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

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

Timeline

• January 15, 2027: Full paper 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

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

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

Timeline

• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• January 3, 2027: Submission deadline

Timeline

• 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

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• November 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Timeline

• 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

• August 31, 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

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

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

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

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

Giovanni Schiuma, Università LUM

Péter Baranyi, Corvinus University

Francesco Santarsiero, Università della Basilicata

Dagmara Lewicka, AGH University of Science and Technology

The intersection of Knowledge Management (KM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how organizations create, share, and apply knowledge to pursue sustainability. In this context, 'intelligent knowledge' refers to the management of knowledge systems that dynamically combine human cognitive capacities with advanced AI-driven tools and models to facilitate ethical, inclusive, and purpose-driven innovation. This Special Issue examines how intelligent knowledge management systems can enhance organizations' innovation capacity and align their efforts with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The convergence of Knowledge Management (KM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly recognized as a pivotal driver for advancing organizational sustainability in the digital era. In today's complex business landscape, organizations face challenges in developing intelligent knowledge systems—AI-augmented frameworks designed to support sustainable decision-making, foster innovation, and ensure strategic alignment with long-term value creation goals. The emergence of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) is transforming knowledge processes, enabling organizations to dynamically retrieve, synthesize, and apply knowledge to address complex sustainability challenges.

While traditional Knowledge Management (KM) has primarily focused on the systematic processes of creating, storing, sharing, and applying knowledge, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) introduces new dimensions of computational intelligence that enhance and, in some cases, automate these foundational functions. AI-driven technologies are increasingly supporting knowledge-based decision-making, thereby fostering the emergence of intelligent knowledge systems that can reason, learn, and act based on context-aware insights to promote sustainable and purpose-driven outcomes. Within KM theory, the enduring distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge remains highly relevant: while AI excels in processing and managing explicit knowledge, the challenge of capturing and leveraging tacit knowledge persists, particularly in enabling meaningful and ethical human-AI collaboration. Recent studies emphasize that AI should be viewed as augmenting, rather than replacing, human expertise in sustainability-oriented knowledge work, thereby reaffirming the centrality of co-creation within contemporary knowledge management frameworks.

The evolution of KM in the AI era thus calls for new conceptual models and dynamic strategies that can support knowledge environments aligned with long-term sustainability objectives. As organizations strive to integrate human and AI cognition into their knowledge systems, the ability to flexibly interact with and adapt through AI-generated insights becomes a defining capability for intelligent knowledge management. The impact of AI on organizational learning and strategic knowledge flows must be critically assessed from a sustainability perspective, recognizing that AI technologies can either enhance or threaten knowledge-based resilience and responsible innovation. Generative AI and machine learning models are reshaping the landscape of KM, revolutionizing how organizations capture, synthesize, and apply knowledge to create sustainable value.

While large language models (LLMs) and AI-driven knowledge repositories significantly increase the speed and scope of knowledge retrieval and decision support, they also introduce critical risks related to epistemic validity, algorithmic bias, and the sustainability of automated knowledge production. These challenges are especially acute when AI-generated knowledge informs decisions with significant social or environmental implications, where the accuracy, contextual sensitivity, and ethical integrity of outputs are vital for maintaining organizational trust, legitimacy, and long-term innovation capacity.

This Special Issue aims to foster a deeper understanding of how intelligent knowledge systems, powered by the integration of AI technologies, human cognition, and contemporary KM practices, are transforming the pursuit of sustainability, innovation, and responsible governance within organizations. We invite contributions that critically explore how human-AI collaboration can be harnessed to develop resilient, ethical, and sustainability-oriented knowledge ecosystems. Beyond conceptual and theoretical contributions, we particularly encourage empirical studies that provide evidence-based insights into how intelligent knowledge processes enhance sustainability performance, strengthen ESG strategies, and promote adaptive, long-term value creation. Given the transformative impact of AI on knowledge flows and strategic decision-making, special attention will be devoted to research that examines the capabilities, limitations, and practical applications of AI-enabled knowledge systems, including generative AI tools and large language models (LLMs), in advancing sustainable organizational practices.

Potential topics

• The design of intelligent knowledge systems integrating AI technologies and human cognitive capacities
• Reimagining knowledge management (KM) practices to align with ESG commitments and sustainable development goals (SDGs)
• Human-AI collaboration models to augment human expertise in knowledge work
• The transformative impact of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) on knowledge processes
• Integrating Human cognitive systems with AI-enabled technologies
• Human-based emotional knowledge and AI-based rational knowledge
• Challenges in Managing Tacit and Explicit Knowledge in AI-Enhanced Knowledge Management Environments
• Development of transformative leadership competencies for navigating digital complexity and fostering sustainable innovation
• Strategic knowledge intelligence approaches for building resilience, responsible innovation, and adaptive capabilities
• Democratization of knowledge access and support for inclusive value co-creation through intelligent knowledge systems
• Risks and challenges of automated knowledge production and ensuring the sustainability of AI-generated knowledge
• Governance models and policy frameworks to guide the ethical evolution of intelligent knowledge systems

Timeline

• January 15, 2026: Submissions open
• June 1, 2026: Review process on a rolling basis
• August 16, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline

Yasser Dessouky, San Jose State University

Masood Fathi, University of Skövde

Taha Arbaoui, INSA Lyon

Khaled Hadj-Hamou, INSA Lyon

Ming-Lang Tseng, Asia University

The global transition to net zero manufacturing is becoming increasingly urgent as industries face growing pressure from regulatory requirements, sustainability goals, and economic challenges. The European Union's Net Zero Industry Act has set ambitious targets to accelerate the adoption of clean technologies, aiming to ensure that at least 40 percent of the EU's annual deployment needs for strategic net zero technologies are met domestically by 2030. These efforts align with broader global sustainability initiatives, particularly the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) and Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), both of which emphasize sustainable industrialization and efficient use of resources.

Turning these commitments into effective industrial strategies requires an integrated approach that combines circular economy principles with intelligent production systems. Net zero manufacturing builds on related concepts such as emission reduction and decarbonization but also extends beyond them. While emission reduction focuses on limiting greenhouse gas emissions through specific actions, and decarbonization involves shifting to low or zero-carbon technologies and energy sources, the net zero approach brings these elements together and also addresses remaining emissions through removal or offset strategies. It represents a more holistic and goal-driven framework that demands not only technological advancement but also a fundamental redesign of value chains, production systems, and lifecycle strategies to create a balanced and sustainable industrial future.

Smart production and operations play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between strategic ambition and practical implementation of net-zero manufacturing. It encompasses a broad set of interconnected technologies and practices that enhance the responsiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of manufacturing systems. Drawing on the foundations of Industry 4.0, smart production integrates digitalization, automation, advanced analytics, and intelligent control to enable real-time monitoring, adaptive operations, and informed decision-making across the value chain. Rather than relying on a single solution, it leverages a synergistic mix of technological tools to improve transparency, traceability, and resource efficiency.

Another significant enabling mechanism in achieving net-zero manufacturing is the decarbonization of industrial supply chains. Supply chains contribute substantially to total emissions, making it critical to implement strategies that reduce carbon footprints while maintaining operational efficiency and competitiveness. Integrating circular economy principles with Industry 4.0 technologies is another critical step toward sustainable manufacturing. Closed-loop systems have been shown to reduce material waste and improve resource utilization, offering a pathway to greater sustainability. Moreover, AI-driven predictive analytics plays a vital role in optimizing energy use, minimizing material waste, and dynamically adjusting production in response to environmental and operational constraints. Several studies also highlight the role of decision-making frameworks that account for carbon pricing policies and regulatory instruments in shaping carbon-efficient production strategies.

This special issue seeks to present cutting-edge research and real-world applications that demonstrate how circular economy strategies and smart production technologies contribute to achieving net-zero manufacturing. We welcome contributions that explore emerging technologies, interdisciplinary approaches, and system-wide transformation frameworks that facilitate the transition to climate-neutral industrial operations. By fostering deeper insights into these enabling factors, this issue aims to provide actionable strategies for building a more sustainable and resilient manufacturing sector.

Potential topics

• Closed-loop supply chains and waste reduction initiatives for low-carbon and climate-resilient manufacturing
• Industry 4.0-enabled smart operations for net-zero manufacturing transformation
• Life-cycle assessment of sustainable manufacturing processes
• AI-driven optimization for energy-efficient production
• Big data analytics and decision support for carbon footprint reduction
• Renewable energy integration into industrial production systems
• Electrification of industrial processes for carbon neutrality
• AI-powered energy forecasting and optimization in manufacturing
• The impact of carbon pricing and regulatory policies on production systems
• Economic incentives and financial mechanisms for green manufacturing
• Cross-sectoral collaboration for achieving net-zero industry goals
• Policy-driven roadmaps for industrial decarbonization
• Multi-criteria decision-making for net-zero manufacturing strategy development

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline

The global food system is undergoing profound transformation driven by growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss, animal welfare, public health, and the long-term sustainability of livestock-based production models. Against this backdrop, alternative proteins, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, insect-based products and novel dairy substitutes, have emerged as promising pathways for addressing environmental pressures while meeting evolving consumer expectations for ethical, healthy and sustainable diets. Although consumer research on these products has expanded rapidly, a comprehensive understanding of how alternative proteins reshape the broader agrifood system remains limited. Existing studies often address consumption, production, regulation, and socio-cultural dynamics in isolation, leaving significant knowledge gaps regarding value-chain restructuring, producer adoption, economic feasibility, and governance.

This Special Issue invites contributions exploring the rapidly evolving landscape of alternative protein-rich food systems, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, insect-based foods, and alternative dairy products, within the broader contexts of animal welfare, sustainability, production systems, and socio-cultural adoption. In addition to the substantial body of consumer research in this area, this Special Issue seeks to broaden the analytical lens to encompass upstream and system-level perspectives. The way in which individuals and the system interact in practice remains insufficiently understood. We therefore invite studies that address the central question: How can system- and individual-level perspectives be integrated?

Contributions may examine how production systems for cultured meat or insect farming align with animal-welfare standards; how farmers and agribusinesses evaluate and manage the economic feasibility of shifting to new forms of protein production; how certification, labelling, and regulatory regimes enable or constrain market access; and how consumers' willingness to pay and trust dynamics interact with supply-chain development and broader food-system transitions. The overarching goal is to gain more insights in the dynamics of individual versus system-level transitions, and thereby bring together interdisciplinary research that connects consumption and production with governance, economic incentives, ethics, and sustainability, thereby advancing a more holistic understanding of the pathways, trade-offs and system-wide consequences associated with emerging alternative-protein futures.

All invited contributions should reflect on the main question from different perspectives and include a detailed policy section, as this is identified as an often neglected area and is especially relevant in the context of individual and system-level transitions.

The Special Issue reflects on topical issues of individual-level versus system-level dynamics from a wide range of perspectives. By inviting a broad range of perspectives on a shared question, the aim is to gain deeper insights into this challenging area and clarify how individual decision-making can be conceptually linked to system-level dynamics such as regulations, policies and social norms, and how these interactions can be leveraged to accelerate the protein transition.

The Special Issue encourages contributions that examine both the demand side (e.g., consumer acceptance, preferences, willingness to pay) and the supply side (e.g., production decisions, farm-level constraints, cost structures, supply-chain coordination). This will support a more complete understanding of how alternative proteins are produced, marketed, and adopted in practice.

The Issue will support empirical and theoretical work assessing how alternative-protein technologies and new value-chain configurations affect environmental footprints, land use, resource efficiency, biodiversity, and animal welfare, including assessments that compare conventional and emerging production models.

The Issue aims to examine how regulatory frameworks, certification and labeling regimes, governance structures, cultural narratives, and stakeholder values enable or constrain transitions toward alternative-protein systems.

We encourage contributions analysing cost structures, scalability, investment incentives, price and market formation, supply-chain coordination, and producer decision-making as alternative proteins expand.

The Issue welcomes robust methodological diversity, including discrete-choice experiments, mixed-methods studies, socio-economic modelling, comparative case studies, life-cycle and material-flow analyses, longitudinal adoption studies, and policy and stakeholder analysis, particularly in under-researched regions and production contexts.

The Issue will offer evidence to guide policy-makers, agrifood industry stakeholders, producer organisations and civil-society actors engaged in sustainable protein transitions and animal-welfare reform through actionable insights for policy and practice.

We invite a curated collection of original empirical research, comparative analyses, conceptual and theoretical papers, systematic reviews and in-depth case studies that align with the thematic focus and reflect the interdisciplinary scope, particularly in relation to consumer choice, market and value-chain dynamics, sustainability, production systems, and food-system innovation.

Potential topics

• Consumer acceptance, preferences, and willingness to pay for alternative meats and dairy products
• Farm-level decision-making and economic feasibility of adopting alternative-protein production systems
• Sustainability, environmental and life-cycle assessments of alternative protein supply chains
• Regulatory frameworks, certification, labelling, and standards for emerging protein products
• Cultural, ethical, and societal narratives shaping acceptance and legitimacy
• Communication, trust-building, and transparency strategies across the supply chain

Timeline

• November 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscript submissions

Social marketing has long been positioned as a discipline capable of improving societal wellbeing by applying marketing principles to influence behaviour in socially beneficial ways. Early contributions that imagined marketing being used beyond the commercial realm laid the foundation for the field's formal emergence in the early 1970s. Over the decades, social marketing has advanced its understanding of how to encourage and sustain behaviour change, yet the contemporary landscape presents challenges of a fundamentally different scale.

Increasing environmental degradation, climate instability, resource pressures, and persistent social inequities highlight the need for social marketing approaches capable of addressing system-wide issues. While behaviour remains a central concern, scholars have argued that meaningful progress requires attention to macro-level structures and the dynamic interactions among actors, networks, institutions, and infrastructures. Social marketing is therefore being called upon not merely to promote individual behaviour change, but to support the creation of sustainable futures through coordinated, multi-level forms of change.

This shift has been accompanied by growing engagement with systems-oriented and impact-focused frameworks that seek to guide, justify, and evaluate social marketing's contribution to sustainability transitions. These include macro and systems social marketing perspectives, emerging governance-oriented impact frameworks, and theory-driven approaches, which collectively emphasise public value creation, institutional change, and societal wellbeing. At a global level, these perspectives also align social marketing with broader sustainability agendas, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, positioning the discipline as a contributor to long-term environmental, social, and economic resilience rather than short-term behavioural outcomes alone.

This Special Issue provides an opportunity to advance this conversation by showcasing cutting-edge research, conceptual development, and methodological innovation. We welcome work that critically examines social marketing's evolving role in shaping environmental, social, and economic sustainability, and that considers how the field can contribute to societal transitions during a period of intense global uncertainty. We encourage conceptual and empirical papers, including qualitative and quantitative research.

Potential topics

• Critical reviews of social marketing's development and its relevance to sustainability
• Conceptual and theoretical contributions linking social marketing to sustainable futures
• Social marketing and its application to addressing environmental and social challenges
• Systems social marketing and multi-actor, multi-level approaches to sustainability
• Social marketing models and frameworks for climate action, circular economy, waste reduction, and resource stewardship
• Social marketing interventions promoting sustainable consumption and production
• Community-based social marketing and collective approaches to sustainable behaviour change
• Social marketing supporting policy development, institutional change, and governance for sustainability
• Ethical considerations in sustainability-focused social marketing, including autonomy, power, and representation
• Social marketing communication strategies for sustainability, including narrative, identity, and social norms
• Digital, AI-enabled, and technology-supported social marketing for sustainable behaviour change
• Segmentation and audience insight for sustainability-oriented social marketing
• Evaluation and measurement of social marketing's societal impact in sustainability contexts
• Social marketing applications in public health that intersect with sustainable futures
• Social marketing for prevention, long-term behaviour maintenance, and resilience-building
• Branding, value creation, and market-shaping activities within social marketing for sustainability
• Cross-cultural and international challenges in social marketing for sustainable futures

Timeline

• October 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission

Umesh Sharma, University of Waikato

Chris Akroyd, University of Waikato

Yuki Guo, University of Auckland

Leanne Johnstone, Orebro University School of Business

This special issue seeks to advance understanding of how management accounting is evolving in response to digitalisation, sustainability challenges, and ongoing organisational transformation. In recent years, rapid technological developments—including data analytics, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms—have fundamentally reshaped organisational information systems and decision-making processes. At the same time, organisations face increasing pressure to respond to climate change, environmental degradation, and broader socio-economic challenges. These developments are redefining expectations of management accounting, extending its role beyond traditional financial control toward supporting sustainable value creation and long-term organisational resilience.

While prior research has examined management accounting change through institutional and organisational lenses, comparatively limited attention has been paid to the interconnected effects of digitalisation, sustainability, and organisational adaptation. This special issue addresses this gap by exploring how management accounting practices are being reshaped at the intersection of these forces. In doing so, it aims to provide a more integrated understanding of how management accounting evolves in increasingly complex and uncertain environments. The issue particularly emphasises qualitative research, enabling rich, context-sensitive insights into organisational processes, practices, and transformations. Only qualitative research articles will be accepted for the articles to proceed to the review process.

The contributions to this special issue will extend both theoretical and empirical knowledge in several important ways. First, they will deepen existing frameworks of management accounting change by incorporating the influence of digital technologies and sustainability imperatives. Second, by drawing on evidence from diverse institutional and geographical contexts, the issue will offer comparative insights into how organisations respond to regulatory pressures, technological disruption, and environmental uncertainty. Third, it will contribute to the growing literature on sustainability accounting by demonstrating how management accounting tools and practices can support organisational alignment with broader societal objectives.

The topicality of this special issue is underscored by the significant transformations currently shaping the field. Digital technologies are not only enhancing the availability and timeliness of data but are also changing how information is interpreted and used within organisations. At the same time, increasing regulatory and societal expectations are compelling organisations to integrate environmental and social considerations into their performance measurement and control systems. Despite these developments, there remains limited empirical evidence on how organisations internally adapt their management accounting practices to address these dual pressures. This special issue is therefore timely in documenting emerging practices, innovations, and organisational responses across different contexts.

Importantly, the special issue also addresses pressing societal challenges, particularly those related to sustainability and climate change. Management accounting has a critical role to play in enabling organisations to measure, monitor, and manage environmental impacts, including carbon emissions, resource use, and ecological risks. In this regard, the issue aligns closely with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and SDG 15 (Life on Land). By examining how accounting practices evolve to incorporate sustainability considerations, the special issue highlights the potential of management accounting to contribute to responsible resource management and sustainable organisational transformation.

Overall, this special issue brings together timely and relevant research that enhances our understanding of management accounting in a rapidly changing world, offering valuable insights for both scholars and practitioners.

Potential topics

• Digitalisation, analytics, and AI in management accounting
• Sustainability, Environment, Social and Governance, and its implications for management accountants
• New planning models - beyond budgeting and adaptive control
• Accounting for strategy, value creation, and business model transformation
• Platforms, ecosystems, and interorganisational control
• Behavioural and cultural transformation
• The changing role of management accounts
• Governance, ethics, and the politics of measurement
• Accounting change in the public sector, health, education, and social purpose organisations
• Risk, resilience, and crisis-driven transformation
• Emerging economies, indigenous contexts, and local forms of accounting and control
• Methods for studying transformation

Timeline

• November 1, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• March 1, 2027: Closing date for manuscripts submission

This special issue aims to advance scholarly knowledge on how multinational enterprises (MNEs) form international partnerships to create social value. Research in multinational business scholarship has examined the international activities of MNEs in addressing the broader sustainability agenda. However, there remains limited understanding of the specific challenges, tensions, and opportunities MNEs face when engaging in multi-stakeholder international partnerships for social value creation. Given the increasing centrality of such partnerships in global sustainability efforts, addressing this gap is both timely and important. The motivation for this special issue is to advance new theoretical and empirical knowledge into how MNEs' international partnerships enable social value creation.

MNEs often form partnerships to expand into foreign markets; however, their roles in creating social value for multiple stakeholders remains largely underexplored. Multi-stakeholder partnerships are complex phenomena due to varying stakeholder expectations and underlying institutional complexities and differences. Such partnerships can serve as catalysts for social value creation given the complex nature of social problems, which are often too protracted to be addressed through unilateral organizational actions and capabilities. Hence, it is important to develop knowledge on how MNEs navigate the complexities of partnerships and institutional differences in the pursuit of social value creation.

MNEs' role in inter-organizational partnerships has been noted as important for creating value for multiple stakeholders. However, different types of partnerships (e.g., equity vs non-equity) may provide different pathways for generating social value. Such partnerships are well recognized for enabling access to partners' valuable knowledge and capabilities, thereby supporting innovation development. Prior studies have mainly considered the role of inter-organizational partnerships in cross-border supplier development, technological knowledge transfer, organizational learning and firm growth, and achieving strategic goals within partnership arrangements. Whilst recent studies have begun to highlight firms' potential to create social value through relationships within communities and cooperatives, much less is known about how different forms of inter-organizational partnerships and the multiple stakeholders involved across diverse institutional environments contribute to social value creation.

MNEs commonly form non-market partnerships in international markets for purposes such as gaining legitimacy. However, what remains largely overlooked in the international business literature are the comparative opportunities and challenges associated with non-market versus market-based international partnerships in MNEs' social value creation processes. Multinationals must learn to cooperate in order to address global societal problems. In the context of grand societal challenges, MNEs can engage in international social alliances. Building on this line of inquiry, studies can generate new knowledge on what, where, and how MNEs' international cooperation and partnerships contribute to societal well-being and value creation for multiple stakeholders.

Social problems are increasingly complex, potentially creating new dynamics in cross-border partnerships and tensions in achieving social value creation objectives. These complexities open several promising avenues for contributing to the international business literature. For example, studies could examine the role of international alliance management capabilities as well as the structures and configurations of international partnerships, given that prior literature has primarily examined these aspects in the context of economic value creation. Furthermore, scholars can advance theoretical understanding by exploring the strategic attributes of different types of international partnerships in understanding how partner resource scope, alliance portfolio size, and social network power facilitate social value creation. In addition, research could examine when and how contractual clauses in international partnerships create complexities or, alternatively, support the achievement of social value creation goals.

In creating value for a particular society, partnerships may require certain dynamic capabilities, such as sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring in finding novel solutions to complex social problems. Research could examine partners' possession of dynamic capabilities (e.g., distinctive resources), capability deployment (e.g., resource allocation), and capability upgrading (e.g., dynamic learning). International cooperative alliances and joint ventures may also serve as mechanisms for developing organizational agility in addressing social problems, enabling timely and effective responses. Accordingly, these aspects provide valuable avenues for advancing knowledge on how MNEs leverage dynamic capabilities within international partnerships to create social value.

Any concrete organizational form can be understood as an adaptive social structure in which the purpose of cooperation must be clearly defined. MNEs' international partnerships align with this perspective, as economic motives are often embedded within these relationships. However, the social purpose of MNEs in the context of multi-stakeholder international partnerships remains understudied. MNEs face institutional pressure in fulfilling their social responsibilities; consequently, there is a need to explore how institutional-level factors, MNE-level dynamics, and multi-stakeholder-specific challenges and opportunities influence social value creation.

Resources, capabilities and strategies can be aligned with and directed towards a corporate purpose. While research has recently focused on social purpose organizations, there remains limited understanding on how social (re)purpose in international partnerships facilitates social value creation. Social purpose must be clearly understood and effectively communicated to stakeholders. From this perspective, there is a valuable opportunity to investigate how social purpose can be integrated across upstream (e.g., production processes) and downstream (e.g., marketing processes) activities and partners within the global value chain.

Another central area for scholarly attention is partnerships across different markets and institutional settings. While existing literature has examined the opportunities and challenges in multi-partner alliances, there remains limited understanding of how alliances and ventures originating from different countries—compared to domestic alliances—facilitate or complicate social value creation in particular markets. The special issue also provides an opportunity to explore the role of prevailing institutions in international markets in supporting social value creation through partnerships. In this context, scholars can investigate the nature and consequences of institutional frictions—such as ignorance, sensemaking challenges, and lack of responsiveness—that may arise in social value creation via partnerships and how these challenges can be addressed. Furthermore, the efficacy of home and host institutional support, institutional configuration and voids, and political connections can be examined in facilitating and hindering social value creation processes in the context of MNEs' international partnerships.

In line with the aim and scope of the Multinational Business Review, we invite submissions that present new or counterintuitive findings on MNEs' international partnerships in creating social value—particularly insights that have not yet been addressed, examined, or resolved in the existing literature. We welcome empirical studies that provide new perspectives, advance, or challenge existing theories and their underlying assumptions, and demonstrate methodological rigor. Submissions that adopt a multidisciplinary approach are particularly encouraged.

Potential topics

• Which types of societal problems (e.g., poverty, food insecurity, public health) are best addressed through MNEs' international partnerships, and which forms of partnerships are most effective in tackling these problems and generating social value?
• How do MNEs' international and domestic partnerships create value for multiple stakeholders and communities?
• Under what circumstances do MNEs' international partnerships produce unequal social outcomes, and what social benefits—such as enhanced legitimacy—do they provide to participating firms?
• Are there limits to the types of social challenges that MNEs' international partnerships, or specific forms of such partnership, can effectively address?
• What inter-partner challenges arise in pursuing social value creation across cross-border settings, and how can these challenges be effectively managed?
• What internal and external drivers motivate MNEs to establish international partnerships for social value creation, and what are the boundary conditions that determine the effectiveness of these partnerships?
• Which dynamic capabilities are necessary for social value creation that can be developed through, or leveraged in, international partnerships, and how do these capabilities vary across different partnership types (e.g., equity vs. non-equity alliances, horizontal vs. vertical social alliances, and international joint ventures)?
• How can social purpose be integrated in MNEs' upstream (e.g., production) and downstream (e.g., marketing) value chain activities, and what roles do value-chain partners play, including the associated challenges and opportunities, in this process?
• What are the nature and consequences of institutional frictions that arise in social value creation through MNEs' international partnerships, and how can these challenges be effectively addressed?
• What roles do home and host market institutions play in facilitating MNEs' international partnerships for social value creation?
• What industry- or country-specific factors influence MNEs' multi-partner and cross-border social alliances?
• In the context of international partnerships involving platform firms and digital ecosystems, what unique challenges and opportunities do multi-sided networks present for MNEs in creating social value?
• How do governance structures and decision-making processes in MNEs' international partnerships influence the trade-offs between economic and social value creation?

Timeline

• January 3, 2027: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• March 31, 2027: Closing date for manuscripts submission

Florian Becker-Ritterspach, HTW Berlin

Raghda El Ebrashi, German International University (Cairo)

Jasper Hotho, Copenhagen Business School

Environmental degradation has become an urgent global concern, with emerging and developing economies facing a particularly complex set of challenges. While many of these countries are rapidly industrializing and increasingly integrated into global value chains, they often lack the regulatory infrastructures, institutional capacity, and enforcement mechanisms necessary to ensure environmentally responsible economic activity. These so-called environmental institutional voids amplify the negative externalities of business operations, threatening both ecological integrity and long-term development prospects.

This Special Issue addresses a significant blind spot in international business (IB) research: the intersection between environmental governance and institutional voids in emerging markets. While the concept of institutional voids has received growing attention in IB literature—mainly in relation to market and regulatory failures—its environmental dimensions remain underexplored. In particular, how multinational enterprises (MNEs) navigate weak or absent environmental regulations, and how they may act as institutional entrepreneurs or sources of environmental innovation, warrants deeper scrutiny.

This Special Issue invites scholarly contributions that critically examine the environmental strategies of MNEs operating in institutionally weak contexts. It seeks to understand the mechanisms through which MNEs circumvent, cope with, or compensate for governance deficiencies, and to assess the role they play—intentionally or unintentionally—in shaping environmental outcomes in host countries. Contributors are encouraged to engage with questions of climate justice, sustainability transitions, and the interplay between formal and informal institutions in shaping corporate environmental behavior.

The contributions to this issue aim not only to advance theory, but also to offer actionable insights for practitioners and policymakers seeking to strengthen environmental governance frameworks. Critical perspectives are invited that consider power asymmetries, transnational influence, and the responsibilities of business actors in settings where state regulation is uneven or contested. Comparative, cross-country, and interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome, as are empirical studies that foreground the lived realities of stakeholders most affected by environmental externalities.

The compounding effects of climate change, geopolitical tensions, and shifting global production networks underscore the urgency of understanding how firms operate in institutionally constrained environments—and what they can do to foster sustainable development. By focusing on environmental governance gaps and the corporate strategies that emerge in response, this Special Issue aims to contribute to a more comprehensive, justice-oriented, and context-sensitive understanding of international business in the 21st century.

Potential topics

• Defining and conceptualizing environmental institutional voids in emerging markets, and assessing how these voids impact environmental outcomes and corporate behavior. What constitutes an "environmental" institutional void, and how do formal and informal institutions interact to exacerbate or mitigate negative externalities of business operations
• Examining how firms strategically respond to institutional voids to achieve environmental objectives, including circumventing strategies (bypassing institutional deficiencies), coping mechanisms (adapting to challenges in the absence of robust institutions), and compensating actions (offsetting negative environmental impacts when formal governance is lacking)
• Investigating the influence of multinational enterprises in host countries with weak environmental institutions. How do MNEs transfer environmental standards and best practices from developed to emerging markets, and with what effects? In what ways can MNEs act as catalysts for improved local environmental governance or institutional change?
• Investigating the emergence of environmental or "green" innovation in contexts of institutional voids. When formal support or infrastructure is lacking, how do companies and entrepreneurs innovate to solve environmental problems? Topics may include frugal innovation, social innovation partnerships, and novel business models that address institutional gaps
• Analyzing how institutional voids influence the transition towards sustainability (such as shifts to low-carbon energy, circular economy, or sustainable agriculture) in emerging markets. How actors adapt business models to propel sustainability transitions despite voids
• Exploring how state actors in emerging markets influence the persistence or reduction of environmental institutional voids. How different state configurations enable or constrain MNEs in implementing robust environmental strategies and how tensions between national sovereignty and transnational environmental standards shape corporate practices
• Identifying public policy frameworks and collaborative approaches that can help close environmental institutional voids. What roles can governments, international organizations, and civil society play in partnership with business to strengthen environmental governance?

Timeline

• January 1, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• September 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission

Laura Mazzola, Royal Holloway Business School

Leonardo Rinaldi, Royal Holloway Business School

Ileana Steccolini, University of Essex

Martina Linnenluecke, University of Technology Sydney

Resilience studies highlight the capacity of social and ecological systems to adjust, recover, and thrive despite adversity. Recent literature emphasises resilience as a multidimensional construct, covering individual, organisational, and system levels and extending across supply chains, financial management, and leadership dynamics. Resilience is seen as a valuable asset and forms part of a broader trend towards strength-based as opposed to deficit models of development. The concept of resilience has gained substantial traction across disciplines, particularly as we face increasing disruptions from economic, social, and environmental crises.

These disruptions have challenged the ability of our social and economic systems to withstand and adapt to crises, highlighting significant gaps in how they anticipate, respond to, recover from and potentially capitalise on such events. While sustainability research has long played a crucial role in accounting by encouraging positive change and working towards long-term viability, resilience studies offer a complementary perspective. Resilience emphasises the need for long-term sustainability and the capacity to endure, adapt, and transform in response to unexpected challenges. By integrating resilience into accounting, technologies, logic and thinking, we strive for long-term sustainable outcomes and short-term adaptability. In an era shaped by climate change, global pandemics, economic instability, and geopolitical disorder, accounting scholars are well-placed to respond to these challenges by providing alternative perspectives that meet the growing demand for sustainable and resilient solutions.

This AAAJ special issue aims to contribute to the academic debate on the role of accounting in fostering resilience ('accounting for resilience') and understanding and evaluating resilience ('accounting of resilience'). We encourage submissions that explore accounting as a tool for understanding resilience and as a mechanism for fostering adaptation, transformation and resistance in response to social, economic, and ecological challenges. At the same time, we invite research that questions how and why current accounting practices may be inadequate in supporting resilience and, in many cases, may even contribute to the vulnerability of socio-ecological systems.

Accounting for and of resilience holds the potential to illuminate how accounting can be used to empower marginalised communities, promote equity, address issues of inequality and climate adaptation, and inform strategic responses, particularly in times of crisis. However, it is equally essential to scrutinise how traditional accounting practices may exacerbate inequalities and vulnerabilities, potentially hindering the development of genuinely resilient systems. Critical accounting scholars can and should play a role in fostering a deeper understanding of resilience by developing theories and practices that consider both sides of resilience: the mechanisms that help us understand and evaluate resilience in social structures and the actions that contribute to fostering and shaping resilience.

We call for academic work that promotes theoretical and empirical understanding of resilience, explicitly focusing on intersections of accounting and power, the political economy of resilience, the politics of resilience, and the allocation of resources in times of crisis. Topics of interest include accounting's role in sustainable development, the impact of accounting practices on communities during periods of disruption, and resilience in public sector or community contexts. We welcome interdisciplinary research that applies various methodological and theoretical approaches to provide in-depth, novel insights into these areas.

Potential topics

• Accounting for and of Resilience: examining how resilience is constructed, measured, and communicated through accounting and accountability practices and whose interests it serves.
• Interdisciplinary perspectives: integrating resilience thinking from natural and social sciences into accounting frameworks.
• Constructing resilient systems: investigating how accounting defines and constructs the boundaries of 'systems' (e.g., organisational, community, or social-ecological) when conceptualising, calculating and reporting resilience.
• Politics of resilience: deconstructing resilience as a technical concept and highlighting its political and ethical dimensions.
• Accountability and resilience: exploring how accountability mechanisms can be designed to incorporate resilience metrics and their implications.
• Auditing and resilience: questioning whether auditing captures resilience complexities or reinforces narrow compliance-driven views.
• Resilient economy: analysing accounting's role in building sustainable, equitable, and stable economic systems.
• Theoretical contributions: developing critical theoretical models that challenge dominant resilience paradigms.
• Empirical studies: applying qualitative or quantitative methods to examine how resilience is operationalised in practice.

Timeline

• May 31, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• August 31, 2026: Closing date for full paper submissions

Achieving net-zero targets poses significant challenges for economies, governments, and societies worldwide. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are central actors in this transition, both as developers and adopters of renewable energy and low-carbon technologies. As primary boundary spanners, they manage global value chains and partnerships across diverse institutional contexts and consumer markets. MNEs increasingly navigate a complex landscape of incentives, sanctions, and regulatory barriers that vary by sector, technology platform, country, and region. Politically motivated disruptions—including shifting tariff and non-tariff barriers and uneven low-carbon policies—compound these challenges, placing premium value on managerial capabilities.

Two emerging developments motivate this Special Issue. First, digital technologies offer new potential to enhance firm-level capabilities for coordinating and adapting cross-border networks, while reshaping competitive dynamics between incumbents, startups, and scale-ups. Second, China's ascendancy as both innovator and regulator—particularly in new energy technologies—and its growing geopolitical influence demand renewed scholarly attention.

While MNEs' contributions to sustainable development goals have received growing research attention, significant gaps remain. Circular economy models require reverse logistics and integrated, cross-border collaboration, making their configuration highly dependent on regional policies, resource availability, and digital applications. Limited research examines how circular supply chains are configured globally or regionally, or what drives their development.

We are particularly interested in the microfoundations, routines, and recombinative capabilities underlying sustainability practices. We encourage international comparative studies examining how MNEs bridge institutional differences to establish circular business models and progress toward net-zero. Methodological innovation—including causal inference, longitudinal designs, and empirical approaches capturing complexity and measuring environmental outcomes—is also welcome.

Potential topics

• Multinational enterprises
• Sustainability
• Circular economy
• Global value chains
• Digitalization
• Geopolitics
• Institutions
• China
• Emerging industries
• How do MNEs navigate and shape the complex policy and stakeholder landscape accelerating net-zero goals?
• What roles do digital technologies play in advancing sustainability and circularity, and what new complexities do they introduce?
• How do governance differences and regulatory regimes affect firms, sectors, and stakeholders differently?
• Are international innovation races helpful or harmful, and to what extent are they regionally demarcated?
• Do MNEs customize practices locally or transfer superior practices across regions, and with what strategic implications?

Timeline

• January 7, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• October 20, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission

Teemu Laine, Tampere University

Tuomas Korhonen, Tampere University

Carsten Rohde, Copenhagen Business School

Vesa Tiitola, Tampere University

The special issue will reflect and revisit the role and value of management accounting (MA) in the current evolving and complex business context. The value of management accounting lies in its ability to serve managers in different roles in their decision making and broader managerial work, all situated in their operational environment. The nature of managerial work and the potential support from MA therein are being challenged by several intertwined contemporary developments: a) technology advancements, such as algorithms and the artificial intelligence (AI) penetration to many professions, MA included, b) human judgement, ethical considerations and responsible behaviour, and c) global and local issues that influence the business context, such as geopolitics and climate change.

The originality of the special issue stems from its integrative view on the timely challenges influencing MA and the necessity to revisit the foundations of management accounting and control. Now, we need to take a closer look at the implications of the timely challenges with a realistic, but rather long-term view – 2020s and beyond. The MA profession has witnessed some remarkable changes, but some issues have remained: decisions are still made under uncertainty, with limited relevant data available, and human judgement is still fundamental to set the directions for organizations and take responsibility of decisions. Meanwhile, new requirements for information provision emerge as well as new challenges of understanding the local and global business contexts.

MA is a wide and connected field that builds new knowledge for a wider array of business needs, processes and problems. MA is situated in time and place, i.e., in a context. Indeed, the desired perspectives of the special issue are connected to the organizational practices: operations, offerings, business models and value-generation processes in different types of organizations. All these practices could/would benefit from MA: but how is MA (information) different in the 2020s compared to earlier years? What is expected from MA in the future when we look at where the operational environment is and its multiplicity of trajectories could be? Detailed examinations of these perspectives in the contemporary MA contexts as well as research methods to engage with those practices remain too scarce. Especially, there is a need for contributions on the new and desired roles of MA based on in-depth empirical understanding and evidence, especially qualitative in nature.

The special issue stems from the Manufacturing and Service Accounting Research (MSAR) 2026 conference, in Tampere, 6/2026, with the theme "Understanding, extending and redefining the value of management accounting in organizations". MSAR 2026 hosts scholars interested in both the traditional "core" MA topics and those that are more emergent in the 2020s and beyond. A special feature of the conference is the tradition of in-depth access to real-life cases and practices, which greatly benefits the aims of this special issue.

Potential topics

• Revisiting the Foundations of Management Accounting (MA) and Management Control (MC)
• Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, and the "Post-Analytics" Era
• Human Judgment and Accountability in the Age of AI
• Sustainability, Ethics, and the Evolving Role of Management Accounting
• Transformation and Innovation in MA&MC Systems and Practices
• Management Accounting that Expands over Organizational Boundaries
• Emerging Business Models and Performance Paradigms
• Inter-, Multi-, and Transdisciplinary MA Studies that Increase Practical Relevance of Research

Timeline

• June 8, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• September 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission

This special issue advances interdisciplinary understanding of well-being in B2B marketing. It examines how well-being reshapes value creation, inter-organizational relationships, and sustainable business practices. Despite growing interest in individual-level well-being (e.g., salesperson burnout), B2B marketing lacks integrative frameworks examining well-being across inter-organizational networks. The special issue aims to develop a holistic and sustainability-oriented perspective on well-being within B2B markets.

Conceptually, well-being in B2B markets operates across multiple, interconnected levels. It concerns the well-being of individual actors (e.g. salespeople, account managers), organizational practices and governance, inter-organizational relationships (e.g. trust, conflict resolution, collaboration), and wider network and societal outcomes. However, these dimensions are rarely examined together. Current B2B marketing research remains primarily grounded in performance-centric and individual-level frameworks, limiting broader integrative development. The research is relevant, but the big picture is missing. By bringing together diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, this special issue seeks to develop integrative frameworks that reflect the complexity of well-being across organizational and relational contexts.

We encourage submissions that integrate diverse perspectives and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of well-being in B2B markets. The special issue welcomes conceptual papers, qualitative and quantitative empirical studies, mixed-method research, and high-quality literature reviews.

Potential topics

• Well-being and inter-organizational trust
• Salesperson mental health and relational resilience
• Governance, ESG and well-being integration
• Network stability and ecosystem well-being
• Servitisation and sustainable value co-creation
• Measurement of well-being beyond financial KPIs
• Interdisciplinary frameworks for B2B well-being

Timeline

• March 31, 2026: Opening date
• September 30, 2026: Closing date

Many unprecedented developments over the past few years, such as geopolitical shocks, social upheavals, uncertainty over new technologies like AI, recurring natural disasters, and sustained uncertainty about climate change, have forced a rethink of a sustainable future. While parameters of change and transformations are themselves undergoing drastic changes in ways that were never expected, day-to-day survival strategies take precedence. As a result, there is growing concern about whether societies, organisations, communities and individuals can continue with the existing notions of a sustainable future.

New debates and discourses have kindled the need for reimagining ideas and perspectives of a sustainable future world. These discussions span a large domain of ideas, including organisational strategy formulation, stakeholder management, supply chain reconfiguration, organisational development, etc. Emerging literature signposts tough decisions, organisational anxieties, change management barriers, and possible solutions as organisations confront difficult and unprecedented organisational transformations.

The special issue aims to position organisational change management as an important component of this rethink and to map the emerging set of ideas through a change management perspective, including new models of change management, innovation, stakeholder engagement, and emerging perspectives on sustainability. In line with the existing literature, there has been renewed interest in organisational change management aimed at developing a sustainable future amid emerging disruptive technologies and geopolitical developments while acknowledging that significant changes in the macro environment have led to almost paradigmatic shifts in thinking and strategizing, which threaten the concept of a sustainable future. This special issue attempts to provide a platform for ongoing studies that look at organisational change management in the context of the unprecedented changes in an organisation's external environment, whether in the spheres of technology, socio-demographic or geopolitical, and to understand the practice and theory of sustainable management.

The special issue would invite studies that use a range of methodologies, including qualitative and quantitative methods, such as survey-based methodologies, case studies, and interpretative, critical, or conceptual papers.

Potential topics

• Different perspectives on change management as an imperative for a sustainable future
• Sustainable, Responsible and Regenerative Business Model Innovation
• Organisational change strategy for a sustainable future in unprecedented macro environmental changes: risk, resilience and adaptation
• Challenges and issues of sustainable AI transformation
• Ecosystems, Cross-Sector Collaboration and Policy for Sustainable innovation and growth
• Supply chain expansion and organisational change for a sustainable future
• Developing Sustainable Marketing for Responsible Consumption and Production
• The role of organisations in supporting Social Dimensions of Sustainability
• The role of management education in fostering sustainable and responsible leadership practices
• The role of middle management and bottom-up initiatives in creating everyday sustainability
• Case studies in organisational change management for a sustainable future

Timeline

• May 28, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• January 31, 2027: Closing date for manuscripts submission