Special issue on ecosystems for sustainable innovative development: theoretical and practical insights

Introduction:

There is a need to understand how the implementation of ecosystem principles in industrial and regional policy can boost innovative entrepreneurship, enhance innovation from the Quadruple Helix perspective, and increase quality of life. This special journal issue will focus on conceptualising and extending theoretical and methodological bases of ecosystem approaches from a sustainable development perspective. In particular, it will focus on how different types of ecosystems (innovation, entrepreneurial, industrial, financial, tourism, corporate, etc.), enabled by emerging technologies, can transform existing business practices and help to add value in digital platforms - not only for business owners, but for society as a whole. This will increase understanding of the role of emerging organisational and economic models in achieving sustainable development goals and vice versa.

This special issue will supplement previous research and bring together varying concepts of ecosystems, the Quadruple Helix model and sustainable development. We welcome both theoretical submissions and robust empirical research with a clear theoretical and practical contribution. Empirical insights may be derived from survey research, multiple case studies, secondary data analysis interviews, other designs, experimental studies, or mixed methodology.

Topics covered:

These include, but are not limited to:

• How ecosystems advance innovative new business models to achieve SDGs
• The integration of different stakeholders in a single ecosystem to address the interests of business owners, stakeholders and society as a whole
• Real world practices of ecosystem development in different spheres (manufacturing, energy, ICT, tourism, transport, finance, etc.)
• Potential enablers, barriers and challenges for the implementation of ecosystem principles
• Collaboration among corporations, governments, communities and other potential stakeholders as a key factor of sustainable innovative development
• The ecosystem view of knowledge creation, diffusion and use with the Quadruple Helix Innovation System framework
• The role of emerging and converging technologies in a successful ecosystem and their impact on the measurement of ecosystem maturity and collaboration density (e.g., the use of big data and blockchain)
• The impact of digitalisation on cross-sectoral collaboration, innovation processes, scaling and governance models
• The role of government intervention in building mature and successful ecosystems
• The impact of different institutions (formal and informal) in advancing collaboration between ecosystem stakeholders

Important dates:

• Submission deadline: 15 November 2023

Submission instructions:

Please read the Guide for Authors before submitting. All articles should be submitted online; please select SI: Ecosystems for sustainable development: theoretical and practical insights on submission. Authors should specify that they are submitting to the special issue in their cover letter. If the manuscript is accepted, the article will be published open access with no fee payable by the author.

Guest Editor: