications of studying these objects
• Theoretical and methodological renewal of logistics and supply chain management research

Timeline

• January 7, 2027: Full manuscript submission deadline

Paul Tae-Woo Lee, Zhejiang University

Kai-Chieh Hu, Soochow University

Kyoung-Suk Choi, Jeonbuk National University

International organizations such as International Maritime Organization (IMO), European Union (EU), and United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have begun implementing regulations and guidelines for decarbonization of transportation, manufacturing, and logistics industries. The IMO's 2023 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Strategy targets net-zero GHG emissions from international shipping by or around 2050. The EU has adopted the EU Emission Trading System (ETS), effective on 1 January 2024, and the FuelEU, effective on 1 January 2025. The above two organisations have driven stakeholders in maritime transportation and logistics toward net-zero pathways through regulatory and pricing measures. Meanwhile, the green shipping corridor (GSC) by the Clydebank Declaration at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the UNFCCC has been initiated in November 2021, based on the IMO's regulations, the Paris Agreement, and others, aiming at decarbonizing the maritime industry.

Unlike the IMO and the EU, since COP29, GSC has aimed to integrate land and river transportation modes into sea transportation to achieve overall decarbonization of multimodal transport. In particular, major cargo owners, as one of ten stakeholders of GSC (e.g., Amazon, IKEA, Unilever, Walmart, BP Oil), have committed to transporting their cargoes by zero-emission vessels within the time frame announced. In addition, other stakeholders such as port authorities, shipbuilding companies, shipping companies, ship classification societies, central governments, green fuel producers, not to mention the IMO and the EU, have formed a coalition platform at every COP meeting to promote decarbonization at sea and a multimodal transport network.

As for maritime transportation and logistics and supply chain management, the rapid advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies has become a catalyst of digital transformation and driving force to accelerate convergence towards net-zero carbon emissions. The integration of AI and big data technologies can be applied for optimizing logistical operations and minimizing carbon footprints through real-time monitoring, demand forecasting, and route optimization to reduce fuel consumption and GHG emissions in logistics and transportation. These analytical capabilities allow organizations to improve the environmental performance and ensure that emission reductions can be realized through data-driven decision-making.

All stakeholders in the industries and governments have shifted from advocacy to setting up more targeted goals that they should achieve by the given time frame in the context of the net-zero paths. The stakeholders in the transport, logistics, and supply chain industries are facing three key challenges in implementing net-zero paths: challenges of higher capital costs (CAPEX) and higher operating costs (OPEX) to use green fuel energy in association with new vehicles and new technologies in the context of green transport and logistics chains model, and the need to establish sustainable green energy supply chains. To cope with them, the stakeholders in the industries and governments should seek key success factors in implementing it. Existing literature have not addressed these challenges in comprehensive and integrated approaches.

This Special Issue on Net-Zero Pathways in Logistics, Transportation, and Supply Chain Management aims to address not only reduction of direct emissions from transport operations, modal shift, use of alternative fuels, but also transformation of entire supply chains through AI-powered digitalization and adoption of new technologies. This SI contributes to exploring how to enable the logistics and transportation industries to achieve carbon reduction in their supply chains and multimodal transportation network and how to adopt AI and big data technologies and pricing and incentivization policies to support decarbonization technology adoption. The findings in the SI contributes to providing research community and practitioners in transport, logistics and supply chains with managerial and policy insights and expanding literature of net-zero pathways in logistics, transportation, and supply chain management.

Potential topics

• Decarbonization pathways for transport and logistics services
• Zero-emission freight transport
• Decarbonization and digitalization in transport and logistics services
• Application of AI & big data for decarbonization
• Green shipping and digital corridors
• Green transport and logistics models
• Green fuel supply chains, comprising supply, transport, and storage
• Green energy transitions in smart cities
• Sustainable procurement for net-zero transitions
• Regenerative supply chain design and resilient networks
• Electrification of transport fleets and charging infrastructure challenges
• Policy, regulation, and carbon pricing impacts on logistics decarbonisation
• Safety and environmental monitoring

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Paper proposal submission deadline
• April 30, 2027: Full manuscript submission deadline

Shuang Lu Frost, Aarhus University

Magdalena Markowska, King's College London

Kai Roland Green, Aarhus University

Kimberly Eddleston, Northeastern University

Alisa Jno-Charles, Babson College

Haibo Zhou, University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Ulla Hytti, University of Turku

According to the 2021 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report, nearly half of early-stage entrepreneurs globally are raising children. These parent-entrepreneurs navigate a unique landscape where the demands of child-rearing directly intersect with the pressures of business creation and survival at the individual, family, business, and societal levels. The quest for work-family balance draws many entrepreneurs. Yet entrepreneurship often intensifies the work-family conflict it was meant to resolve, affecting both business performance and personal well-being. Motherhood and fatherhood thus play a critical yet underexplored role in shaping entrepreneurial motivations, practices, and outcomes. Understanding these dynamics is vital for entrepreneurial practice: it can inform the design of more effective support systems and guide policymakers in creating inclusive ecosystems that recognise the dual roles many founders play.

Addressing these dynamics requires looking beyond the individual entrepreneur to the broader social fabric in which parenthood and entrepreneurship are simultaneously enacted. Entrepreneurship is increasingly recognised as a socially embedded activity, shaped not only by market forces but also by identities, family roles, and regional contexts. Despite the prevalence of parenthood among entrepreneurs, scholarly exploration of its various forms and their impact on entrepreneurial life remains limited. While a growing body of research examines the relationship between motherhood and entrepreneurship, topics such as fatherhood, household dynamics, single parenthood, LGBTQ+ parenting, and the intersection of parenthood with diverse regional contexts remain largely uncharted.

This special issue welcomes both explanatory and causal research (examining drivers, outcomes, and resource endowments) and interpretive and social constructivist research (exploring narratives, identities, and discourses) on the relationship between parenthood and entrepreneurship. We believe these traditions jointly advance understanding of how parenthood shapes, and is shaped by, entrepreneurial activity, and that neither quantitative nor qualitative approaches alone are sufficient to capture the full complexity of this intersection. Contributions may draw on qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method, or conceptual approaches, and we particularly welcome longitudinal, comparative, and multilevel designs that are sensitive to how parental roles and regional contexts vary across time and place.

Research on motherhood and entrepreneurship has generated important insights into how women negotiate parental and professional identities. Concepts such as the 'mumpreneur' and motherhood as a springboard for entrepreneurial action have enriched our understanding. However, much of this work concentrates on a relatively narrow set of themes: principally work-family balance among entrepreneurial mothers in Western contexts. Equally, as new entrepreneurial forms emerge in digital spaces, such as 'tradwives' and female influencers, theories of entrepreneurial motherhood must be reaffirmed or redeveloped. We welcome studies that break new theoretical, contextual, or methodological ground in this area, moving beyond established findings to examine, for instance, how motherhood intersects with gender, race, class, disability, or migration status in shaping entrepreneurial trajectories.

Fathers constitute half of all parents yet remain a surprisingly rare subject of investigation within entrepreneurship studies. While entrepreneurial fathers are known to enact various forms of 'entrepreneurial masculinity' just as mothers also do in relation to hegemonic masculinity typical for the Western social representation of entrepreneurs, the field has given little attention to how emerging models of 'involved fatherhood' reshape men's personal and professional priorities. The nascent concept of the 'dadpreneur' hints at new configurations of paternal and entrepreneurial identity, while cultural representations in television and popular film offer rich material for examining entrepreneurial father figures and evolving masculinities. We invite contributions that explore how fatherhood shapes entrepreneurial masculinity, how non-normative masculinities find expression in entrepreneurial settings, and how care-oriented models of masculinity influence venture decisions.

Several family forms have received little or no attention from entrepreneurship scholars. Single-parent entrepreneurs face distinct resource constraints and identity negotiations. Lesbian, gay, and queer parents navigating entrepreneurship encounter unique relational dynamics, while non-traditional household arrangements such as polyamorous parenting raise novel questions about how familial configurations interact with venture creation. Future studies could also consider family diversity, including entrepreneuring mothers/fathers in families with children with additional needs or other dependents requiring care. This special issue welcomes contributions that illuminate these underexplored configurations and their implications for entrepreneurial identity, motivation, and practice.

The dynamics between parents and between parents and children deserve further study. A partner's self-employment status influences the decision to become self-employed, and household egalitarianism positively affects mothers' entrepreneurial entry. Fathers, too, can be drawn into entrepreneurship by a spouse's business activity, and parental entrepreneurs shape children's career orientations. We invite research that examines the relational and negotiated nature of entrepreneurial decisions within households.

The impact of parenthood extends to the 'silent stakeholders' of the entrepreneurial journey: the children. While existing literature touches on family business succession, there is a pressing need to examine how entrepreneurial propensity and behaviours are transmitted across generations outside the traditional family firm context. Important questions remain about which specific resources, such as financial capital, self-efficacy, risk profiles, social capital, and family-to-business enrichment, are passed from entrepreneurial parents to their children. Yet entrepreneurial households are not merely channels of resource transmission; they are also sites of socialization and relational dynamics. For instance, interparental interaction patterns and parenting styles can shape children's perceptions of entrepreneurship as a desirable life path and influence children's traits closely linked to entrepreneurial behavior. Therefore, we also invite studies that go beyond transmission to explore children's lived experiences, identity formation, and well-being within entrepreneurial households, and explore how the development of a child in such a household is situated in complex systems where macro-level factors (national culture, welfare policies) filter through meso-level contexts (industry norms) to shape micro-level family dynamics and child outcomes.

Parenthood is a socially and culturally constructed experience shaped significantly by institutional frameworks. The entrepreneurial pathways of parents are heavily influenced by national and regional welfare-state policies, particularly those governing parental leave and affordable childcare. In liberal market economies such as the United States, where state-subsidised childcare is limited, many parents, especially mothers, are pushed into necessity-driven entrepreneurship as a strategy for creating flexibility. In social-democratic welfare states such as those in Scandinavia, comprehensive benefits tied to full-time employment can create high opportunity costs for starting a business, yet generous paid parental leave can simultaneously serve as a crucial incubation period for venture development. In many developing countries, where formal state support may be weak, extended family networks providing childcare become a critical determinant of a parent's ability to pursue entrepreneurial activities. We therefore encourage comparative and context-sensitive research that examines how prevailing policy regimes, cultural norms, and regional ecosystems support or constrain parent-entrepreneurs in different settings.

The special issue welcomes contributions drawing on several theoretical perspectives. Gender and care frameworks illuminate how gendered expectations around caregiving shape access to entrepreneurial resources, legitimacy, and identity. Relevant frameworks include role congruity theory, which illuminates the tension between communal expectations of parenthood and the agentic demands of entrepreneurship, and stereotype threat theory, which helps explain how awareness of gender-based stereotypes can suppress entrepreneurial confidence and performance among both mothers and fathers. Moving beyond classical gender theories, more recent doing gender theorizing and approaches invite scholars to novel understandings of how doing gender and enacting multiple masculinities and femininities might affect both men and women entrepreneurs, as well as their ventures and households. Embeddedness and context perspectives examine how regional ecosystems, welfare regimes, and institutional environments mediate the relationship between parenthood and entrepreneurship. Contributions may draw on the family embeddedness perspective, which positions the household as a critical unit shaping entrepreneurial resource mobilisation, as well as institutional theory to examine how formal and informal rules govern the compatibility of parenting and venture creation across contexts. Stigma theory may also prove insightful in understanding how certain parental identities, including single parenthood, LGBTQ+ parenting, and other non-normative family structures, shape entrepreneurial legitimacy and identity management. Identity and discourse perspectives explore how parent-entrepreneurs construct, negotiate, and communicate their identities. Useful lenses include entrepreneurial identity, social identity theory, sensemaking frameworks, and family systems theory, which together offer tools for examining how entrepreneurs integrate or struggle to integrate parental and entrepreneurial roles into a coherent self-concept.

Potential topics

• How do parent-entrepreneurs negotiate entrepreneurial and parental identities across gender, culture, and sexuality?
• How do emerging models of fatherhood/motherhood shape entrepreneurship?
• What role does founder identity transformation play in the transition to entrepreneurial parenthood?
• How do single parents, LGBTQ+ parents, and individuals in non-normative family forms experience entrepreneurial entry and growth?
• How is role conflict or role enrichment experienced differently by mothers and fathers in entrepreneurial families?
• How do partner dynamics and household egalitarianism shape entrepreneurial decisions?
• What specific resources (cognitive, financial, human, social capital) are transmitted from entrepreneurial parents to children?
• What are the lived experiences and well-being outcomes of children growing up in entrepreneurial households?
• How do macro-level factors (e.g., economic instability, policy frameworks) interact with household dynamics to influence children's outcomes and orientations?
• In what ways do interparental interactions and household role negotiations shape children's perception of entrepreneurship?
• How do entrepreneurial households balance opportunity creation with potential stress or instability for children?
• How do regional policies, parental leave systems, and childcare infrastructure shape entrepreneurial entry, continuation, and exit among parents?
• How do parent-entrepreneurs' experiences differ across welfare regimes (liberal, social-democratic, conservative, developing-country contexts)?
• What role do informal institutions and extended family networks play in enabling or constraining parental entrepreneurship?
• How does the portrayal of parent-entrepreneurs in media, public discourse, and cultural narratives affect entrepreneurial motives and sources of satisfaction?
• How does the self-representation and identity work of parent-entrepreneurs on social media and in entrepreneurial communities contribute to their business success and well-being?
• How do discursive ideals of 'good motherhood' or 'involved fatherhood' constrain or enable entrepreneurial action?
• What are the longitudinal effects of entrepreneurship on family well-being, and vice versa?
• How does parenthood influence innovation, creativity, or business performance?
• How do entrepreneurial career trajectories differ based on family status, parenting roles, and the timing of parenthood relative to venture creation?

Timeline

• June 1, 2026: Abstract deadline
• July 1, 2027: Manuscript deadline

Saverio Barabuffi, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna

Giulio Ferrigno, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna

Letizia Mortara, University of Cambridge

Yogesh K. Dwivedi, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

Innovation increasingly emerges from collaboration among a diverse set of actors (firms, startups, universities, public institutions, and non-profits) who expand and recombine their knowledge bases. These collaborative relationships are of utmost importance to open innovation processes, enabling the co-creation of product and process innovations and enhancing the impact and diffusion of novel solutions.

Prior research has robustly shown that organizations select partners based on the complementarities or distances between their knowledge structures, often leveraging cognitive proximity to drive technological diversification or exploring distant domains to avoid lock-in and enable radical breakthroughs.

However, open innovation has acquired new and largely unexplored facets in recent years. The rapid growth of the availability of a large volume of structured and unstructured data poses unprecedented opportunities to understand and guide open innovation dynamics. This massive amount of data, often referred to as Big Data, is fundamentally reshaping how firms search for external knowledge, identify complementarities, and govern open innovation processes. In this context, Artificial Intelligence technologies provide a method of invention that shifts the boundary between human-led and machine-led knowledge production. AI is being adopted rapidly and pervasively across industries, generating profound effects on organizations.

Recent advancements in AI, such as Large Language Models, represent a leap forward in this transformation. When embedded in data-driven approaches, these powerful tools are expected to allow organizations to systematically map technological trajectories, detect emerging knowledge fields, and support external search strategies through the automation of the analysis of millions of documents and informational signals. As a result, AI will not simply enhance analytical efficiency, but actively contribute to redefining the scope, boundaries, and modalities of knowledge search within open innovation processes.

Despite some recent investigations in the innovation field, our understanding of how recent advancements and adoption of AI technologies can promote and shape open innovation processes remains fragmented and incomplete. Existing studies have largely focused on the role of AI and Big Data in relation to innovation outcomes or on how they help mapping technological landscapes, while much less evidence and theory is available about how AI-driven tools intervene upstream in the formation, governance, and evolution of collaborative innovation. We still lack insights into how AI influences partner selection, reconfigures knowledge search strategies, alters power and coordination mechanisms within innovation ecosystems, and reshapes the roles of firms, universities, and public actors in open innovation settings.

While AI-driven tools promise to expand collaboration opportunities and improve coordination across heterogeneous actors, they also raise new organizational, strategic, and governance challenges, including issues of transparency, algorithmic bias, control over decision-making, and unequal access to data and computational capabilities. Addressing these open questions is crucial to understanding when, how, and under what conditions advances in AI can effectively promote open innovation, rather than merely optimize existing practices.

This Special Issue seeks to advance theory based on empirical research on the role of AI in enabling, shaping, and governing open innovation processes across firms, industries, and innovation systems. It calls for works which support an understanding of the role of AI technologies in creating new opportunities for firms to innovate, to redesign industry boundaries, and generate new value systems and partnership networks.

We invite scholars to move beyond the what digital tools question to engage with the how and why they alter open innovation dynamics. We welcome conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions, using qualitative, quantitative, mixed or computational approaches, to explore how advances in AI, including Large Language Models, generative AI, and other advanced machine learning techniques, actively enable, reshape, and govern collaborative innovation and open innovation processes. We particularly encourage submissions that move beyond descriptive applications of AI to investigate its role as a driver of partner selection, coordination, and knowledge integration.

The Special Issue aims to engage a multidisciplinary audience and stimulate scholarly debate at the intersection of AI, collaboration, and open innovation, across multiple levels of analysis, ranging from individuals and teams to organisations, inter-organizational networks, ecosystems, and innovation ecosystems.

Potential topics

• AI and Inbound Open Innovation: Partner Search and Knowledge Scouting
• How do AI-based tools reshape the classic trade-off between search breadth and depth in open innovation? Can algorithmic scouting explore distant knowledge domains more efficiently than traditional methods?
• To what extent can AI overcome local search biases, revealing latent complementarities across industries, regions, or technologies that human managers may overlook?
• Can AI-powered analysis of diverse data sources democratize access to innovation ecosystems, or does it favor incumbents with larger digital footprints?
• Orchestration & Governance of Innovation Networks
• How do AI tools enable algorithmic governance of knowledge flows in multi-partner networks?
• How can AI help coordinate heterogeneous actors, including firms, universities, NGOs, and governments, within mission-oriented innovation systems?
• How are platforms leveraging AI-tools to shape technological trajectories and orchestrate complementors in ecosystems?
• What are the implications of AI-mediated orchestration for value capture, appropriation, and transparency in collaborative innovation?
• Knowledge Flows, Spillovers and Innovation Mapping
• How do generative AI and Natural Language Processing techniques uncover tacit knowledge flows and early-stage spillovers invisible to traditional patent- or publication-based metrics?
• How do AI tools improve the mapping of technological landscapes, identify white spaces, and detect emerging trajectories to inform strategic decisions such as make, buy, or ally?
• What methods best integrate multiple data streams to track cross-sectoral and cross-regional knowledge diffusion enabled by AI?
• AI-Enabled Absorptive Capacity and Human AI interaction
• How should absorptive capacity be reconceptualized when AI tools, such as LLMs, assist in the recognition of external knowledge?
• What is the optimal division of labor between AI systems and human R&D managers in scanning, interpreting, and assimilating external knowledge?
• How can AI support organizational learning while mitigating barriers such as the Not Invented Here syndrome, especially when AI identifies previously unknown sources of innovation?

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Expected publication of the Special Issue
• September 1, 2026: Submission window opens
• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Paula Rossi, University of Vaasa

Jim Broch Skarli, University of Inland Norway

Maria Petrescu, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Edwina Zhu, University of Edinburgh Business School

This PMM theme issue will examine how public services can contribute to value creation for citizens within public service ecosystems (PSEs), considering implications for public administration and management theory and/or practice.

To better understand how social, ecological and economic value for citizens could be fostered in the context of public services, researchers have for the past decade addressed how the systemic, relational and context-dependent nature of value creation is situated within PSEs. In short, value creation explores how public services can be understood as resources that enable citizens to create/co-create value in their lives, and the PSE framework, first, draws attention to the hindering and enabling dynamics and conditions of value creation, embedded in and between individual, organizational and institutional levels of PSEs. To illustrate this more clearly, in the context of public services, value creation for citizens takes place through politically governed organizations. These organizations operate at the intersection of individual needs and collective interests. As a result, administrative and political contexts inevitably influence how value is created, what is possible, and how these processes unfold. Public administration and management research and practice informed by the analytical framework of PSEs are therefore well placed to take seriously the systemic characteristics and inherent tensions that shape public service environments.

Second, the PSE framework can help public sector managers, practitioners and researchers overcome the dyadic, service-user and organization-centric focus of value creation. This calls for attention, for example, to the roles and the variety of actors such as service users, family members, politicians, managers, practitioners and professionals in local, regional and national (public, private and non-governmental organizations) contexts. When viewed through the PSE framework, importantly, human-centric value creation/destruction processes become more appreciative also of the importance of non-living elements such as built environment, facilities, technologies, equipment and means of transport.

Third, utilizing the PSE framework to understand value creation for citizens calls for a more nuanced understanding of value. The conceptualization and understanding of value needs to incorporate both value for the service user and societal/collective value for citizens/communities, as well as considering both individual and collective beneficiaries in a more nuanced and appreciative way.

We therefore seek contributions that interrogate both value creation and PSEs further and which consider their implications for public administration and management theory and/or practice. Submissions can be theoretical or empirical. For research articles, a variety of research perspectives and methods are welcomed. Research articles should contribute to theory, as well as practice and/or policy. In addition, 1000-word debate articles and 3500-word new development articles are also welcome to enrich the pragmatic debates.

Potential topics

• Examining the implications of the roles and individual characteristics of service users in value co-creation, for example from the perspective of vulnerable service users and family carers
• Addressing the implementation and utilization of technologies from a PSE and value creation perspective
• Widening the empirical focus from private-benefit services to include more public-benefit services such as utility services, transportation, housing, prison management or urban development, emphasizing 'value for citizens' as an outcome
• Exploring the implications of understanding place-based public services from a PSE and value creation perspective
• Addressing the hindering or enabling dynamics and conditions of value creation in and between the individual, organizational and institutional levels of PSEs in particular contexts, for example by utilizing 'conflict' as an analytical tool
• Interrogating and developing Public Service Logic (PSL) as a framework for investigating and evaluating value creation within PSEs

Timeline

• December 1, 2026: Manuscript deadline for research articles and new development pieces
• March 1, 2027: Manuscript deadline for debate pieces

Younes Ben Zaied, EDC Paris Business School

Shajara Ul-Durar, University of Sunderland

Assil Guizani, EDC Paris Business School

Alessandro Marra, University d'Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara

The presence and representation of women in key strategic roles have emerged as critical factors in strengthening governance and enhancing public service outcomes. While gender diversity has attracted scholarly and policy attention in the private sector, its role in public administration, public service organizations, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) remains comparatively underexplored—despite its central importance for efficient, equitable, and democratically accountable governance.

Gender diversity can influence public sector decision-making in several important ways. For example, some research shows that female leaders tend to adopt more collaborative and consensus-oriented decision styles, suggesting that women are often associated with stronger attention to stakeholder inclusion, social equity, and the long-term societal outcomes that are essential in public governance.

Moreover, gender-diverse teams are consistently associated with higher-quality deliberation and decision-making. By drawing on a broader range of experiences and cognitive frames, they are better positioned to identify blind spots, challenge implicit assumptions, and scrutinise prevailing orthodoxies. This diversity of perspective reduces the likelihood of 'groupthink', fosters more robust debate, and ultimately contributes to more resilient policy choices and more rigorous risk assessment and management.

Legal reforms, quota systems, and gender equality initiatives have emerged worldwide to promote female representation in public institutions and public firms. Examples include: the EU Gender Balance on Corporate Boards Directive; France's 'Loi Sauvadet' mandating 40% women in senior civil service appointments; Norway's Public Limited Liability Companies Act requiring that 40% of board members be women, initially applying this mandate to state-owned enterprises; Italy's Golfo–Mosca Law requiring SOEs to progressively increase female board representation to at least one-third; Canada's Gender Budgeting Act; Australia's 50% gender target for government boards.

Despite the reforms, major gaps persist, including uneven implementation, weak pipeline development, inconsistent executive-level representation, and insufficient evidence on the impact of these policies on organizational outcomes. This PMM theme will investigate how gender diversity within public organizations shapes performance, transparency, accountability, innovation, and trust in public institutions.

Potential topics

• Gender diversity and public sector performance
• Women in SOEs
• Public service delivery and gender-sensitive governance
• Barriers and enablers of women's advancement in public organizations
• Gender, ethics, and public integrity
• Future directions: towards gender-responsive public management
• Representative bureaucracy effects of women in executive agencies
• The extent to which mentorship and sponsorship programs improve women's advancement
• Gender differences in promotion rates in public agencies

Timeline

• September 1, 2026: Submission deadline for research articles and new development pieces
• November 1, 2026: Submission deadline for debate pieces

Carlos Diaz Ruiz, Hanken School of Economics

Sofia Ulver, Lund University

James Pamment, Lund University

The online information landscape is a site for contested ideas, but it is also a marketplace; under the platform economy, every engagement has monetary value. This setup encourages content creators to circulate the kinds of material most likely to capture attention, even if it is incendiary. Central to this business model are the algorithmic recommendation systems, which are designed to monetize attention while simultaneously amplifying disinformation.

The term "Disinformation Economy" was introduced in a report published by the McCain Institute and The Carter Center. It highlights how the sources circulating disinformation extract financial benefits from digital marketing infrastructures, particularly through the architecture of advertising technologies (AdTech). Researchers estimate that 1.68% of digital advertising budgets are redirected to fake news websites, amounting to approximately US$2.4 billion in the US alone and nearly US$6 billion worldwide. This figure suggests that brands are inadvertently funding fake news and disinformation with their budgets.

The special issue aims to extend existing research on how platform architectures monetize and, at times, underwrite the spread of online disinformation, incentivizing the production of fake news websites, and the circulation of incendiary content through the creator economy. Although we know that polarization thrives in the online "conflict markets" designed to reward click maximization, we do not know well whether influencers profiting from radicalizing content is a likely outcome of the system or a regrettable side effect.

Policymakers increasingly recognize that malicious actors exploit digital advertising infrastructures to undermine democratic institutions and divide society, quickly becoming "hybrid threats," which is when state or non-state actors seek to exploit the vulnerabilities of democracies to their own advantage while remaining below the threshold of formal warfare. For instance, the infrastructures of the advertising market allow "dark money" actors to run influence campaigns unchecked. A recent report by the Swedish Psychological Defense Agency illustrates the emergence of a hybrid organization that applies digital marketing tools to conduct state-sponsored influence operations. And yet, we do not know to what extent influence operations co-opt malpractice in digital marketing.

This special issue invites contributions that seek to conceptualize and theorize disinformation research at the intersection of business, marketing, and society. However, we believe that it is insufficient merely to appreciate the problem; instead, we call for research that dares to find solutions that can inform public policy, change managerial practice, and strengthen society. We welcome contributions that can enhance social resilience against the spread of disinformation online.

We approach disinformation broadly, incorporating not just falsehoods but also dual-use technologies (like AI-generated synthetic media like deepfakes), which can disrupt social realities. Critical researchers on marketing and consumer research have shown that the accelerating speed of automation, big data, and algorithmic intensification give rise to new "manufactured consumers", becoming an ever more fragmented, yet controlable, societal formation. Thus, we would need to know more about how disinformation, scams, and fraud have become integral to the ebbs and flows of a digitally mediated consumer culture.

Multidisciplinary research contributions from across business disciplines, media studies, the social sciences, and public policy are welcome. We are particularly interested in research that addresses marketing technologies and practices in connection to disinformation. Other relevant research areas include understanding and countering deceptive online practices such as fake news, enhancing resilience through media literacy, fact-checking, platform governance, platform economies, and critical disinformation studies.

Potential topics

• Whether and how programmatic advertising funds fake news?
• How do the recommender algorithms amplify incendiary content?
• How can AI-generated content be used to spread disinformation?
• Do the monetization schemes of the creator economy reward polarization?
• How do influence operations exploit marketing infrastructures?
• What initiatives and interventions can strengthen societal resilience to disinformation?
• What forms of platform governance can protect liberal deliberative democracies?
• What methodologies, including Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), can be used to investigate disinformation on AdTech and social media?

Timeline

• September 15, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Antonella Cammarota, International University of Monaco

Jessica Vredenburg, Auckland University of Technology

Benjamin Rosenthal, Getulio Vargas Foundation

Brand activism has rapidly evolved from a novel strategy into a mainstream corporate practice, attracting growing scholarly attention across disciplines. While it takes on various forms - such as corporate activism, CEO activism, corporate sociopolitical activism, and corporate social advocacy - these expressions share a common feature: the deliberate entry of companies and top executives into the political sphere. This engagement typically involves public positioning and/or tangible actions on controversial, contested, or polarising socio-political issues. In recent years, brand activism has come to play a crucial role in shaping public discourse, influencing consumer culture, and redefining the boundaries of brand management.

Brands have positioned themselves as prominent players in sociopolitical activism, lending their voices to movements such as Black Lives Matter, Me Too, and Pride. Many have gone further, speaking out on civil rights, endorsing or criticising political candidates, and taking public stands on global conflicts. Their social media channels have become platforms for engaging with some of our time's most contentious and politically charged issues - from abortion and LGBTQIA+ rights to gun control, climate change, and racial justice. These messages are often delivered in emotive, occasionally provocative, tones designed to shape public opinion, ignite debate, and foster prosocial engagement among audiences.

Much of the literature has explored perceived authenticity in brand activism, the influence of political ideology, moral framing, and the types of activist efforts. However, while considerable attention has been paid to corporate strategies and outcomes, far less has been devoted to its social and transformative impacts. In parallel, scholars have begun to examine activism across a broader set of actors and contexts, including non-profit organisations, universities, CEOs, consumers, and influencers. The phenomenon has also been studied within B2B markets, the luxury sector, and from a global perspective, illustrating both the depth and breadth of research in this area.

Recent publications continue to reflect the academic community's sustained interest in brand activism. However, on an empirical level, new directions and emerging manifestations of the phenomenon appear to be unfolding faster than researchers can capture or critically analyse them. This substantive gap highlights a critical limitation: a growing disconnection between certain strands of literature and the evolving complexity of real-world practices, which impairs our ability to fully grasp, interpret, and anticipate the shifting dynamics and implications of brand activism today.

The rise of populism, escalating geopolitical conflicts, and increasing societal polarisation appear to have reshaped the trajectory of brand activism. Since late 2024 and into early 2025, several major U.S. corporations have withdrawn from their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as noted in recent studies. At the same time, many brands have scaled back their activist public visibility, muting their social media presence and removing sociopolitical content, while others have undergone internal restructuring, including leadership changes. Consequently, with the convergence of political, ecological, and humanitarian emergencies, the role of business in advancing social good is again under scrutiny.

In the face of this rapidly changing context, while offering valuable insights, existing literature struggles to capture the evolving dynamics of brand activism. Many studies still rely on well-established theoretical frameworks that may no longer be adequate for interpreting the complexities of the current landscape. Given these recent shifts, there is a pressing need to open new directions for research on brand activism. This moment demands not only a deeper understanding of how the phenomenon is evolving across diverse cultural, geographic, and sectoral contexts, but also providing actionable insights to support organisations navigating increasingly complex and polarised environments. Emerging technologies, growing attention to the Global South, and the rise of new social, political and cultural sensibilities may offer fresh analytical lenses through which brand activism can be critically re-examined and conceptually reimagined.

This Special Issue aims to spark a critical and practice-informed dialogue on the current state of brand activism - exploring whether, how, and why it is changing; uncovering new forces shaping its trajectory; and rethinking the role brands can and should play in contemporary society. We invite contributions that challenge and extend current thinking, including new theoretical frameworks, conceptual innovations, interpretive approaches, and robust empirical studies. Submissions may employ qualitative or quantitative methods, as long as they critically engage with present realities and contribute to a richer understanding of the phenomenon. Our goal is to build a body of knowledge that is both theoretically insightful and practically relevant - capable of keeping pace with the speed, complexity, and volatility of today's socio-political landscape.

Potential topics

• Changes in Brand Activism Strategies – Is brand activism taking a new form? Are we witnessing the rise of less visible, more strategic, or quieter modes of activism? How do activist brands act in the current landscape?
• Emerging Brand Activist Contexts – How, and to what extent, does brand activism manifest across different political, cultural, and geographical contexts? Particular attention is invited to the Global South and emerging markets, where civil liberties, media pluralism, or legal protections for civil rights may be limited or contested.
• Institutional Actors as Activist Agents – What happens when universities, public institutions, public figures, or cultural organisations engage in activist practices? How do these actors influence public discourse, shape political debate, or redefine the boundaries of market responsibility?
• The Transformative Effect of Brand Activism – Can marketing-driven activism lead to lasting social change, or is it ultimately limited to symbolic gestures and market-oriented performance goals?
• International and Transnational Dimensions of Activism – How does activism unfold across national borders, global supply chains, and international institutions? What new conditions arise when brand activism is framed as a systemic, transnational commitment?
• Backlash, Culture War, and Polarisation – How brand activism is affected when social and institutional risks emerge, corporate activism provokes ideological resistance, public fatigue, or consumer boycotts? How has the context of rising populism affected the conditions for brand activism?
• Consumer Activism and Spaces of Expression – Has consumer activism changed? If so, how do activist consumers influence brand strategies, communication, and positioning? How do new forms of digital and/or offline spaces affect how consumer activists express their demands, critiques, or support? Are there changes in the relationships between brands and consumer activists?
• Authenticity and Consumer Activism - How can we critically differentiate between authentic brand activism and opportunistic appropriation of activist discourse? Have consumers' understandings of authentic brand activism changed amid current shifts in the sociocultural context?
• Artificial Intelligence and Activist Contents – How is artificial intelligence transforming the creation, personalisation, and dissemination of activist messages? What ethical, moral, and authenticity-related concerns arise when activism is mediated by machine-created content?
• Shifting Channels of Activist Communication – To what extent has sociopolitical pressure prompted a shift in activist communication from open, accessible platforms - such as social media - to more niche, closed (not public) or offline spaces? What are the implications of this relocation of activism visibility and audience engagement regarding brand activism practices and social impact?
• Activism and the Depoliticisation of Society – What are the potential connections between brand activism and the depoliticisation of society? Does brand activism foster genuine political engagement and collective mobilisation, or does it risk causing activism fatigue, depoliticising conflict and reinforcing dominant ideologies? How can we critically assess the boundaries between symbolic engagement and meaningful transformation?
• Measuring Systemic Impact – How can we assess the broader societal effects of brand activism beyond corporate performance indicators or consumer responses? What critical or participatory methodologies are needed to evaluate systemic change?

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Zoe Radnor, Aston University

David Walker, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust

For this theme issue we are looking for disciplinary eclecticism. We seek contributions that bring together insights from several disciplines, including law, social sciences, public management and the study of politics. Traditionally public management has not engaged in 'constitutional' conversations. However, the rise of what has been identified within the political landscape as 'populism' calls for a cross-disciplinary perspective to understand whether, and how, it is impacting public management and administration.

Populism can be described as a movement rather than a single ideology adopted by any political doctrine, and it often presents complex problems in simple terms, offering direct solutions. In recent times, populism has seen a rise in politicians from the left (for example Julius Malema in South Africa, Lee Jae Myung in South Korea) and the right of the political landscape (for example Donald Trump in the USA, Javier Milei in Argentina and Nigel Farage in the UK).

For this PMM theme issue we are seeking both conceptual and case examples to address the questions raised. Understanding how public managers and administrators are navigating the current context is key to supporting public services and the public good. In addition to research articles, we are also seeking debate and new development pieces to shape the thinking and agenda for further consideration. We would like to understand the implications for both policy and practice.

Potential topics

• Are we facing the limits of traditional thinking in public management? Do public managers have a 'moral personality' with value commitment to liberal democracy and/or state continuity, hence a duty, moral or legal, to protect them?
• Does populism create a challenge for public managers to abide by good governance principles (for example, in the UK, the Nolan Principles of Public Life)?
• Are public managers obliged to defend the state from attack, rhetorical or actual; if so, by what means?
• Have public managers traditionally lacked 'voice' within the political–administrative interface and what challenges do they face with the rise of populism?
• Is there a problem, incipient or actual, facing public managers if they are becoming answerable to politicians with a value set that is antagonistic to the values of public management?
• How anachronistic are those Weberian doctrines of 'responsiveness', i.e. the idea that the primary duty of public managers is to obey political mandates as the sole source of legitimacy?
• What is 'extremism'/populism? Can extremism and populism be defined (proscribed) ex ante?
• Do public managers observe/answer to a code that protects them against orders (short of law-breaking)? Are such codes robust?
• How far do existing doctrines of accountability accommodate answerability for extremist policies?
• Do public managers including civil servants and military personnel have a 'moral' personality and/or ethical commitments that equip them/require them to resist political directives that might subvert existing conventions or constitutional order?
• What lessons could public managers learn from international and comparative perspectives from the rise of populism in different political systems and architectures?

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Hybrid symposium for potential contributors
• January 31, 2027: Submission deadline for research articles and new development pieces
• March 31, 2027: Submission deadline for debate pieces

Veronica L. Thomas, Old Dominion University

Kendra Fowler, Youngstown State University

Influencer marketing has evolved from a niche social media tactic into a core component of contemporary brand communication strategies. During this time, research on influencer marketing has proliferated, helping to define and broaden our conceptualization of influencers, while providing key insights into how influencer marketing functions, and situating influencer marketing more broadly within society.

At the same time, the influencer marketing landscape is undergoing rapid transformation. Advances in generative AI, the emergence of synthetic and virtual influencers, evolving platform governance structures, and the increasing professionalization of creators raise important questions about whether dominant assumptions, frameworks, and empirical regularities continue to hold. Many widely cited findings were developed under technological, cultural, and platform conditions that are now shifting in fundamental ways.

As a result, the field faces an inflection point. While continued refinement of established effects remains valuable, there is a growing need for research that moves beyond incremental extensions and instead rethinks how influence operates, who influencers are, and how value is created and contested in contemporary influencer ecosystems. This includes revisiting core constructs, interrogating emerging managerial challenges, and introducing new theoretical lenses capable of capturing these changes.

In this special issue, we call on researchers to move beyond continued incremental contributions and instead to focus on broader questions and truly novel insights. Such insights may be gleaned by examining influencer marketing through a new theoretical lens, considering how technological, societal, or cultural shifts have altered the influencer landscape, or exploring emerging managerial challenges and strategic implications that will alter how advertisers will utilize influencer marketing in the future.

We encourage authors to build on prior work while also critically revisiting core assumptions in the literature. At the same time, we caution against submissions that primarily replicate well-established findings without offering meaningful theoretical extension or new boundary conditions.

The Journal of Advertising Research invites proposals for this special issue aimed at advancing theoretically grounded, methodologically rigorous, and managerially relevant insights into how influencers shape advertising and marketplace dynamics.

Potential topics

• How are deepfakes and synthetic media altering how consumers process and engage with influencer marketing?
• How are influencers incorporating AI tools into content creation, audience management, and monetization, and how do these practices reshape influence?
• How do influencer collectives, creator economies, and platform governance structures reshape influence and value creation?
• What are the power dynamics that occur across influencer–brand–platform relationships?
• How has the influencer ecosystem changed, or how does it need to change, to address increased opportunities for influence beyond social media platforms or the use of AI tools to facilitate content creation?
• How is influence extending beyond traditional social media into commerce, entertainment, education, and hybrid digital physical spaces?
• How do influencers function as brands, entrepreneurs, and marketing organizations rather than merely as endorsers?
• What competitive threats do influencers face from other creators, platforms, AI generated content, or brand owned media?
• How do influencers adapt, reposition, or professionalize as their audiences, technologies, and revenue models evolve?
• How can influencers themselves be protected from exploitation, burnout, harassment, or reputational harm?
• How should firms design influencer strategies across different stages of the customer journey and across multiple platforms?
• How does influencer marketing effectiveness vary across cultural, geographic, and market contexts?
• What strategic trade-offs do firms face between reach, authenticity, control, and risk in influencer partnerships?
• How should brands evaluate influencer fit, performance, and spillovers in increasingly algorithmic environments?
• How do misinformation, manipulated content, and brand safety risks emerge and spread within influencer ecosystems?
• How can influence, engagement, and persuasion be more accurately measured in dynamic, algorithmically curated environments?
• How can field experiments and platform-based data be leveraged to enhance external validity?
• How can researchers capture spillover effects, halo effects, and cross-platform influence in influencer campaigns?
• What new metrics or analytical approaches are needed to study influence at scale and over time?
• How should advertisers select influencers to fit their specific strategic needs?
• Are existing influencer typologies still relevant, or are new classification frameworks needed?
• Where do existing theories of persuasion, social influence, and communication fall short in explaining consumer–influencer relationships today?
• How should foundational theories be extended or revised to account for AI-mediated and platform-driven influence?

Timeline

• July 1, 2026: Submission window opens
• October 12, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Ingmar van Meerkerk, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Anka Kekez, University of Zagreb

Jurian Edelenbos, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Public governance practice today is increasingly confronted with complex, turbulent, and societal challenges that cross organizational, scalar, sectoral, and community boundaries. Wicked problems such as sustainability transitions, social inequality, rapid digitalization and democratic backsliding demand collaboration between public, private, and societal actors. In addition, community-based initiatives and growing demands for co-production have further stimulated cross-boundary working in public service delivery and governance.

Recent strands of governance theory have pointed at the turbulence of nowadays societal challenges and their implications for the dynamic, transformative and unstable nature of collaborative forms of governance. This increasing turbulence has important implications for boundary spanning agents at the frontlines trying to make various forms of cross-boundary collaboration and service delivery work. Recent studies show that such boundary spanning workers face various institutional challenges and tensions in trying to move public engagement and cross-boundary collaboration forward.

This special issue aims to advance the research agenda on collaborative governance and public service delivery by going deeper into how boundary spanners deal with various tensions, managing different interfaces while they try to make cross-boundary collaboration and service delivery work, and what this means in relation to their environment. These tensions are compounded by broader features of contemporary governance. Fragmentation in the form of sectoral silos, organizational and political discontinuities, fragile trust relations, uneven capacities and diverging institutional logics are pervasive conditions of collaborative settings.

Research in the field of network governance has produced rich insights into the forms, conditions, and barriers of collaborative governance, as well as the managerial strategies required to organize such collaboration. Moreover, studies on boundary work and boundary spanning at the front-lines of collaborative governance and public service-delivery have focused on the competencies and practices that enable collaboration across boundaries. In this regard, several studies have unpacked the different roles of individual boundary spanners, various boundary spanning activities and competences relevant for moving public engagement and collaborative processes forward.

However, we know too little about how boundary spanning agents at the frontlines cope with various tensions, try to sustain collaborative momentum, and try to implement collaboration between state and non-state actors in turbulent and fragile governance environments. Moreover, the implications for boundary spanners themselves, including how they continue their work under conditions of cumulative pressure and role strain, remain insufficiently understood. Several avenues offer promises to advance the research agenda and to bring collaborative and network governance theory more in conversation with street-level scholarship.

Research on boundary spanning in collaborative governance and service delivery can be enriched by engaging more closely with insights from street level scholarship. Street level studies show that collaboration is enacted through everyday and relational practices that unfold both in public view and behind the scenes. These practices include improvised coordination, informal calibration of routines, continuous maintenance of interpersonal connections, translation of roles and expectations and shared interpretation of user needs. Such work stabilizes collaboration through trust building, pragmatic problem solving and accumulated interpersonal knowledge, often compensating for incomplete formal structures. These insights enrich boundary spanning research by shifting attention from role descriptions to the situated practices through which coordination is actually produced and sustained in turbulent settings.

Integrating insights from recent collaborative governance studies using bricolage theory can further deepen understanding of how boundary spanners cope with turbulence, trying to sustain collaborative momentum, and trying to craft robustness in fragile governance environments. Bricolage theory draws attention to how bricoleurs use whatever resources, relationships, and institutional patches are at hand to craft workable solutions and maintain robustness within collaborative governance. Learning from bricolage theory, contributions in this special issue can shed light on underexplored aspects of boundary spanning practices, such as improvisation, patchwork problem-solving, creative recombination of institutional rules, and adaptive reframing.

The capacity to span boundaries is fundamentally shaped by organizational and institutional conditions. Boundary spanning takes place in contexts marked by fragmented mandates, uneven resources, narrow accountability regimes and weak coordination infrastructures, all of which influence which relational and interpretive practices are possible or legitimate. These conditions increasingly also include digital infrastructures and data practices that mediate information exchange and decision-making, offering for instance new opportunities for participatory practices, but also new constraints related to access, transparency and professional discretion. Together, these structural features generate the need for boundary spanning yet simultaneously might constrain or overload those who perform it. Street level research highlights that practitioners often compensate for systemic deficits through relational labor and improvisation, although these efforts are highly vulnerable to staff turnover, political shifts and the absence of managerial backing. Advancing research on boundary work therefore requires careful attention to the dynamic interplay between everyday collaborative practices and organizational, institutional and technological scaffolding, and to how these configurations shape both boundary spanning itself and its implications for public value creation and collaborative governance.

Drawing on role theory and coping with different role stressors, the next step is to better understand how boundary spanning front-line workers experience role tensions and how they develop certain coping strategies and practices to deal with these tensions. In bringing joint value creation and collaborations between state and non-state actors into practice, boundary spanning persons are confronted by different role expectations and role ambiguity that arise from diverging logics, conflicting demands and loyalties from within and outside their organizational context. Understanding how they cope with these role challenges is crucial for both advancing theory and improving collaborative practices in public governance.

There is a growing need to consider the possible dark sides of boundary spanning. Reliance on individual boundary spanners can mask structural deficiencies, reproduce inequalities in emotional and relational labor and generate expectations that are unsustainable in the long run. Boundary spanning might be used to mask structural shortcomings within public organizations assigning them with too heavy unrealistic tasks. In addition, overburdening boundary spanners can lead to burnout, withdrawal and a narrowing of collaborative space, particularly in volatile governance environments. Carefully built up relationships by the boundary spanner might turn into dust once the boundary spanner leaves the public scene and makes the work by them very precarious. These tensions deserve more systematic attention to avoid overly idealized depictions of boundary spanning work.

An important and often underexplored challenge emerges at the political interface of collaborative governance and public service delivery. Boundary spanning does not occur solely among administrative and societal actors in deliberative settings, but unfolds under conditions shaped by political authority, electoral incentives, media attention, and shifting mandates. Research shows that political signaling, institutional histories, and bureaucratic politics strongly influence whether collaborative initiatives are interpreted as legitimate, peripheral, or even risky by frontline actors, with direct consequences for participation and coordination. Although previous research on the democratic legitimacy of governance networks and the sometimes complicated relationship with representative democracy has generated valuable insights, we need a better understanding of how boundary spanners enact political astuteness in their practices, navigate the interface with political representatives and cope with the political dimension in its broader sense.

This special issue focuses on how boundary spanners deal with various tensions in turbulent times, managing different interfaces while they try to make cross-boundary collaboration and service delivery work. Boundary spanning persons – whether labelled boundary spanners, facilitators, intermediaries, bridgers, 'best persons', or exemplary practitioners – operate in multiple organizational positions and institutional contexts, often as frontline workers, street-level managers, district managers, community leaders or community builders. What unites these roles is that these professionals are able to coordinate their efforts horizontally and vertically, thereby mobilizing different forms of bonding, bridging and linking social capital, while navigating dilemmas that arise from diverging logics, practices, and role expectations.

Potential topics

• Dilemmas, paradoxes and dark sides of boundary spanning - What dilemmas and paradoxes do boundary spanners face in managing the front- and backstage of collaborative practices under pressure? How are they supported or constrained by their environment? What risks, unintended and unwanted consequences emerge in boundary work and how to mitigate or prevent these 'dark sides' of boundary spanning?
• Role tensions and coping practices - How do boundary spanners (emotionally) experience and cope with various role tensions? How and when do they sustain, persist or give up in doing their boundary work?
• Dealing with the political interface, multiple accountabilities and logics - How do boundary spanners deal with political conflicts and challenging circumstances? How do they manage clashing accountabilities and institutional logics across organizational, scalar, sectoral, and community contexts?
• Boundary spanning practices of different agents in the state, market and civil society and their implications for joint public value creation and transformational governance - How do boundary spanning practices of different boundary spanners in the state, market and civil society shape collaborative outcomes in joint value creation and transformational governance? What are differences and similarities in the capacities and contributions of these boundary spanning agents and when are these practices aligned?

Timeline

• March 6, 2026: Submission of abstracts
• March 30, 2026: Abstracts will be reviewed
• August 20, 2026: Submission of draft papers to Guest Editors for workshop
• September 10, 2026: Workshop hosted by the University of Zagreb, Croatia (tentative date)
• January 15, 2027: Submission of final papers

Kirsten Cowan, University of Edinburgh

Yang Feng, University of Florida

Seth Ketron, University of St. Thomas

Aidin Namin, Loyola Marymount University

The rapid evolution of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way consumers search, retrieve, and interact with product information, offerings, and brands. The traditional search landscape, once dominated by Google's algorithmic filtering and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, is being transformed by AI-generated summaries and zero-click searches. This paradigm shift is disrupting conventional SEO approaches and revenue models, reshaping how consumers encounter and process information and make choices while forcing the industry to adapt and reinvent.

As AI continues to influence search results and decision-making, several key trends are emerging. First, the nature of search is changing, with AI increasingly mediating our interactions and altering the way we engage with search results. Is search still a pull activity, where consumers initiate queries and receive advertising responses aligned with their intent, or are we witnessing a shift towards AI-led search experiences that unfold without explicit human initiation? Second, we are delegating search-related tasks to AI, potentially leading to a future where AI autonomously performs search functions, bypassing traditional some stages of the consumer journey, including information processing. Third, our current interactions with AI are largely functional, focusing on utilitarian offerings and cognitive evaluations. However, as AI evolves, we may see a shift towards more experiential, hedonic, and social evaluations, where AI assists us in discovering new goods and services that cater to our emotional, social, and moral needs.

The implications for advertising are profound. As AI-generated content and zero-click searches become more prevalent, advertisers must adapt their strategies to reach consumers in a landscape where traditional search results are no longer the primary touchpoint. This may involve shifting focus from keyword-based advertising to more contextual, conversational, and experiential approaches, such as sponsored content, influencer partnerships, and immersive brand experiences. Further, the rise of AI-driven search raises important questions about the role of advertising in shaping consumer decision-making, the potential for bias in AI-generated recommendations, and the need for greater transparency and accountability in advertising practices.

Building upon recent contributions that focus on GenAI search and advertising, this special section aims to inspire the future of advertising applications within the consumer search phase. We welcome submissions that make substantive theoretical and practical contributions in the broader domain of advertising research, irrespective of methods. This includes either conceptual or empirical work. Empirical work (experiments, surveys, modeling, qualitative, etc.) should be appropriately executed, given best practices in the discipline.

Potential topics

• How advertisers can effectively leverage AI-generated content and zero-click searches to reach their target audiences
• The impact of AI-generated content on search results and consumer decision-making
• The evolution of SEO strategies in response to AI-driven search algorithms
• The role of AI in shaping consumer journeys and experiential marketing
• How AI has shifted and/or will shift psychological mechanisms in search, including but not limited to empowerment, attention, memory, processing styles, and cognitive bias
• How social, cultural, and other contextual differences might lead different consumer segments or markets to react to and utilize AI differently in search
• The role of AI in relation to marketer-controlled vs. nonmarketer-controlled sources of information (e.g., ads or website content vs. customer reviews or social media) and consumers' relative reliance on each
• The effects of AI on speed, locus of control, and effort in consumer search
• The potential for AI-driven advertising to enhance or undermine consumer trust and brand loyalty
• The impact of AI on ad pricing and revenue models, including the potential for more nuanced and contextual pricing strategies
• The role of AI in facilitating more personalized and relevant advertising search experiences, and the potential trade-offs with consumer privacy
• The need for new metrics and benchmarks to measure the effectiveness of AI-driven advertising campaigns, and the potential for AI to provide more granular and actionable insights into consumer behavior and preferences
• The potential for AI to create more intimate and human-like interactions with consumers
• The ethical implications of AI-driven search and advertising practices
• The future of search interfaces, including voice-activated, image-based, and multimodal search
• The interplay between AI-generated search experiences and consumer autonomy
• The implications of AI-driven search ecosystems for market competition and brand visibility
• The role of AI transparency and explainability in consumer trust and regulatory compliance
• The sustainability and environmental impact of AI-driven search and advertising ecosystems
• Cross-platform integration and continuity in AI-mediated consumer journeys
• How the reduced visibility of paid versus organic influence in conversational AI affects consumer understanding, disclosure, and trust in recommendations
• How the growing tendency to treat AI systems as social or companion-like partners might reshape the value of impressions, expectations of authenticity, and marketplace pricing for AI-mediated advertising interactions

Timeline

• June 1, 2026: Submission window opens
• September 7, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Eunjin (Anna) Kim, University of Southern California

Robert Kozinets, University of Southern California

With AI and other tools supercharging nonspecialists' abilities to create and communicate narratives, we are in the midst of an unprecedented growth in advertising storytelling—perhaps with a corresponding rise in the need to understand the human, the cultural, and the narrative. Emotional brandings and advertising storytelling function as a powerful cultural resource in their own right. Influencers construct and circulate brand-related stories by weaving them into personal experiences, ensuring that stories seeded in campaigns live on through retellings, remixes, and conversations. These retellings are also increasingly shaped by algorithmic tools such as AI-generated reviews, comments, or testimonials that circulate alongside human imaginaries and narratives.

In this environment, advertising storytelling can be understood as an adaptive process produced and recombined across humans, AI systems, and media channels. Generative AI scripts dialogue, personalizes arcs, and generates countless variations, while algorithms determine which story fragments audiences encounter. Campaigns function less as bounded arcs and more as adaptive or transmedia flows, raising questions about authorship, coherence, authenticity, and credibility in advertising storytelling. Yet, as AI-driven narratives proliferate, we must not lose sight of the human craft of advertising storytelling built on relationships.

Experimental research shows that narrative ads enhance attention, recall, credibility, and persuasion through empathetic processing, transportation, mental simulation, and identification. Yet these mechanisms, while well established, are increasingly tested in environments where narrative forms are short, fragmented, and fleeting.

Beyond these psychological mechanisms, a deeper cultural understanding of brand meaning can be found through the allegorical power of brand stories, the embrace of brand paradox, and the intertwining of cultural imagination, archetypes, and imaginaries. With important exceptions, critical approaches and cultural methods like ethnography and netnography are under-utilized. We still know relatively little about what makes an advertising story compelling whether structure, character, or brand integration. We lack sufficient understanding about how algorithmic and human-authored narratives interact to create or fracture meaning for consumers, or how new media formats such as podcasts function.

Our understanding is still growing about storytelling that transpires in digital platforms that demand coherence and immersion in seconds. TikTok skits, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts highlight storytelling's entertainment value, but entertainment alone does not ensure persuasion. Audiences might remember the attention-grabbing elements of an advertising story but not the product or brand, a challenge known as the 'vampire effect'. While entertainment is increasingly fundamental for sustaining attention, its relationship to persuasion and meaning-making remains undertheorized. The forms, structures, and impacts of influencer storytelling around the globe are still poorly understood. Regardless of technology, the deep-seated cultural template, myths and human relationships continue to be powerful, and under-explored, aspects of the human advertising experience.

This Special Issue invites scholarship that explores and perhaps redefines storytelling in advertising. We seek contributions that chart new ground as well as those that revisit foundational historical and narrative theories in light of contemporary cultural and technological contexts. We welcome conceptual and empirical work across advertising and marketing, consumer culture theory, history, sociology, anthropology, media psychology, communication and health communication, and cultural/media studies. Methods may include controlled or field experiments, ethnography and netnography, archival and historical analysis, semiotic and discourse analysis, neuroscientific measures, and computational approaches from computer science, HCI, and information science. All submissions must place advertising or brand storytelling at the center of inquiry.

Potential topics

• (Re-)Conceptualizing what advertising storytelling is in contemporary contexts
• Exploring AI-generated content that circulates alongside human imaginaries and narratives
• Moving beyond 'do narratives work in advertising?' toward 'how do they work in contemporary media environments?'
• Investigating the current craft of advertising storytelling from the creator's perspective
• Revisiting narrative advertising persuasion mechanisms such as transportation, empathy, identification, and mental simulation in fragmented and multi-platform environments
• Comparing when and why narrative advertising is more, or less, effective than non-narrative approaches
• Investigating questions about authorship, coherence, authenticity, and credibility in advertising storytelling when campaigns function as adaptive or transmedia flows
• Examining how algorithmic and human-authored narratives interact to create or fracture meanings for consumers
• Analyses of brand storytelling strategies, where advertising narratives are designed to act as cultural resources
• Researching the human craft of advertising storytelling built on relationships
• The role of retro-narratives, nostalgia, and other human and cultural elements in advertising
• Micro-narratives in TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts: narrative advertising strategies for persuasion in seconds
• Examining the forms, structures, and/or impacts of influencer storytelling around the globe
• Cross-device coherence in narrative advertising: how audiences integrate story arcs across TV, mobile, and digital formats
• Algorithmic sequencing and recombination of story fragments, and implications for narrative coherence and persuasion in advertising
• Brand integration challenges in short-form storytelling advertising and risks of the 'vampire effect'
• Revisiting persuasion mechanisms (empathetic processing, transportation, mental simulation, and identification) in contemporary environments
• Tensions between advertising messages and social and political issues (e.g., environmentalism, self-esteem, social justice)
• Exploring the dialectical relationship between brand storytelling and consumer resistance, skepticism, or counter-narratives (e.g., 'culture jamming')
• Story fatigue and manipulation: As every campaign now 'tells a story,' are consumers experiencing overexposure, leading to cynicism or narrative distrust?
• Dark narratives: How should advertising research address the risks of narratives that normalize harmful stereotypes, dramatize false conflicts, or glamorize risky behaviors?
• Ethics of AI-augmented storytelling: how does AI-generated or deepfake narratives alter the ethics of persuasion?
• Too-good stories vs. brand reality: When narratives overpromise, should narrative effectiveness also be judged on truthfulness and accountability?
• How storytelling in advertising creates context for identities, authenticity, and the quest for the 'real'?

Timeline

• November 11, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline
• November 11, 2026: Submissions window

Carmine Bianchi, University of Palermo

Greta Nasi, Bocconi University

Bin Chen, Baruch College

Gabriela Lotta, FGV-São Paulo School of Business Administration

Governments today face increasingly complex challenges in public service delivery, including social inequality, climate change, public health crises, and rapid digital transformation. Traditional models of public management often fall short in addressing wicked problems due to their standardized and inflexible nature. A linear and static approach remains widespread in strategic planning across both public sector and business organizations, though the limits and risks of this approach have long been discussed in the literature.

Developing a 'memory of the future' – the ability to elicit mental models and use scenario planning to prepare for change – has been viewed as a foundational capability for strategic foresight. Related work emphasizes learning processes that support organizational evolution by design, based on feedforward rather than solely feedback-driven reasoning. Recent contributions increasingly argue for framing public strategic planning and goal formation as a design process, suggesting that planning should aim not only to anticipate the future but to help create it, recognizing that organizations and their surrounding ecosystems evolve together.

This special issue focuses on how organizations – when facing dynamic and wicked problems – can design the future by fostering place-based value creation. Such an approach supports the development of shared strategic resources and enhances sustainable and place-responsive outcomes. Wicked problems are inherently place-based, shaped by local socio-economic, cultural, and environmental conditions that require context-sensitive responses. Traditional models of public management – typically centralized, linear, and standardized – frequently fail to respond effectively to such complexity. There is growing recognition of the need for dynamic, adaptive, and pluralistic frameworks that embed governance within specific local contexts and engage multiple stakeholders across levels and sectors.

Public value creation produces outcomes that enhance a community's shared, place-based strategic resources. These outcomes typically emerge from collaborative policymaking involving both public and private actors, aimed at advancing core democratic values such as equity, accountability, transparency, trust, and social cohesion. Public value creation may require critically reassessing prevailing societal norms, enabling value shifts that support sustainable, context-sensitive collective well-being. Building on recent contributions, value in public services is created within complex, nested ecosystems shaped by both spatial ('locus') and cultural/social ('habitus') dimensions of place, where locus emphasizes the significance of physical, spatial, and geographic conditions, and habitus refers to the ingrained habits, dispositions, and modes of perception that individuals develop through their social experiences. In a place, both locus and habitus are dynamically interconnected.

Place-based strategy involves designing public service interventions that are contextually grounded in the characteristics of a specific area. It requires understanding the spatial, cultural, and institutional dimensions of a context, engaging local stakeholders, leveraging place-based strategic resources, and dynamically adapting strategies to the evolving needs of the community to enhance pervasive and sustainable value creation. Strategy is no longer a top-down prescription, but rather a co-creative, iterative process sensitive to local diversity and complexity. This approach may benefit from a dual perspective on value creation, framed as the interplay between 'inside-out' and 'outside-in' strategies. The inside-out perspective emphasizes strategy design driven from within public service organizations, prioritizing internal capabilities and goals, while the outside-in perspective places emphasis on the external context – social, territorial, and institutional – in which organizations are embedded.

While both inside-out and outside-in approaches to strategy design have been explored independently in the literature, a gap remains in understanding how their integration can produce deeper insights into public service value creation. Inside-out approaches risk overlooking the complex, evolving needs of the broader ecosystem, while outside-in strategies may underappreciate the organizational capabilities and constraints that shape public service delivery. Integrating these perspectives may allow for a richer understanding of how internal strategic intent, external societal demands, and territorial attributes interact, align, or conflict – enabling the design of more context-sensitive, adaptive, and democratically grounded public services.

Adopting an outside-in orientation supports the development of collaborative platforms as facilitative mechanisms of systemic, place-based value co-creation. These platforms foster theme-focused service ecosystems – such as those dedicated to sustainable mobility, urban design, or eco-innovation – which operate as meta-governance structures that allow distributed yet coordinated decision-making. These modular ecosystems support scalable and resilient development processes even when decisions occur outside traditional institutional frameworks. The design and implementation of collaborative platforms requires a deliberate and often iterative approach to governance and orchestration.

Value is not always created in public service ecosystems; poor design or delivery can lead to value destruction – a risk particularly salient in place-based settings. Understanding the dynamics of value-in-use (benefits realized during service use), value-in-context (value shaped by local circumstances), and value-in-society (societal-level outcomes) becomes crucial. A place-based approach emphasizes how these types of value are interpreted and experienced differently across communities, reinforcing the need for adaptive, participatory performance management systems.

Potential topics

• Frameworks for place-sensitive strategic planning in public services
• How public value (or dis-value) emerges within complex, nested ecosystems shaped by spatial ('locus') and cultural/social ('habitus') dimensions of place, including their role in strategy adoption and success
• Methods for enhancing collaborative policy design and implementation to address the inherent complexity of place-based ecosystems
• The role of local knowledge, culture, and beliefs in shaping strategy
• Interactions between 'inside-out' (organizational) and 'outside-in' (contextual) strategy perspectives, including if and how their integration may offer more comprehensive insights into value creation than when applied in isolation
• Synergies and tensions between internal capabilities and external demands in the co-design of public service strategies
• Adaptive and 'intelligent' performance management systems
• Indicators and metrics for value-in-context and value-in-society
• The role of citizen perception in evaluating public service outcomes
• How collaborative policymaking can generate value outcomes aligned with equity, accountability, transparency, trust, and social cohesion, and support shifts toward sustainable, context-sensitive collective well-being
• The dynamics of value destruction in public service ecosystems, including how poor service design, implementation, or governance may undermine place-based value creation and community culture, as well as strategies to prevent or mitigate such outcomes
• Collaborative platforms for cross-sector governance
• Orchestration of theme-focused ecosystems for modular place development
• Meta-governance and boundary-spanning leadership
• Governance responses to turbulence (e.g., COVID-19 case studies)
• Building robust, place-based public services through learning-oriented systems
• Interplay of formal/informal knowledge in ecosystem adaptation
• Digital platforms enabling citizen engagement and real-time data use
• Role of AI and digital twins in place-based ecosystem visualization
• Evaluating digital interventions for ecosystem development

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Special issue publication
• May 31, 2026: Deadline for abstract proposals
• December 1, 2026: Feedback from guest editors
• April 30, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Mirco Peron, NEOMA Business School

Ibrahim Kucukkoc, Balikesir University

Daniel Alejandro Rossit, Universidad Nacional del Sur

Ilkyeong Moon, Seoul National University

Olga Battaïa, KEDGE Business School

Michael Pinedo, New York University

Production planning has historically been a central pillar of industrial engineering and operations management. Since the mid-20th century, the field has developed a rich body of classical problems and models, such as lot sizing, job shop and flow shop scheduling, capacity planning, assembly line balancing, material requirements planning (MRP), and aggregate production planning. These models provided structured ways to allocate resources, balance supply and demand, and coordinate activities across production systems, often under deterministic assumptions and with objectives focused primarily on cost and efficiency. Linear programming, dynamic programming, and combinatorial optimization offered rigorous formulations and exact methods, while heuristics and metaheuristics emerged to address large-scale and computationally complex instances.

Over time, production planning research progressively expanded to address uncertainty via stochastic and robust optimization, multi-objective trade-offs (e.g. cost, service level, inventory, lead times), and integration across planning levels (strategic, tactical, and operational). Still, the focus remained on well-defined, structured problems and a relatively stable industrial context.

Today, however, technological, environmental, and societal shifts are reshaping the landscape of production planning. The rise of cyber-physical systems, IoT-enabled factories, advanced robotics, digital twins, additive manufacturing, and AI-based automation has disrupted the stability of traditional assumptions. These innovations have created new types of planning problems, characterized by more frequent reconfiguration, increased heterogeneity of resources, and the necessity of integrating multiple technologies and objectives.

Digital twin–driven planning enables real-time updates of plans and schedules, requiring adaptive and rolling-horizon optimization. Hybrid production systems, combining conventional and additive manufacturing, pose new challenges in sequencing, capacity allocation, and cross-technology coordination. Reconfigurable and modular manufacturing requires planning models that adapt to changing system topologies, dynamic routing, and flexible resource reassignments. Circular and sustainable production systems demand that environmental and social objectives be embedded in planning alongside economic goals. Resilience-oriented planning has become critical in the face of global disruptions, pandemics, and supply shocks, demanding strategies that balance efficiency with adaptability and robustness.

At the same time, innovation has not only transformed the problems but also the solution approaches. Whereas traditional production planning was dominated by mathematical programming and rule-based heuristics, the current era witnesses the rapid adoption of data-driven, hybrid, and AI-enabled methods.

Reinforcement learning and deep learning models are increasingly applied to dynamic planning and scheduling, such as graph neural network and RL architectures for scheduling problems. Hybrid metaheuristics combine classical optimization with machine learning models, surrogate functions, or decomposition techniques to tackle high-dimensional problems. Simulation–optimization coupling allows planners to test, validate, and adapt decisions under complex system dynamics, particularly in systems where analytical modeling is intractable. Multi-agent and distributed approaches enable decentralized planning in highly connected production networks, where local agents coordinate planning decisions. Online and rolling-horizon algorithms become critical when plans must be revised frequently, and incremental updating is required.

Despite these advances, major challenges persist. Industrial adoption demands bridging the gap between academic models and real-world constraints: data sparsity, computational scalability, integration with legacy systems (ERP/MES), and user trust. Decision-makers must also reconcile conflicting objectives: efficiency vs. resilience, speed vs. sustainability, optimality vs. interpretability.

This special issue seeks to collect innovative contributions that redefine the boundaries of production planning. We welcome papers that introduce novel problem formulations reflecting new industrial realities and innovative solution approaches leveraging modern computational, AI, and optimization tools. Both theoretical/methodological and empirical/applied submissions are encouraged, including case studies and empirical validation.

Potential topics

• Evolution of classical planning problems (lot sizing, capacity planning, scheduling, assembly line balancing) in modern manufacturing contexts
• Planning in reconfigurable, modular, and hybrid manufacturing systems
• Integration of additive manufacturing and conventional processes in planning
• Additive manufacturing production scheduling
• Digital twin–enabled planning and real-time adaptive scheduling
• Production planning under sustainability, circular economy, emissions or carbon goals
• Resilience-oriented planning under uncertainty, disruptions, and volatility
• Advanced optimization methods: decomposition, robust/stochastic models, metaheuristics
• Machine learning, reinforcement learning, hybrid AI–optimization for planning
• Simulation–optimization frameworks and surrogate modeling
• Production Planning problems associated with customized environments (engineering-to-order, make-to-order, mass customization)
• Human–robot collaborative systems and operator-driven planning in the context of Industry 5.0
• Reinforcement learning / deep learning models applied to dynamic planning and scheduling, (e.g., graph neural network and RL architectures for scheduling problems)
• Optimization of production and inventory strategies in modern distribution systems (e.g., e-commerce, platform-based logistics)

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Lorenzo Mizzau, University of Genoa

Leticia Labaronne, Zurich University of Applied Sciences

Katja Lindqvist, Lund University

Yeşim Tonga, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca

Cultural organizations, ranging from museums and heritage sites to festivals, theatres and media production houses, represent a vital component of the public sphere. Regardless of their ownership, legal status, and business model, many of these organizations pursue public missions: they produce, distribute, and safeguard cultural value, make accessible collective cultural resources, support participation and expression and sustain the creative ecosystems that enrich civic life. Cultural organizations can thereby be defined as public organizations, not only because they may receive public funding or other forms of governmental support, such as organizations that operate at arm's length, but also because culture is deemed a collective good, which makes these organizations interesting from a public management angle.

Cultural organizations are facing increasing pressure to rethink their organizational design, managerial systems, and relationships with their environment. Funding frameworks have become more volatile; governments are reconfiguring their financial engagement with culture through co-financing or project-based mechanisms; and expectations of accountability and demonstrable impact have grown. Meanwhile, digital transformation and AI-driven technologies are reshaping how culture is produced, mediated, and experienced. These shifts challenge traditional models of management, organization and governance of and for cultural organizations, raising critical questions about sustainability, legitimacy, and the evolving societal role of cultural organizations.

At the same time, cultural work itself is also changing. New collaborative models, hybrid careers, and digital production platforms demand adaptive organizational processes, new forms of coordination and control, a varied array of skills, learning needs and professional identities, and a leadership capable of balancing artistic freedom with social, environmental and economic sustainability. Cultural organizations thus provide a powerful lens for examining the changing relationship between cultural work and public commitment to culture, by analysing how managerial and organizational structures interact with public policy and governance frameworks.

This special issue explores how cultural organizations can sustain their public mission while navigating organizational, sustainability and technological transitions. Conceptual and empirical contributions are invited that investigate how it is possible to reimagine cultural organizations' managerial practices, organizational models, and governance frameworks in pursuit of their public mission.

Potential topics

• Managerial and organizational design, governance frameworks, and co-ordination in cultural organizations and cultural policy systems
• Digital transformation, artificial intelligence, and enabling technologies in the organization and management of cultural organizations
• Careers and work in cultural organizations, including changing work conditions, hybrid and digital work models, and professional development
• Human resource management, leadership, and organizational culture in cultural organizations
• Organizational learning, knowledge management, and capability development in cultural institutions
• Managing change, innovation, and transitions in cultural organizations and institutions impacting them in response to societal and technological disruptions
• Evaluation, accountability, and performance management in the pursuit of cultural and public value
• Public finance models, policies and programs: debates, changes, and effects on cultural organizations
• Social, environmental and economic sustainability, resilience and strategic management in cultural organizations

Timeline

• October 12, 2026: Deadline for research articles
• December 31, 2026: Deadline for debate and new development pieces

Kacy Kim, Bryant University

Junghoon Moon, Seoul National University

Lamberto Zollo, University of Milan

Riccardo Rialti, University of Siena

Food and beverage advertising has long emphasized nourishment, affordability, and convenience. Yet this perspective no longer captures contemporary consumption trends or the complex role of advertising. Many consumers adopt dietary regimes—even without medical necessity—as expressions of identity and self-esteem. Advertising reflects this shift by positioning consumption of "healthier" options such as gluten-free snacks, keto-friendly products, vegan substitutes, or diet beverages as lifestyle choices tied to self-image. Campaigns for plant-based milk, for example, highlight wellness and modernity, appealing to aspirational goals beyond nutrition. Beyond individual identity, advertising also conveys cultural and social values: halal- and kosher-certified products underscore cultural continuity, while fine wines, gourmet chocolates, and craft spirits are framed as markers of refinement and status. Increasingly, campaigns link food to place-based identity, such as agritourism promotions that emphasize heritage, authenticity, and local cuisine.

Shifting consumer priorities—driven by health, sustainability, and ethics—are reshaping advertising strategies. Nutrition-conscious messages highlight claims such as sugar-free, zero calories, or high protein. Simultaneously, there has been an increase in lawsuits being filed against food companies over health claims and regulatory scrutiny has increased. In this environment, more research on consumer response to health claims and the regulation of such claims is needed. In addition, updated research on the long line of work of health information on nutritional labeling is needed.

Indeed, research suggests that promoting healthier choices remains challenging: studies on default nudges in snack consumption show that while unhealthy defaults strongly influence decisions, healthy defaults often fail to shift behavior. Sustainability-oriented campaigns highlight packaging innovations such as reusable, recyclable, or biodegradable materials, while brands increasingly emphasize organic, natural, and farm-to-table authenticity. Initiatives addressing food waste, such as "ugly produce" subscription boxes, are also gaining traction. At the same time, brands showcase investments in robotic greenhouses and AI-controlled agriculture to signal innovation and environmental responsibility. Against this backdrop, ethical consumption is now seen through a critical lens. Consumers scrutinize health and sustainability claims while questioning whether advertising fosters transparency or risks "greenwashing" and "health-washing," raising concerns about how persuasion and responsibility should be balanced.

Parallel to these developments, advertising touchpoints are undergoing profound transformation. Traditional media are ceding ground to digital ecosystems that enable hyper-personalized, interactive campaigns. Food and beverage advertisers now engage audiences through TikTok and Instagram reels, AI-generated recipe content, AR/VR tastings, and phygital in-store experiences. Influencer marketing has become central, from Mukbang videos that offer vicarious eating satisfaction to celebrity chefs who shape trust and credibility. Campaigns increasingly feature AI–human collaboration, blending algorithmic efficiency with cultural sensitivity, while sensory strategies such as ASMR eating sounds and sizzling visuals immerse consumers in food experiences.

Beyond soundscapes and playfulness, visual symbols and anthropomorphic cues also shape perceptions; for instance, smiley faces in restaurant logos can trigger fast-food associations and reduce perceived healthfulness. More broadly, fun and playfulness remain central to engagement, with recent research conceptualizing "fun advertising" as predictable, creative, or wild, blending reality and fantasy in ways that resonate with consumers.

In this fragmented and ethically sensitive environment, one-size-fits-all campaigns are no longer sufficient. This special issue invites contributions that examine the evolving role of advertising, promotion, and communication in food and beverage marketing. We especially welcome work that addresses underexplored cultural and societal perspectives, as well as the role of advertising in stimulating pro-social behaviors such as reducing food waste, encouraging plant-based diets, and supporting sustainable agriculture.

Potential topics

• Sustainability and pro-social appeals in food advertising (e.g., eco-friendly packaging, plant-based diets, food waste reduction)
• AI and digitalization in food advertising (e.g., personalization, predictive analytics for targeting, generative AI in creative production, AI–human collaboration)
• Virtual influencers and AI-driven brand ambassadors
• Algorithmic bias, fairness, and inclusivity in AI-powered targeting
• Data privacy, trust, and consumer acceptance of AI-driven food advertising
• Influencer and social media advertising (e.g., Mukbang, celebrity chefs, and co-creation, live-stream commerce)
• Immersive and experiential food advertising (e.g., AR/VR tasting, hybrid in-store activations, branded pop-ups)
• Sensory and symbolic persuasion (e.g., ASMR, soundscapes, anthropomorphism, emojis, playful cues)
• Consumer behavior and psychology in food advertising
• Consumer identity, culture, and lifestyle in food advertising (e.g., dietary regimes, cultural and religious values)
• Aspirational and status signaling in food advertising (e.g., luxury foods, fine wines, gourmet products)
• Consumer response to nutritional labeling (e.g., interpretation of health claims, wellness framing, and persuasive effects)
• Ethics, responsibility, and transparency in food advertising (e.g., trust, greenwashing, health-washing, targeting vulnerable consumers)
• Regulatory issues in food advertising (e.g., advertising to children, health and sustainability claims)
• Advertising strategy and effectiveness
• Cross-cultural and global perspectives in food advertising

Timeline

• July 1, 2026: Direct submission window opens
• August 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Eunju Ko, Yonsei University

Teresa Sádaba, ISEM Fashion Business School, Universidad de Navarra

Carmen Valor, Universidad Pontificia Comillas

The luxury sector is undergoing a profound transformation, marked by complexity, volatility, and new societal and technological challenges. Traditional growth models show signs of fatigue, while institutional pressures push brands toward more authentic commitments to sustainability, ethics, and inclusion. Simultaneously, luxury brands face a rapidly shifting competitive landscape, with changes in global markets, consumer expectations, and technological innovation.

In this context, advertising is central to redefining the identity, desirability, and legitimacy of luxury brands. As Ko (2020) noted in a previous International Journal of Advertising special issue, the study of luxury advertising requires continuous theoretical and methodological renewal. Building on that foundation, this special issue seeks to advance conceptual, empirical, and interdisciplinary insights into how luxury advertising is being reimagined through artificial intelligence (AI), emerging technologies, influencer ecosystems, and sustainability. We especially invite contributions that explore the tensions between tradition and innovation, authenticity and automation, exclusivity and accessibility, and symbolism and data-driven personalization.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies are reshaping luxury advertising by enabling hyper-personalization, predictive analytics, and novel creative outputs. From generative content to immersive AR and metaverse campaigns, these tools extend luxury's narrative potential and promise new consumer experiences. Yet research highlights ambivalence in consumer responses: AI-generated advertising can appear inauthentic and misaligned with luxury's aura of craftsmanship and artistry. Success often depends on trust and perceived humanness, with consumers more receptive when AI is positioned as augmenting rather than replacing human creativity. This suggests that the integration of AI into luxury advertising not only offers opportunities but also introduces tensions that demand deeper theoretical exploration.

We invite research that advances theoretical and empirical understanding of how luxury brands can adopt AI without eroding symbolic value or authenticity. Relevant questions include how AI-generated avatars and chatbots alter perceptions of brand aesthetics, how predictive modeling balances personalization with transparency and privacy concerns, and under what conditions immersive technologies (NFTs, AR filters, metaverse campaigns) enhance rather than commodify the luxury experience. Current evidence remains fragmented, highlighting opportunities for deeper investigation of cultural, ethical, and aesthetic implications.

Influencers—whether human, virtual, or AI-generated—have become central to luxury advertising, shaping consumer aspirations and brand legitimacy across digital platforms. Their effectiveness, however, is contingent on credibility, authenticity, exclusivity, and cultural context, raising persistent tensions in luxury communication. While collaborations with influencers can amplify reach and relatability, over-commercialization risks diminishing attention, trust, and distinctiveness. At the same time, AI-powered tools increasingly influence this ecosystem—identifying influencers, generating personalized recommendations, and even producing content. These innovations complicate the balance between technological precision and the symbolic codes of luxury, highlighting an urgent need for systematic inquiry.

We welcome studies that clarify how different types of influencers—celebrity, micro, or virtual—shape luxury consumers' perceptions, and how effects vary across platforms, cultures, and generations. Key questions include how storytelling fosters parasocial ties, how authenticity can be preserved in AI-mediated collaborations, and how influencers interact with institutional pressures such as regulation and sustainability expectations. Advancing this line of inquiry requires not only testing effectiveness but also theorizing influence in a landscape where human creativity, algorithmic personalization, and aspirational symbolism intersect.

Research on sustainable advertising has yielded insights into framing, cues, and consumer responses, as well as unintended outcomes such as skepticism. Yet a decade after Taylor's calls for more research on green and luxury advertising, significant theoretical gaps remain. We lack guidance on how luxury brands can credibly design sustainability communications that align aspirational and ethical values. Progress requires moving beyond 'what works' to explaining why and under what conditions messages resonate, and examining both short- and long-term outcomes.

We invite research that reconceptualizes sustainable advertising as a mechanism not only for achieving marketing goals but also for advancing consumer well-being, social good, and environmental progress. Key questions include how to sustain consumer motivation post-purchase, what consequences follow eco-friendly luxury consumption, and how advertising can strengthen volition to bridge the intention–behavior gap. Emerging practices such as minimalist appeals and 'quiet luxury' illustrate pathways toward less materialistic lifestyles, but mainstream adoption remains elusive. Understanding which brand characteristics enable these shifts is an urgent research need.

Luxury's associations with craftsmanship, authenticity, and durability provide a platform for credible sustainability positioning. Yet tensions persist when practices such as recycled materials or fair labor standards conflict with luxury's symbolic codes of exclusivity. Future research should examine message strategies that integrate sustainability without diluting aspirational value and assess whether long-term equity gains offset short-term trade-offs. While much attention has focused on framing effects, higher-order execution formats—storytelling, branded content, interactive experiences, or influencer collaborations—remain underexplored.

AI, influencers, and sustainability are not independent forces but interdependent dynamics reshaping luxury advertising. AI-driven personalization transforms influencer practices; influencers amplify or undermine sustainability claims; and immersive technologies alter how consumers interpret exclusivity, ethics, and authenticity. Understanding luxury advertising thus requires integrative perspectives that connect these domains. We especially welcome interdisciplinary and cross-methodological submissions that bridge these themes to advance both theoretical and practical knowledge.

Potential topics

• How can influencers disclose data-driven targeting practices while preserving transparency and trust?
• How do AI-generated avatars and human influencers co-create content, and what balance sustains authenticity and aspiration?
• In what ways does AI-enabled personalization enhance luxury advertising without undermining exclusivity and symbolic value?
• How do AI-powered influencers and proliferating collaborations shape consumer trust, differentiation, and purchase decisions?
• How do platform-specific affordances (e.g., Instagram, TikTok, WeChat) shape storytelling, authenticity cues, and parasocial ties?
• How do different types of influencers (celebrity, micro, virtual, AI-generated) shape perceptions of authenticity, aspiration, and brand legitimacy?
• In what ways does the proliferation of influencer collaborations affect consumer trust, attention, and differentiation in luxury markets?
• How do AI-powered tools for influencer identification, personalization, and content creation alter the dynamics of luxury influence?
• How do influencers interact with broader institutional forces, such as regulation, ethics, and sustainability expectations?
• Under what conditions do sustainable luxury communications operate effectively, and why?
• How do sustainable advertising strategies influence consumers beyond purchase—shaping post-purchase satisfaction, long-term loyalty, and lifestyle adoption?
• How can luxury advertising integrate sustainability (e.g., recycled materials, fair labor) without diluting aspirational value?
• Which execution formats (storytelling, branded content, live events, influencer collaborations) most effectively balance marketing and societal objectives?
• How can luxury brands use communication to encourage minimalist consumption ('buy less but better') while maintaining aspiration and desirability?

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline for direct submissions to the International Journal of Advertising

Sanjay Singh, University of Dundee

Sateesh Shet, Northumbria University

Tanya Bondarouk, The University of Twente

Paresha Sinha, University of Waikato

James Duggan, Cork University Business School

The acceleration of digital transformation across industries has reshaped the nature of work and the workforce. In this evolving landscape, a new kind of employee has emerged, one that is digitally fluent, technology-enabled, and increasingly reliant on digital tools to perform, collaborate, and innovate. This digitally-savvy workforce brings with it a unique set of expectations, behaviors, and capabilities that are fundamentally altering traditional models of Human Resource Management.

As organizations navigate this shift, HRM must move beyond conventional practices to align with the realities of a workforce deeply embedded in digital ecosystems. The integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual collaboration platforms, and HR analytics is not only transforming operational HR functions but also reshaping strategic priorities around talent acquisition, workforce planning, performance management, employee engagement, and learning and development.

The significance of this transformation extends beyond technology adoption, requiring the need for redefining work design, leadership, culture, and employee experience in a digital-first world. The increasing demand for flexibility, autonomy, continuous learning, and meaningful digital interactions places HRM at the centre of driving organizational agility and future-readiness. Questions around digital equity, ethics in algorithmic decision-making, surveillance, digital fatigue, and the digital divide call for exploration and evidence-based solutions.

The rise of the digitally-savvy workforce marks a structural inflection point in the evolution of work and HRM. The digitally-savvy workforce encompasses a broader, cross-generational cohort of employees who have acquired advanced digital competencies through education, experience, or continuous upskilling. This workforce does not merely use technology, they strategically engage with digital tools, platforms, and data as core enablers of their work, collaboration, and innovation.

There is a critical gap in research concerning the mental health and well-being challenges unique to digitally-savvy employees in the workplace, such as digital burnout, blurred boundaries between work and life, and stress from social media. Furthermore, HRM has long been concerned with employee well-being, yet digitally-savvy employees' constant connectivity and digital-centric lifestyles introduce new risks that are underexplored in the literature.

For HRM, this presents both transformative potential and considerable complexity. On one hand, digitally-savvy employees are key assets in driving automation, agility, and innovation. On the other hand, their expectations for real-time feedback, flexible work structures, digital autonomy, and continuous learning challenge the static assumptions that underpin many legacy HRM practices. There is an increasing mismatch between the agility of the workforce and the inertia of HR systems still grounded in procedural and administrative logic.

While there is growing interest in digital transformation, there remains a critical gap in our understanding of how HRM can effectively align with and support a digital-savvy workforce. Issues such as workforce planning for digital roles, work design for tech-mediated environments, AI-driven performance management, and ethical concerns around digital monitoring remain under-theorized. Equally, the psychological impacts, such as techno-overload, digital presenteeism, and the erosion of work-life boundaries, are insufficiently addressed within the current HRM discourse.

This Special Issue seeks to explore these challenges and opportunities by reframing the HRM research agenda through the lens of digitally-savvy workforce readiness and transformation. It calls for contributions that examine how HRM can evolve to strategically manage and empower a digitally capable workforce while balancing human-centric values and organizational imperatives. Furthermore, it seeks to investigate the technological expectations that digitally-savvy workforces bring to the workplace, including their demand for flexibility, autonomy, digital communication, and purpose-driven work.

This Special Issue seeks to advance new theoretical contributions that reflect the shifting realities of HRM in the context of a digitally-savvy workforce. Contributions should foreground digital capabilities as core constructs in HRM theory and examine how the integration of digital technologies into daily work life reshapes the employee experience. Technological affordance theory, digital transformation theory, HRM systems theory, social exchange theory, ecological systems theory, and the job demands-resources model offer valuable frameworks for examining these issues.

A fundamental transformation is underway in how talent is managed across borders, driven by the growing presence of a digitally-savvy workforce. Across diverse international contexts, digitally savvy employees are challenging long-established HRM systems through expectations shaped by AI-enhanced workflows, platform-based collaboration, hybrid work models, and a heightened demand for flexibility, autonomy, and continuous development. These expectations are filtered through local institutional logics, labor market structures, and cultural norms, creating varying patterns of digital adoption, employee engagement, and HRM innovation around the world.

This call for papers seeks to illuminate how multinational organizations, international institutions, and global HR functions are reevaluating leadership, organizational culture, performance systems, learning pathways, and inclusion practices in response to the evolving digital capabilities of their workforce. As the digitalization of work becomes increasingly global in scale but locally embedded in practice, the need for comparative, cross-national HRM research becomes critical.

Potential topics

• Strategic workforce planning for the digital era, including forecasting digital talent needs, digital upskilling frameworks, and bridging digital skills gaps
• Work design for digitally enabled workforce, encompassing job roles in technology-mediated environments, digital flexibility, autonomy, work-life integration, and remote work impacts
• Emerging digital technologies and HRM transformation, including AI, blockchain, virtual reality, chatbots, intelligent automation, and HR digital twins
• Redefining talent acquisition for digitally-savvy workforce through social media recruitment, gamified assessments, AI in recruitment, and employer branding
• Performance management in tech-driven organizations, covering digital dashboards, algorithmic evaluation, surveillance, real-time feedback, and fairness implications
• Employee engagement and experience in digital workspaces, including digital platforms, AI-driven personalization, digital fatigue, and tech-enabled burnout
• Ethics, privacy, and surveillance in digital workplace, addressing algorithmic monitoring, employee autonomy, and ethical HR technology adoption
• Inclusion, equity, and accessibility in digital HR practices, focusing on digital exclusion reduction, neurodiverse talent support, and fair AI-driven decision-making

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Publication of Special Issue
• August 1, 2026: Manuscript submission window opens
• September 30, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline

Linda Tuncay Zayer, Loyola University Chicago

Jing Yang, Boston University

Shu-Chuan (Kelly) Chu, DePaul University

With the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, social media algorithms, robotic interfaces, and immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), the boundaries between technology, persuasive influence, and human activities have blurred. In this evolving landscape, the individual and collective well-being of consumers, as well as society at large, is increasingly at risk and warrants critical scholarly attention.

Consumer well-being is a multidimensional concept that encompasses individual and shared experiences, which can be manifested through cognitive, affective, and psychophysical states. Moreover, well-being is contextualized, with advertising holding the potential to enhance or diminish well-being at various micro, meso, and macro levels. At a broader level, societal well-being extends these concerns to collective equity, inclusion, and information integrity, highlighting how advertising technologies shape civic life, cultural representation, and public trust.

Emerging technologies such as generative AI have revolutionized how advertising messages are created, optimized, and delivered. While AI promises efficiency and personalization, research has also highlighted the risk of deception, diminishment of authenticity, and misrepresentation. At the same time, when human-AI collaboration is transparent and meaningful, it may enhance empowerment, creativity, and perceived control.

Robotic and embodied agents, such as in-store robots or voice-enabled AI assistants, are emerging as persuasive venues. These technologies can increase comfort and engagement, such as through emotional support, but may also evoke discomfort or distrust if perceived as overly human-like or manipulative. Their deployment raises new ethical questions about safety, accessibility, labor replacement, and the equitable distribution of technological benefits.

Examining the ethics and well-being impacts of social media platforms, drawing on advanced algorithmic targeting, is crucial due to the prevalence of deepfakes, misinformation, and extreme and misogynistic content. Although algorithms can enhance the relevance of information and increase efficiency and effectiveness, there could be negative results for consumer and societal well-being. Building digital literacy among vulnerable populations and diminishing the harms of social media must be a priority for future scholarship.

Immersive and metaverse advertising further redefines persuasion through embodiment and sensory engagement and holds sociological and psychological implications as well as new challenges to consumer well-being and consciousness. The heightened presence might enhance the learning and persuasion outcomes but could also result in consumer vulnerability if the ad boundaries or data protection are unclear. Ethical design, consent, inclusion, and transparency are crucial to protecting autonomy in such sensor-rich environments.

These transformations signal both opportunity and responsibility. This special issue seeks contributions that advance conceptual, empirical, and policy insights to ensure that innovation in advertising remains human-centered, ethical, and responsible and enhances well-being. All methodological approaches are welcome.

Potential topics

• Ethical implications of AI, social media, AR, VR, metaverse, and other emerging technologies
• Ethics and well-being related to AI companions, bots, and virtual influencers
• Personalized content generation and psychological manipulation concerns
• Algorithmic amplification of beneficial versus harmful advertising content
• Anthropomorphic design ethics and emotional manipulation through physical presence of AI/Robot
• Consent and autonomy in human-robot advertising/marketing communication interactions
• Parasocial relationships with advertising/marketing communication robots and their exploitation
• Consumer understanding and control of integrated AI advertising experiences
• Data sharing and privacy concerns across social media platforms and emerging technologies
• Building AI and digital media literacy
• Children's well-being related to AI, social media and new technologies
• Elderly consumers and potential exploitation through advertising systems embodied by emerging technologies
• Consumer involvement in advanced advertising system design and governance
• Professional ethics for AI-automated decision-making
• Deepfakes and synthetic media ethics in commercial contexts
• Synthetic data and digital twins in the advertising context
• Automation and replacement of advertising industry employees by AI
• Bias detection, measurement, and mitigation strategies across digital applications
• Bias and representational harms of AI-generated advertising and other emerging technologies
• Extremism, misogyny, and gender-based violence enabled by AI, social media, and emerging technologies
• Immersive storytelling, embodiment, and consumer well-being in hybrid digital–physical advertising experiences
• Sustainability issues related to the use of AI in advertising industry
• AI, energy consumption, and the carbon footprint of the advertising industry

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Bernie F. Quiroga, West Virginia University

Xuying Zhao, Texas A&M University

Oleg Gusikhin, Ford Motor Company

Andrea Matta, Politecnico di Milano

Yong Yin, Doshisha Business School

Professor Kathryn E. Stecke is an internationally renowned scholar whose pioneering work has profoundly shaped the fields of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs), supply chain management, and production planning. Prof. Stecke has dedicated her career to advancing research on manufacturing efficiencies, supply chain resilience, and innovative production systems, while also bridging the academic discussion between operations and marketing. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems and Operations Management Education Review. Her contributions have earned her prestigious recognitions, including being elected a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in 2009, of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) in 2017, of the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) in 2019, and of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA). She has also been the recipient of the 2013 WORMS Award for the advancement of women in operations research, and the 2008 George E. Kimball medal for recognition of her service to the profession of operations research and the management sciences, and was recognized also by her alma mater, Purdue University, with the Distinguished Woman Scholar Award (2014) and the Outstanding Industrial Engineer Award (2017).

Prof. Stecke's early work laid foundational methodologies for FMS, addressing critical challenges in machine grouping, loading, and production ratios to optimize utilization and flexibility. Stecke (1983), a seminal paper, developed nonlinear integer programming models and hierarchical solution approaches for part type selection, machine grouping, and resource allocation in FMS, providing a framework that has influenced subsequent optimization techniques in automated manufacturing. This article was recognized by INFORMS as one of 50 papers that represented the most significant research published in Management Science in the last half century in February 2004. Berrada and Stecke (1986) introduced algorithmic solutions for balancing workloads in FMS, influencing subsequent research on system efficiency. Stecke and Solberg (1981) explored routing and sequencing strategies to enhance throughput in dynamic manufacturing environments.

Over the decades, her research evolved to encompass supply chain disruptions and adaptive strategies. In Schmitt et al. (2017), winner of the Best Paper Award given by Omega in 2018, she examined resilient ordering policies to counter volatility, providing practical insights for multi-tier networks. Stecke and Kumar (2009) has been the most cited paper in the Journal of Marketing Channels for over a decade. More recently, Prof. Stecke has contributed to understanding innovative production paradigms like the Seru system, a cellular manufacturing approach originating from Japan that emphasizes reconfigurability and responsiveness. Her collaborations with Yin et al. (2017), winner of the Jack Meredith Best Paper Award given by the Journal of Operations Management in 2018, Yin et al. (2018), given a Best Paper Award by IJPR in 2019, and Li et al. (2025) demonstrate how Seru improves rapid response capabilities compared to traditional systems, such as the Toyota Production System, highlighting its potential for flexible manufacturing.

Prof. Stecke has also made significant contributions at the interface between production research and marketing, exploring how operational decisions interact with consumer behavior and market dynamics. Notable works include Zhao et al. (2016), which analyzes conditions under which advance selling strategies enhance profitability across supply chain partners; Zhao et al. (2012) examined optimal quotation modes for customizing lead times and prices; Prasad et al. (2011) investigated advance selling tactics for retailers facing demand uncertainty; Zhao and Stecke (2010) incorporated behavioral economics into pre-order strategies; and Stecke and Zhao (2017) integrated production and logistics for commit-to-delivery models.

This special issue celebrates Prof. Stecke's 75th birthday by inviting contributions that build upon, extend, or reflect on her legacy in production research. It aims to curate cutting-edge articles in active and emerging areas, serving as a focal point for discourse on flexible, resilient, and efficient production systems, as well as the intersection of production research with marketing. By honoring her trailblazing efforts, the issue seeks to inspire future directions in manufacturing and supply chain innovation, ensuring her influence continues to guide the field.

We welcome high-quality submissions, including empirical studies, analytical models, simulation-based research, case analyses, and conceptual papers that offer novel insights. All manuscripts should align with the journal's emphasis on rigorous, impactful research and incorporate key elements such as an exhaustive literature analysis, novel decision-aid models explained for a broad audience, comparisons with state-of-the-art methods, discussions on real-life applications, managerial insights, and research perspectives.

Potential topics

• Advances in flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs), including machine grouping, loading policies, and production ratio optimization for enhanced utilization
• Interfaces between production and marketing, including focal points such as advance selling strategies, pre-order mechanisms considering consumer behavior (e.g., loss aversion), lead time and price quotation modes, production-transportation integration in make-to-order systems, and competition/coordination in online marketplaces
• Reconfigurable production systems, such as Seru, for improving responsiveness and adaptability in volatile environments
• Supply chain resilience strategies, including adaptive ordering, disruption mitigation, and multi-echelon network design amid geopolitical and operational uncertainties
• Production planning and scheduling in capital-intensive systems with machine flexibility, focusing on hierarchical approaches and real-time control
• Integration of digital technologies (e.g., AI, digital twins, and data analytics) in manufacturing and supply chains to boost efficiency and cost control
• Empirical analyses of manufacturing efficiencies in sectors like semiconductors, automotive, and electronics, drawing on case studies of disruption responses
• Comparative studies of traditional vs. innovative production methods, such as Toyota Production System vs. Seru, with emphasis on performance metrics
• Managerial insights for decision-makers on implementing flexible routing, robot scheduling, and state-dependent sequencing in production environments
• Future perspectives on sustainable manufacturing, addressing global supply chain vulnerabilities and policy implications

Timeline

• March 1, 2026: Open for submissions
• October 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Valeria Giacomin, Bocconi University

Youssef Cassis, European University Institute

Jan Logemann, University of Göttingen

Chinmay Tumbe, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

Cities have long stood at the crossroads of business and globalization. From medieval market towns and colonial entrepôts to industrial metropolises and financial hubs, cities have mediated the flows of goods, capital, people, and ideas that underpin capitalism in the global economy. Urban historians have shown that cities emerged historically as centres of exchange and specialization, often linked to hinterlands through flows of agricultural surplus. Empires and colonial systems further embedded cities into international circuits as ports, administrative hubs, and commercial nodes.

Seminal work in global urban studies presented cities as nodes in world-spanning networks, structuring hierarchies of capital and connectivity. Global history showed how urban elites concentrated wealth, power, and influence, thereby shaping the material foundations and institutional infrastructures of global capitalism. Urban economics further investigated how agglomeration in cities created both opportunities and constraints, with scale economies, dense networks, and rising costs shaping business practices and organizational forms.

Business history has traditionally focused on firms, entrepreneurs, and institutions that expanded across borders, while the urban contexts that enabled and structured these processes have often remained in the background. Rather than serving as passive contexts, cities constituted the institutional and infrastructural foundations of global business. Viewed through the lens of business history, they were arenas in which firms and institutional actors structured, negotiated, and transformed the processes of global capitalism. At the same time, informal and hybrid actors, including bazaar traders, migrant entrepreneurs, and diasporic networks, leveraged urban density and connectivity to embed themselves in global circuits.

Histories of financial centres demonstrate how global cities such as London, Paris, and New York as well as small states or city states such as Singapore, Dubai and Luxembourg developed specialized institutions, practices, and reputations that anchored international finance. Studies of maritime transport and shipping reveal how port cities concentrated shipping companies, dockside services, and logistics infrastructure, making them indispensable to global circulation. Research on manufacturing, construction, and real estate further highlights how urban economies were shaped by industrial production and building enterprises, illustrating the long-term interplay between property markets, urban growth, and business development.

Urban hinterland studies show how the fortunes of firms and industries cannot be understood apart from their urban nodes. Comparative work on international entrepôts such as Singapore, Batavia or Bombay highlights how colonial and imperial cities functioned as organizing points for regional economies within wider global value chains. Expanding on these insights, this special issue invites contributions that engage with cities as business environments in a systematic way. Encouraging a genuinely global comparative perspective, the issue is especially interested in research on regions such as Japan, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America which remain underrepresented in existing scholarship.

By integrating case studies on a broad scope from across world regions and diverse historical periods, the issue seeks to contribute cumulatively to a comparative and theoretically informed understanding of how cities shaped business globalization. In positioning cities as central agents of global capitalism, the issue builds on existing literatures in business, financial, and urban history, seeking to connect and extend these fields through new empirical evidence and cross-regional dialogue. The issue intends to position cities as active, historical agents of globalization in business history.

Potential topics

• Cities as Nodes of Global Finance, Trade and Manufacturing: How did businesses use cities as hubs of commerce, credit, and investment in globalizing economies? What role did stock exchanges, banks, trading houses, and merchant guilds play in embedding global capital within specific urban contexts? How did these institutions transform cities into command points of globalization?
• Cities, Real Estate, and Global Investment: How did property markets and urban real estate development become globalized? From colonial land concessions and foreign-owned plantations to the rise of multinational property firms, how did investment in land and real estate shape the growth, form, and business dynamics of cities? How did flows of capital into real estate, from banks, funds, and transnational investors, transform urban space and embed cities in global financial circuits?
• Urban Infrastructures of Globalization: Ports, warehouses, transport corridors, and communication systems were often financed, managed, or operated by businesses. How did firms shape, invest in, and benefit from urban infrastructures that connected production and consumption across continents? Conversely, how did these infrastructures reshape urban space and labor markets?
• Migration, Informality, and Urban Globalization: How did informal markets, migrant entrepreneurs, and diasporic communities leverage urban density, mobility, and transnational connections to build alternative circuits of trade, credit, and labor that sustained 'globalization from below'? How did these actors navigate, shape, and transform colonial and postcolonial urban systems over time? In what ways did these resilient networks engage with or circumvent formal business institutions, adapting to and contesting existing hierarchies while transforming cities into laboratories of hybrid and transnational economic life?
• Resilient Cities: Crisis, Adaptation, and Environmental Change: How did wars, revolutions, financial crises, pandemics, or deindustrialization reshape urban hierarchies, and why did some cities adapt and recover while others declined? How did firms, investors, and local institutions respond to these ruptures, reconfiguring urban economies and spatial organization? What does a long-term perspective reveal about the intertwined dynamics of crisis, resilience, and ecological transformation in shaping global urban capitalism? How have urban business activities contributed to, and been transformed by, environmental change, from extraction and industrial pollution to pressures for sustainability and climate adaptation?

Timeline

• April 15, 2026: Deadline for extended proposals (800–1000 words)
• November 1, 2026: Full paper submissions through Business History Submission Portal
• September 1, 2027: Final revised papers due

Diogenis Baboukardos, Audencia Business School

Begoña Giner, Universitat de València

Ronita Ram, University of Reading

Frank Schiemann, University of Bamberg

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), originally adopted by the European Union in 2022, marked a landmark shift in corporate sustainability disclosure regulation. The intended developments regarding the scope of companies affected, the reference to the future European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) covering environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics, or the adoption of third-party assurance highlight central examples of how the CSRD was aimed at enhancing transparency, comparability, and accountability in corporate sustainability disclosure practices. At the same time, these changes also created considerable challenges for companies, assurance providers, and users.

In 2025, the European Union (EU) initiated an "Omnibus" package proposing amendments to the CSRD and the related Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), Carbon Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as well as a draft Taxonomy Delegated Act. These proposed amendments target, amongst others, to simplify the scope of companies affected, the reporting requirements, and the third-party assurance requirements. The Omnibus amendments aim at reducing the administrative burden for companies and maintaining their competitiveness. However, the ad hoc and short-term character of this process increased policy uncertainty and also led to criticism, not only because many companies had already started to prepare for the original CSRD and the related ESRS, but also because the planned reduction in the scope and the simplification of ESRS were perceived by some stakeholders as a threat that could undermine the leadership of the EU in sustainability practices and reporting.

This Special Issue invites manuscripts that explore various impacts of the CSRD on companies such as changes in corporate behaviour, internal processes, management systems, strategy formulation, or business models. Accordingly, the special issue welcomes original normative research that examines the original CSRD's provisions or the (expected) changes due to the Omnibus process. The issue also seeks research on the broader regulatory, institutional, and political dynamics shaping the development and adoption of the EU's sustainability disclosure regulation. Researchers are encouraged to focus on specific challenges of CSRD adoption before and after Omnibus as well as insights outside of the CSRD which have implications for its implementation.

Potential topics

• The role of CSRD/ESRS to fulfil investors and other stakeholders' needs and be a strategic mechanism to enhance Europe's competitiveness, resilience, and capacity for innovation
• Implementation challenges: Practical hurdles or burdens faced by companies in adopting CSRD/ESRS, including data collection, stakeholder engagement, and materiality assessment
• Benefits of the EU transparency disclosure framework: The economic, operational, and reputational effects of CSRD/ESRS implementation
• Interactions and alignment between ESRS and global frameworks: How ESRS aligns (or conflicts) with other frameworks, such as GRI or IFRS S1 & S2, and the implications, especially for multinational companies
• Regulatory, institutional, and political dynamics: Institutional and political forces impacting the CSRD's evolution, including the role of EFRAG and EU member states
• Sector-specific disclosure challenges: Unique hurdles and burdens faced by different sectors, such as finance, energy, manufacturing, or technology, in meeting CSRD requirements
• Implications of CSRD for audit firms and assurance providers: The evolving role of auditors, the requirements for the development of assurance standards, and the impacts of the CSRD/Omnibus on the capacity of the assurance market to meet demand
• Implications of CSRD for small and medium-sized enterprises and non-European companies: Direct and indirect effects of the CSRD/Omnibus on small and medium-sized enterprises and non-EU firms operating in or trading with the EU
• Comparative perspectives: Variations in CSRD implementation across EU member states, including differences in national enforcement
• Critical perspectives: Risks of greenwashing, standard overload, and compliance-driven reporting, as well as (threats to) the potential for the CSRD to drive meaningful sustainability outcomes
• CSRD impact beyond the EU: CSRD's influence on sustainability reporting regulation and practices in non-EU countries and its role in shaping global standards

Timeline

• September 1, 2026: Submission open date
• November 30, 2026: Manuscript deadline

Meena Chavan, Macquarie University

Christina Theodoraki, IAE Aix-Marseille University

Michelle Evans, University of Melbourne

Jane Menzies, University of Sunshine Coast

Anna Earl, University of Canterbury

Alex Maritz, La Trobe University

Bella Galperin, University of Tampa

Indigenous entrepreneurs worldwide are building ventures that intertwine economic ambition with cultural stewardship, together with sustainability and community well-being. These enterprises often act as engines of sustainable regional development even as they emerge from contexts of profound social, political, and economic marginalization. Many Indigenous communities continue to grapple with colonial legacies such as land dispossession, systemic exclusion, and racism that hinder their development. In the face of these historic injustices, Indigenous entrepreneurs have had to devise business strategies that double as acts of resilience and cultural survival.

Indigenous entrepreneurship is a global phenomenon, not confined to Anglophone settler societies. This Special Issue broadens the geographic lens to include insights from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and beyond. Pre-Columbian trade networks across the Americas show that Indigenous peoples engaged in extensive commerce long before colonial contact. Today, Indigenous enterprises in regions like the Andes, Amazon, Himalayas, Sahel, and Arctic carry forward these traditions, adapting them to modern markets. Examples range from Māori-owned film production companies in New Zealand and Maya ecotourism cooperatives in Guatemala, to Sámi reindeer-herding tech startups in Scandinavia and Maasai craft and safari ventures in East Africa, to music and dance companies in Australia. Across such ventures, entrepreneurs leverage deep cultural knowledge in diverse sectors.

Many Indigenous businesses are necessity-driven, launched to create livelihoods amid poverty or neglect, yet they also represent proactive efforts to assert self-determination. Rural Sámi entrepreneurs in northern Europe balance dual roles as cultural preservers and innovators. They offer traditional foods and crafts alongside high-tech services like GPS reindeer tracking and even video games based on Sámi folklore. These heritage-based enterprises foster community resilience. By integrating cultural values into business, they sustain their languages, arts, and ecological knowledge for future generations. Indigenous entrepreneurship is not just about pursuing profit under adversity but also about healing communities and revitalizing cultures.

Entrepreneurial activities are deeply embedded in specific socio-spatial contexts, shaping and being shaped by the places and communities in which they occur. Studies of rural entrepreneurship demonstrate how local embeddedness and networks enable opportunity creation in peripheral regions. Indigenous enterprises are often closely tied to particular lands, ecosystems, and social networks. Scholars have described such deeply embedded venture creation as 'entrepreneuring,' an embodied, collective process rather than a static economic outcome. This view aligns with broader understandings of the entrepreneurial process as socially constructed, involving social interaction, identity, emotion, and community practices.

Focusing on Indigenous enterprise brings issues of sustainability and socio-spatial justice to the fore. New ventures can promote not only economic growth but also social inclusion and environmental stewardship in their regions. Indigenous entrepreneurship exemplifies this integrative mission, inherently blending economic and social objectives. Yet the field of Indigenous entrepreneurship research remains emergent and fragmented, often confined to highly specific cultural contexts and a few geographic areas. This fragmentation calls for theoretical integration and broader comparative perspectives.

Many Indigenous entrepreneurs operate in marginal spaces, isolated reserves, and ancestral territories where formal infrastructure may be weak but social capital, cultural meaning, and local knowledge are strong. The notion of 'place-based entrepreneurship' is central: Indigenous entrepreneurs leverage deep connections to place as a resource for innovation and differentiation. Their ventures often aim to revitalize local economies while reinforcing socio-cultural ties to the land.

Indigenous entrepreneurship intersects strongly with sustainability and social enterprise themes. Many Indigenous ventures pursue a 'triple bottom line' of economic, social, and environmental goals. Indigenous entrepreneurs orient their ventures toward not just financial gain but also cultural and communal outcomes. These include stewardship of natural resources, intergenerational knowledge transfer, and community well-being, all crucial aspects of sustainable development. Many Indigenous businesses function as community-based or social enterprises at heart, redefining success beyond profit maximization.

Conventional entrepreneurship models often fail Indigenous peoples. These models have been described as suffering from 'cultural captivity' of entrepreneurship paradigms, and there is a need for approaches that embed entrepreneurship in community development and cultural continuity. The Special Issue pushes the theoretical frontier by challenging mainstream entrepreneurship and management theories to broaden into more inclusive, community-centric frameworks.

The political economy of Indigenous entrepreneurship must be considered within broader institutional contexts and regional innovation systems. Historically, many Indigenous businesses have been under-supported or even undermined by government policies, market dynamics, and external stakeholders. Power imbalances and marginalization have directly shaped entrepreneurial opportunities. Indigenous founders frequently face systemic barriers reflecting structural inequities. Many Indigenous ventures struggle with lack of access to capital and financing, exclusion from mainstream supply chains and markets, and misappropriation or theft of cultural products and intellectual property.

There is growing recognition that empowering marginalized entrepreneurs can transform regional economies and foster more inclusive growth. Cultivating Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystems can yield dual economic and social benefits in regions. By anchoring Indigenous entrepreneurship research in core conversations of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development on context, sustainability, and inequality, this Special Issue aims to enrich those discussions and advance Indigenous entrepreneurship as a field of inquiry.

Indigenous entrepreneurship has received limited attention in mainstream business research, often treated as a niche topic or viewed only through narrow lenses. Where it has been studied, research frequently centered on how extractive industries affect Indigenous communities or on fitting Indigenous businesses into existing paradigms. This Special Issue proposes a different framing: Indigenous entrepreneurship should be understood on its own terms, as a driver of innovation, resilience, and sustainability in regional economies. Indigenous businesses play pivotal roles in their local economies and social landscapes, and developing these ventures often requires novel approaches that integrate cultural values with enterprise development.

Many Indigenous ventures explicitly pursue social and cultural development objectives alongside economic goals. These objectives are inherently place-based: Indigenous entrepreneurs seek not only profit but also to improve community well-being and to act as stewards of land and culture within their regions. Māori filmmakers in New Zealand's screen industry balance commercial success with cultural storytelling, enriching both their industry and the region's cultural vitality. Indigenous enterprises in Australia integrate community development aims—education, health, employment—into their business models, and there is momentum toward building Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystems that support such dual goals.

Indigenous knowledge and practices are increasingly valued in fields like sustainable management, conservation, and corporate social responsibility. Indigenous approaches to land, water, and resource management offer valuable models for sustainability at the regional level. However, persistent concerns remain about cultural appropriation, exploitation, and the incursion of global markets on Indigenous lands and resources. Indigenous entrepreneurs often contend with globalization's negative impacts: extractive industries and supply chains that can erode local autonomy and harm sacred environments. Community artisans may struggle against cheap imitations of Indigenous crafts in global markets, and Indigenous farmers are sometimes displaced by multinational agribusiness.

This Special Issue will critically engage with the dilemmas facing Indigenous enterprises by examining how they navigate power asymmetries with external actors, protect their intellectual property and traditional knowledge, and assert forms of economic sovereignty. By doing so, it aims to advance Indigenous-centered entrepreneurship theory and frameworks that foreground ethics, equity, and cultural survival alongside conventional success metrics. The contributions seek to broaden entrepreneurship and regional development discourse by demonstrating how ventures rooted in Indigenous culture and community can drive sustainable, inclusive regional growth.

This Special Issue offers a platform for rethinking entrepreneurship through an Indigenous lens. Through a holistic view of Indigenous entrepreneurship, contributions will be both conceptually innovative and grounded in real-world relevance. The issue seeks to unite scholars, including Indigenous academics and allies, in advancing theories that better reflect entrepreneurial diversity and in spotlighting Indigenous experiences that have been too long on the margins of academic inquiry.

In line with the mission of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, the special issue will draw connections between micro-level entrepreneurial practices and macro-level regional outcomes, between historical injustices and contemporary innovations, and between local Indigenous knowledge and global sustainability challenges. The collected papers will demonstrate how Indigenous enterprises worldwide are crafting pathways to sustainable success—pathways that often differ from mainstream business trajectories, but which hold lessons for regenerating economies and societies far beyond Indigenous communities themselves.

This issue aims to be more than a collection of articles—it aspires to be a cohesive scholarly statement that Indigenous entrepreneurship is a vibrant field at the forefront of redefining success in business and development. By bringing Indigenous voices and examples from across the globe into the pages of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, this Special Issue hopes to enrich the journal's discourse and inspire future research that continues to bridge entrepreneurship with cultural equity, environmental care, and regional vitality.

Potential topics

• Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystems: The role of community-driven support systems—mentors, networks, institutions in sustaining Indigenous enterprises and contributing to regional economic development.
• Indigenous enterprise in CSR/ESG: Contributions of Indigenous businesses to broader sustainability goals. How corporations engage with Indigenous entrepreneurs through partnerships, supply-chain inclusion, or social procurement, and the outcomes for Indigenous communities for sustainable outcomes.
• Leadership in Indigenous enterprises: Leadership styles and communal decision processes (consensus, elders' councils, etc.) that align business strategies with Indigenous cultural values.
• Market expansion and authenticity: Strategies for Indigenous businesses to expand into regional or global markets (e.g., exports, e-commerce, tourism) while protecting cultural authenticity and sovereignty.
• Branding and storytelling: Building brands around Indigenous cultural heritage and place-based identities. Effective marketing of Indigenous products (art, fashion, food, tourism) in ways that share culture without commodifying it.
• Cultural appropriation and IP rights: Safeguarding Indigenous arts, designs, and traditional knowledge in business. Navigating intellectual property laws and creating protocols for ethical use of cultural heritage.
• Indigenous worldviews in business: Integrating Indigenous concepts such as relationality, reciprocity, or the 'Seven Generations' principle into entrepreneurship and management frameworks, thereby broadening mainstream notions of strategy, innovation, and value.
• Entrepreneurship education and capacity-building: Community-based training, mentorship programs, and university partnerships (e.g., the MURRA Indigenous Business Masterclass in Australia) that build Indigenous business skills and leadership, and their impacts on communities.
• Enterprise as self-determination: The rise of Indigenous micro-entrepreneurs, small businesses, and cooperatives as pathways to self-determination. How does this trend affect local employment, community empowerment, and economic independence.
• Technology adoption: The use of digital platforms, renewable energy, social media, and other Industry 4.0 technologies by Indigenous entrepreneurs in ways that align with cultural values. Opportunities created (global market reach, new innovations) and tensions or challenges faced in the process.
• Challenges and resilience: Creative solutions to challenges in Indigenous business development, such as limited access to finance (e.g., innovative financing on communal lands), overcoming market barriers and discrimination, and building resilience against shocks like climate change or pandemics.
• Indigenous women entrepreneurs: Roles and contributions of Indigenous female entrepreneurs to economic development and community well-being, including their leadership approaches and the specific hurdles they face.
• Policy and place-based development: The influence of regional development policies or place-based initiatives (rural development funds, cultural tourism corridors, special economic zones on Indigenous territories) on Indigenous entrepreneurship. How Indigenous ventures engage with, adapt to, or resist these policy initiatives in their regions.
• Global comparative perspectives: Comparative studies of Indigenous entrepreneurship in under-researched regions (e.g., Mapuche or Quechua enterprises in Latin America, tribal communities in Asia, Indigenous businesses in Africa) to broaden the empirical base and glean insights beyond well-studied contexts (North America, Oceania, Northern Europe).
• Culture-based enterprise models: Indigenous enterprise models centered on cultural preservation and continuity (such as artisan cooperatives, community-run ecotourism, Indigenous media and digital platforms) that serve as both custodians of heritage and drivers of sustainable development.

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Publication year
• December 1, 2025: Launch of call and submissions open
• February 1, 2026: Virtual Paper Development Workshop
• May 1, 2026: Virtual Paper Development Workshop
• August 1, 2026: Virtual Paper Development Workshop
• October 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Domenico Campa, International University of Monaco

Mary Vera-Colina, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Dan-Richard Knudsen, NHH Norwegian School of Economics

Aziza Laguecir, EDHEC Business School

Scandals involving accounting and financial reporting have continued to disrupt markets, organisations, and professional reputations despite decades of regulatory reform and intensified audit scrutiny. High-profile cases such as Enron, Parmalat, Wirecard, Carillion, and various audit failures involving major firms such as KPMG, EY, and PwC, have led to renewed public scrutiny of the accounting profession's role in safeguarding financial integrity. These scandals are not only accounting failures; they are deeply social, institutional, and moral events. While scholarship has advanced significantly in examining fraud and scandals from multiple perspectives, e.g. individual, organisational, institutional, and discursive, less emphasis has been placed on the preventive dimensions of accounting scandals: how they might be avoided altogether, what conditions foster a climate of integrity, and how internal and external actors navigate the terrain of ethics, accountability, and silence.

Although the accounting literature has been prolific in analysing fraud, most of this work has focused on the aftermath, i.e., on public disclosure, blame allocation, media framing, and regulatory responses. Prevention and early internal detection, by contrast, has often been confined to prescriptive or compliance-oriented discussions, such as strengthening internal controls, enhancing audit committee independence, or imposing more stringent legal sanctions. However, growing critical scholarship has highlighted the limits of these approaches, particularly in light of phenomena such as symbolic compliance, the normalisation of deviance, and organisational silence. The persistence of scandals in spite of reforms points to a deeper problem: a failure to engage holistically with the social and institutional processes through which fraud is produced, ignored, enabled, or resisted within organisations.

Organizational structures matter significantly in fraud prevention. Matrix organizations, characterized by dual lines of reporting and shared authority, may operate as preventative architectures against fraud. By dispersing power and decoupling supervisory authority from career advancement decisions, such structures can reduce the personal and professional costs associated with maintaining integrity. Employees embedded in matrix arrangements are often less vulnerable to pressure from a single authority figure, potentially lowering the incentives to comply with unethical directives. In contrast, more hierarchical structures, where accountability is tightly linked to singular lines of command, may heighten the stakes of ethical dissent, thereby increasing the cost of acting with integrity. Research on organizational deviance and corruption contagion suggests that flatter, more distributed configurations can mitigate the rapid diffusion of unethical behaviour, while centralized hierarchies may exacerbate risk by consolidating power and limiting internal challenge.

The role of auditors and certified fraud examiners (CFEs) has become a key area of concern. While auditors are mandated to act as independent monitors, their effectiveness in detecting or deterring fraud is often limited by client pressures, conflicts of interest, and narrow interpretations of audit scope. CFEs, who are trained to prevent and investigate fraud, often work in ambiguous roles that straddle compliance, risk management, and internal oversight. Their position is often undermined by power asymmetries, limited authority, or organisational inertia. Despite growing attention, we still lack in-depth studies that explore how these professionals operate in practice, how they navigate ethical dilemmas, how their interventions are received within organisational settings, and how their work is influenced by jurisdictional and regulatory conditions. For instance, in 2021, Norway updated its Audit Act to harmonize the national and international audit legislation, which notably expanded the responsibilities of auditors in the detection and prevention of fraud. Under the updated legal framework, auditors are now expected to play a more proactive role in identifying signs of corruption, financial misconduct, and irregularities during their audits.

A crucial yet under-researched avenue for prevention lies in the role of internal accountants, both financial and managerial, as potential whistle-blowers. Particular attention may be given to management accountants, who, due to their access to internal financial data, are uniquely positioned to detect and report fraudulent activities. Existing research has highlighted the psychological and professional risks they face when reporting wrongdoing, including retaliation, isolation, and damage to career prospects. These individuals are often caught between legal obligations, organisational loyalty, and ethical imperatives. Their decisions to disclose or remain silent are shaped not only by personal values, but also by institutional cultures, support mechanisms, and the anticipated responses of professional bodies. Whistle-blowing in such contexts is not a singular act but a complex, often protracted, process of negotiation, strategy, and resistance. Viewed through a broader socio-political lens, such acts can be seen as modern instances of parrhesia, the ancient Greek notion of speaking truth to power for the sake of the common good, despite personal risk.

Technological developments have further transformed the landscape of fraud and its prevention and early internal detection. The rise of digital finance, algorithmic decision-making, blockchain technologies, and platform economies has created new opportunities for fraudulent practices, while simultaneously offering tools for real-time detection, anomaly analysis, and automated monitoring. Yet these technologies also raise new ethical, organisational, and epistemic questions. Who controls the data? What biases are embedded in detection algorithms? How do these tools reshape professional responsibilities and institutional oversight? Critical accounting research has only begun to explore the implications of these shifts for fraud prevention.

This special issue welcomes a broad range of theoretical and empirical contributions that deepen our understanding of fraud prevention and early internal detection in accounting, with particular attention to under-explored institutional dynamics, emerging technologies, and the ethical complexities faced by professionals. Submissions may draw on a variety of theoretical lenses and methodologies and may be situated in diverse national, regional, or sectoral contexts.

Potential topics

• Role of auditors, fraud examiners, and other professionals in detecting or preventing fraud and navigating responsibilities in practice
• Digitalisation through blockchain, AI, and fintech infrastructures and how they redefine risks, opportunities, and challenges for fraud detection and early internal detection
• Organisational conditions and cultural norms that enable or suppress ethical decision-making in the accounting function
• Ethical and psychological consequences faced by internal whistle-blowers and how these shape decisions to speak up or remain silent
• Legal, organisational, and professional safeguards to protect those who disclose financial wrongdoing
• Lessons from failures to prevent scandals, particularly where early warnings were available but ignored
• How institutional settings and regulatory environments facilitate or constrain meaningful fraud prevention and early internal detection
• Role of communities and NGOs in disclosing information to prevent fraud and accounting scandals

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Expected publication date
• March 1, 2027: Submission opening date
• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Bingbing Ge, Lancaster University Management School

Hanqing Fang, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Alfredo De Massis, D'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara

Junsheng Dou, Zhejiang University

Winnie Qian Peng, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

This Special Issue aims to advance theoretical and empirical discussions on Chinese family businesses and entrepreneurial families by diving deep into them as contexts that challenge prevailing Western theories and as generative contexts for indigenous theorizing in family entrepreneurship. Scholarship has increasingly highlighted the importance of context in shaping entrepreneurial phenomena and emphasized entrepreneurship as a socially constructed process. Yet dominant frameworks in family business and family entrepreneurship—such as socioemotional wealth (SEW), agency theory, stewardship, and the resource-based view (RBV)—were largely developed in Western institutional and cultural environments characterized by individualism, contractual governance, and relatively liberal market economies. When these frameworks are applied to Chinese family enterprises, their underlying assumptions about self-interest, agency costs, governance logics, and resource valuation often prove misaligned, producing puzzling or contradictory findings.

Given Chinese firms' global importance, their distinctive development patterns are particularly salient in the current geopolitical context, where family enterprises sit at the center of international business while simultaneously adapting to uncertainties, trade frictions, and institutional turbulence. These dynamics underscore a critical theoretical challenge: do the concepts, relationships, and models embedded in Western theories hold when applied to Chinese family firms, or do they require reformulation?

This gap presents an opportunity for indigenous theorizing that takes the cultural, institutional, demographic, and geopolitical specificities of Chinese family enterprises as central explanatory mechanisms. Addressing this challenge is essential not only for advancing understanding of Chinese family enterprises, but also for broadening entrepreneurship and family business scholarship at individual, organizational, and institutional levels.

Chinese culture exerts profound yet often underexplored influence on entrepreneurial and organizational behaviors, shaping not only decision-making processes but also long-term strategic trajectories. Understanding Chinese culture amongst Chinese family entrepreneurship can lead to an understanding of counterintuitive business decisions. A refocus on families and practices provides opportunities to study cultural influence in-depth and provides more opportunities for indigenous theorization. Such contributions need to go beyond surface-level correlations to uncover the causal mechanisms through which cultural values, norms, and practices influence familial and business decisions.

Studies of family business succession often assume families select heirs to optimize competence, legitimacy, or continuity, aligning family goals with firm performance. In China, however, Confucian patriarchy redirects goals toward filial obligation and patrilineal continuity. The 'Fu Er Dai' stigma, commonly associating successors with overreliance on family wealth and a tendency to squander resources, undermines legitimacy irrespective of competence. The One-Child Policy eliminates sibling competition, making succession inevitable rather than strategic. These features reveal that family goals may be culturally prescribed and demographically constrained, rather than universally linked to specific dimensions.

Tradition is a central yet less focused concept in family business and entrepreneurship research, where family orientations interplay with business practices. Tradition, intertwined with Chinese culture, strongly impacts and leads to unique business behaviors and strategies. Chinese family firms frequently mobilize traditions, rituals, narratives, and historical legacies as resources, practicing 'innovation through tradition.' These resources derive value not from novelty but from cultural continuity, identity reinforcement, tradition, and legitimacy, expanding RBV assumptions about what constitutes valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable resources.

In Chinese family firms, Confucian role ethics and guanxi obligations often suppress overt opportunism while simultaneously creating new relational hazards—nepotism, reciprocal obligations, and political entanglement. However, such networks are complicated in their own right, combining several at times competing institutional logics, including familial, social, market, regional, national, and international. Decisions and strategies made by these family enterprises thus emerge not from contract enforcement but from navigating culturally-defined relational obligations.

Chinese family enterprises are entering a critical historical juncture. Legacies of privatization and the One-Child Policy have created unique generational dynamics, with many firms now navigating first-to-second generation transitions under conditions of social stigma and low succession success rates. At the same time, these enterprises operate amid escalating geopolitical tensions, rapid technological shifts, and intensifying institutional turbulence. These challenges make Chinese family firms not only economically significant but also theoretically generative, providing a natural laboratory for advancing new insights into entrepreneurial continuity, resilience, and adaptation.

This Special Issue calls for research that goes beyond descriptive accounts to theorize the causal processes shaping Chinese family enterprises. By foregrounding their distinctive institutional, cultural, demographic, and geopolitical conditions, we aim to generate contributions that not only deepen understanding of Chinese family entrepreneurship but also broaden the theoretical scope of family business research globally. We encourage multi-level, longitudinal, and mechanism-focused studies—empirical or conceptual—that can inform comparative theorizing across contexts. We welcome empirical papers (both qualitative and quantitative), conceptual papers, and literature review papers that shed light on family firms, entrepreneurial families, and family offices in the Chinese context.

Potential topics

• Indigenous Theorizing and Concept Development: Building indigenous theories rooted in Chinese cultural, institutional, and geopolitical conditions, drawing from Confucian ethics, guanxi logics, or dynastic continuity as explanatory mechanisms
• Entrepreneurship as Constraint and Renewal: Exploring how institutional and cultural elements such as filial obligation, demographic legacies, and social perceptions shape entrepreneurial succession
• History-informed research: Taking a history-informed perspective to understand entrepreneurship and family business practices, including innovation through tradition
• Regional Heterogeneity: Incorporating regional institutional heterogeneity as a central explanatory factor in family entrepreneurship across China's varied development models and cultural norms
• Purpose in Chinese Business Families: Theorizing Chinese family offices and their approaches to transgenerational wealth through multi-enterprise portfolios and informal arrangements
• Gender and Patriarchal Paradoxes: Theorizing gendered pathways of leadership specific to the Chinese context and female successors' roles in patriarchal traditions
• Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Communal Orientation: Understanding how cultural embeddedness shapes responsibility, CSR, and legitimacy in Chinese family firms
• Geopolitical Turbulence as Institutional Hybridity: Theorizing how family firms navigate global turbulence under conditions of institutional hybridity and restricted learning opportunities