Sustainability and Innovation in Organizational Performance

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable development is defined as a key concept, with the aim of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. To meet this aim, assumed to drastically shape our societies and to affect human behaviour, companies are increasingly expected to develop innovations that balance economic, environmental and social goals (Silvestre and Îrcă, 2019). Profitability, environmental policy and stakeholder pressure are the top three motivations for companies to adopt sustainable practices (Naidoo and Gasparatos, 2018).

In essence, the main motivation for companies to adopt green or sustainable orientation is to gain a competitive advantage and increase profits (Papadas et al., 2019). However, before pursuing sustainable development, many companies feel that the greener they are, the higher their costs will be, which would ultimately reduce their financial returns. In contrast to this, however, environmentally conscious companies reduce their input consumption and thus their costs (Nidumolu et al., 2009).

Sustainable innovation can be defined as a process in which sustainability and environmental, economic and social considerations are incorporated into business systems, from idea generation through research and development to commercialisation, producing socially desirable outcomes that promote economic growth. According to Miemczyk et al. (2012), sustainability needs to be captured at an even higher level of analysis than the supply chain: the network level. Roome (2001) suggests that networks play an identified role in innovation for environmental management and sustainable development. However, research on sustainability and networks is rare (Miemczyk et al., 2012).

Theoretically, management research examines the impact of social networks from the perspective of a wide range of organisational phenomena (Baker and Faulkner, 2002; Borgatti and Foster, 2003; Brass et al., 2004). In general, management scholars have modelled the relationship between network theory constructs and organisational phenomena. Despite their stage of development, there is still a large gap in the literature on organisational networks.

It turns out that a full understanding of how sustainable development will affect economic growth, organisational performance with special emphasis on productivity and efficiency concepts and innovation, labour market outcomes, and the role played by science and academic institutions (in affecting the adoption of new technologies) is a major challenge for researchers and scholars interested in sustainable development.

All of these aspects need to be deeply investigated and seem to be particularly relevant nowadays, as the advent of climate change has significantly accelerated sustainable development and the adoption of new and cleaner technologies. In this Special Issue, original, theoretical and empirical articles are welcomed.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Sustainable development and economic growth;
• Enterprise performance and sustainable development;
• Sustainability and networks;
• Companies' innovation and sustainable development;
• Labour market (job creation, job destruction, job reallocation) and sustainable development;
• The role of national and regional policies on sustainable development;
• Sustainable development and institutional determinants.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Cristian Barra
Dr. Anna Papaccio
Guest Editors

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• sustainable development
• economic growth
• enterprise performance and innovation
• network analysis
• labour market
• institutional determinants
• national and regional policies