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Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 57640

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Dilek Cetindamar

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Guest Editor

School of Information, Systems, and Modelling, Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia
Interests: entrepreneurship; digital transformation; technology and innovation management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to contribute to this Special Issue titled “Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship.”

Innovation is key to any country striving to build sustainable growth and welfare all across the globe (OECD, 2014). Countries are struggling to invest in diverse sets of technologies and support entrepreneurs who transform technological knowledge into innovative products and services in diverse industries (Nambisan et al., 2017). Technological changes such as the development and diffusion of artificial intelligence are taking place at an unprecedented speed (Cetindamar and Babak, 2020). In parallel, the literature is evolving and expanding at a high velocity, keeping with the ongoing rapid development of new technologies and entrepreneurial skills in innovation practices across networks (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2019; Cetindamar, Lammers, and Zhang, 2020; Helfat and Raubitschek, 2018). The sustainable growth of entrepreneurial companies even under the COVID-19 epidemic environment is underlining the critical role of innovation capabilities in their survival (Ratten, 2021).

The goal of a sustainable, innovative economy necessitates interdisciplinary research on technology management and entrepreneurship. Researchers in these two strands of disciplines could build a holistic understanding of innovation-based economic and social development (Silva and Wright, 2019). Thus, this Special Issue welcomes theoretical, empirical, and experimental studies taking the interdisciplinary challenge of broadening these two key disciplines. The Special Issue accepts a wide range of research methods and is more than happy to consider submissions focusing on the following themes (not an exhaustive list):

How do researchers explain innovation challenges from the diffusion of a wide range of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and robots?
How are entrepreneurship or technology management disciplines affected by the increasing pace of technological changes?
How can researchers quantitatively model and measure the nuances of innovation and its contexts, and how does this translate to specific new managerial tools for companies?
How can researchers develop technology management theories of innovation further from empirical data on the diversity of contexts?
How can researchers develop entrepreneurship concepts that allow better communication of innovative practices across industries and digital platforms?

What are the individual-level or organizational factors leading to the development/adoption of technological innovations for a sustainable future?
What kind of open innovation practices might lead to the development/adoption of sustainability strategies? Which technology management tools might be needed to carry these practices?
How do technological innovations sustain circular economy initiatives?
To what extent is sustainability performance improved by linking entrepreneurship and technology management initiatives?

How could digital technologies help the sustainable innovations at companies? Does the size of companies affect their innovations?

References

Aarikka-Stenroos, L.; Jaakkola, E.; Harrison, D. and Mäkitalo-Keinonen, T. How to manage innovation processes in extensive networks: A longitudinal study. Ind. Mark. Manag. 2017, 67, 88–105.
Autio, E.; Nambisan, S.; Thomas, L.D.W. and Wright, M. Digital affordances, spatial affordances, and the genesis of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Strateg. Entrep. J. 2018, 12, 72–95.
Cetindamar, D. and Babak, A. Understanding the Role of Employees in Digital Transformation: Conceptualization of Digital Literacy of Employees as a Multi-Dimensional Organizational Affordance. J. Enterp. Inf. Manag. 2020, https://doi.org/10.1108/JEIM-01-2020-0010.
Cetindamar, D.; Lammers, T.; and Zhang, Y. Exploring the Knowledge Spillovers of a Technology in an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem—The Case of Artificial Intelligence in Sydney. Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev. 2020, 62, 454–74.
Helfat, C.E. and Raubitschek, R.S. Dynamic and integrative capabilities for profiting from innovation in digital platform-based ecosystems. Res. Policy 2018, 47, 1391–1399.
Nambisan, S.; Lyytinen, K.; Majchrzak, A. and Song, M. Digital innovation management: Reinventing innovation management research in a digital world. MIS Q. 2017, 41, 223–238.
OECD, Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Growth Oriented Entrepreneurship. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development: Paris, France. 2014.
Ratten, V. COVID‐19 and entrepreneurship: Future research direction. Brief. Enterp. Financ. 2021, 30, 91–98.
Silva, M. and Wright, M. Entrepreneurial co-creation: societal impact through open innovation. R&D Manag. 2019, 49, 318–342.

Dr. Dilek Cetindamar
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

digital technologies
entrepreneurship
innovation economy
sustainability
technology management

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 6825 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Identifying the Key Big Data Analytics Capabilities in Bangladesh’s Healthcare Sector

by Md Ahsan Uddin Murad, Dilek Cetindamar and Subrata Chakraborty

Sustainability 2022, 14(12), 7077; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14127077 - 9 Jun 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2312

Abstract

The study explores the crucial big data analytics capabilities (BDAC) for healthcare in Bangladesh. After a rigorous and extensive literature review, we list a wide range of BDAC and empirically examine their applicability in Bangladesh’s healthcare sector by consulting 51 experts with ample domain knowledge. The study adopted the DEcision MAking Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method. Findings highlighted 11 key BDAC, such as using advanced analytical techniques that could be critical in managing big data in the healthcare sector. The paper ends with a summary and puts forward suggestions for future studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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14 pages, 720 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Taxonomy of Social-Network-Utilization Strategies for Emerging High-Technology Firms

by Carla Riverola, Ozgur Dedehayir and Francesc Miralles

Sustainability 2022, 14(12), 6961; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14126961 - 7 Jun 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1744

Abstract

Lack of network transparency limits entrepreneurs’ effective utilization of their networks for resource acquisition. Virtual platforms (e.g., SNS-Social Networking Sites) have the potential to leverage entrepreneurial networks. The purpose of this study is to understand why and how technology-based entrepreneurs use social media to effectively access resources and, in turn, shed light on how they overcome network transparency in the early stages of their new venture formation process. Through in-depth interviews with the (co-) founders of 18 technology-based start-ups, this work reports a four-way taxonomy of strategic use of SNS. This research provides new theoretical insights for the technoentrepreneurship literature and reports practical insights for entrepreneurs on how to use social media effectively. Furthermore, this work is a guide for future research looking at digital literacy in entrepreneurship. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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21 pages, 4004 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Mapping the Business Landscape for the Last 20 Years

by Deniz Tunçalp and Nihan Yıldırım

Sustainability 2022, 14(7), 3864; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14073864 - 24 Mar 2022

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 6948

Abstract

Sustainable entrepreneurship is venturing to shift business practices towards environmental and social sustainability. It gained popularity worldwide, particularly in the US, due to promoting regulations for some sustainability areas, the high availability of impact investment, and the large-scale entrepreneurial ecosystem of the country. However, the literature does not explain what sustainable entrepreneurs undertake in business. This paper investigates (1) what the coverage of sustainable entrepreneurship is, (2) how this coverage has changed in the last 20 years, and (3) which sustainable development goals (SDGs) sustainable entrepreneurs serve. For these questions, the study analyses keyword co-occurrences of companies (n = 2004) from 72 countries and regions listed on the CrunchBase database with sustainability identification. The study shows differences in coverage and changes between the US and the other countries in the last 20 years. The study maps sustainable entrepreneurs to the SDGs they primarily serve, analysing their descriptions and websites. It identifies the distribution of sustainable entrepreneurs over SDGs, locating more popular and less popular SDGs. The paper invites several research streams on sustainable entrepreneurship and suggests policies to promote SDGs among sustainable entrepreneurs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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23 pages, 703 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Selection of Sustainability Startups for Acceleration: How Prior Access to Financing and Team Features Influence Accelerators’ Selection Decisions

by Berna Beyhan and Derya Fındık

Sustainability 2022, 14(4), 2125; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042125 - 13 Feb 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3376

Abstract

Accelerators are specially designed entrepreneurship programs that enable startups to scale up at a fast pace through mentoring, intense consulting, training, and provision of access to business networks. To cope with the challenges of the entrepreneurial process and to access resources to achieve a quick scale-up, sustainability startups need a great deal of support from intermediary organizations. In this study, we examined 7358 social-sustainability startups and 2671 environmental-sustainability startups to understand the factors that influence the probability of a sustainability startup being selected by accelerators. Our main research question was whether previous funding (in the form of equity funding or philanthropic support) received by sustainability startups affects the selection decisions of accelerators. We also investigated how team-related characteristics such as work experience diversity, female startup teams, a team’s passion or commitment, and entrepreneurial experience influence the chances of startups being selected by accelerators. Our data were drawn from the Global Accelerator Learning Initiative (GALI), which was cocreated by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs and Emory University. The data have been collected from entrepreneurs around the world since 2013. The wave we used included a dataset covering the years 2013–2019. Our results indicate that for both social-sustainability and environmental-sustainability startups, the amount of previous equity funding and philanthropic support received from external funding providers is of critical importance for the startup to be selected by accelerators. We also found that previous funding mediates the relationship between various team-related characteristics and the probability of a startup being selected by accelerators. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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16 pages, 6237 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring Consumer Perceptions of the Value Proposition Embedded in Vegan Food Products Using Text Analytics

by Kelly Cooper, Ozgur Dedehayir, Carla Riverola, Stephen Harrington and Elizabeth Alpert

Sustainability 2022, 14(4), 2075; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042075 - 11 Feb 2022

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 9371

Abstract

Given the increasing interest in sustainable food consumption and production, this study aims to understand how consumers perceive the value proposition of vegan food. Over 120,000 tweets relating to veganism were extracted from Twitter, which were then analysed using the text analytics tool Leximancer to ascertain the predominant themes of conversation taking place around vegan food. Our results show that, in light of the three main drivers for vegan food choice—ethical, personal health, and environmental—surprisingly, we see a limited number of environmental or sustainability motivated tweets. This is a significant finding, as, while vegan food consumption is reported to be sustainable, this is not a preferred topic of conversation for consumers. Value propositions communicated with respect to personal health attributes (e.g., dairy free, gluten free, and nutrition), and consumption benefits (e.g., tasty, delicious) are more likely to resonate with consumers and motivate increased consumption while concurrently delivering environmental benefits as a positive side-effect. Furthermore, the polarity of the attitudes and conversations taking place between vegans and non-vegans on Twitter underscores that a single value proposition is unlikely to reach both groups simultaneously and that different value propositions are likely to be required to reach these respective groups. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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22 pages, 1620 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Review and Categorization of Artificial Intelligence-Based Opportunities in Wildlife, Ocean and Land Conservation

by Diane A. Isabelle and Mika Westerlund

Sustainability 2022, 14(4), 1979; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14041979 - 9 Feb 2022

Cited by 31 | Viewed by 10870

Abstract

The scholarly literature on the links between Artificial Intelligence and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals is burgeoning as climate change and the biotic crisis leading to mass extinction of species are raising concerns across the globe. With a focus on Sustainable Development Goals 14 (Life below Water) and 15 (Life on Land), this paper explores the opportunities of Artificial Intelligence applications in various domains of wildlife, ocean and land conservation. For this purpose, we develop a conceptual framework on the basis of a comprehensive review of the literature and examples of Artificial Intelligence-based approaches to protect endangered species, monitor and predict animal behavior patterns, and track illegal or unsustainable wildlife trade. Our findings provide scholars, governments, environmental organizations, and entrepreneurs with a much-needed taxonomy and real-life examples of Artificial Intelligence opportunities for tackling the grand challenge of rapidly decreasing biological diversity, which has severe implications for global food security, nature, and humanity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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17 pages, 2198 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Readiness Assessment for IDE Startups: A Pathway toward Sustainable Growth

by Nathasit Gerdsri and Nisit Manotungvorapun

Sustainability 2021, 13(24), 13687; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413687 - 11 Dec 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 9409

Abstract

Innovation-driven enterprises (IDEs) steer their businesses with ideas, technology, and innovation. However, many of them have limited resources, capabilities, and readiness to turn their valuable creativity into marketable products. For IDE startups to survive and achieve sustainable growth, they must seek financial and other, non-pecuniary support from governmental agencies and large corporate venture capitalists. Usually, governments and large firms need to determine the readiness level (RL) of IDE startups, in order to set up proper strategies for resource allocation, resource prioritization, and collaborative R&D to support startups. In addition, IDE startups themselves also need to perform self-assessment of their readiness level to identify rooms for improvement. This research addresses the significance of IDE readiness assessment. An assessment framework, connecting four dimensions, specifically technology, manufacturing, business, and commerce, is proposed, and three case examples are presented to demonstrate the application of the proposed framework. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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20 pages, 1547 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Interplay among Organisational Learning Culture, Agility, Growth, and Big Data Capabilities

by Dilek Cetindamar, Mile Katic, Steve Burdon and Ayse Gunsel

Sustainability 2021, 13(23), 13024; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132313024 - 24 Nov 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3914

Abstract

This paper examines how an organisational learning culture impacts organisational agility by developing a model based on dynamic capabilities. The model treats agility as a dynamic capability and explains how an organisational learning culture (OLC) triggers a chain reaction through its influence on organisational agility (OA) that ultimately results in company growth. This paper also investigates the role of big data capabilities in transferring learning outcomes into dynamic capabilities. The model is tested through data collected from a survey of 138 Australian companies. Partial least squares structural equation modeling is adopted to empirically demonstrate how agility fully mediates the impact of the learning culture on growth. In addition, this paper further sheds light on the moderating role of big data competencies on the effects of OLC on OA. After presenting the results with implications to theory and practice, the paper ends with suggestions for future studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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19 pages, 2608 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Entrepreneurship in Ethnic Enterprises: The Making of New Immigrant Businesses in New York

by Md Mizanur Rahman, Ali A. Hadi Alshawi and Mehedi Hasan

Sustainability 2021, 13(20), 11183; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011183 - 11 Oct 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3417

Abstract

Research on ethnic entrepreneurship has generated substantial literature on the development of ethnic businesses among different immigrant groups in North America. Such studies tend to focus on the emergence of immigrant entrepreneurship among earlier immigrant groups by highlighting either the group characteristics or the opportunity structure. Existing studies also tend to overlook the importance of innovation in immigrants’ small businesses due to the marginality of immigrant businesses. Thus, there is a dearth of research on new immigrant communities in the USA that illuminates immigrants’ innovative practices. Drawing on the experiences of 50 Bangladeshi entrepreneurs in New York, this research examined how this emerging immigrant group transformed into immigrant entrepreneurs through the investigation of their innovative practices in small business. This paper determined that immigrant entrepreneurs are embedded within the dynamics of the immigration trajectory and the broader context of American society. Although these new immigrants were driven towards the lower end of the economy, this study found that innovations have expanded the breadth and depth of their businesses and made their businesses different and rewarding. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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19 pages, 4446 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Digital Tale of Two Cities—Observing the Dynamics of the Artificial Intelligence Ecosystems in Berlin and Sydney

by Thorsten Lammers, Dilek Cetindamar and Maren Borkert

Sustainability 2021, 13(19), 10564; https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910564 - 23 Sep 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2846

Abstract

In entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), geographical and contextual factors play a big role in shaping the knowledge bases for digital innovation. While cities around the world compete to be perceived as successful “tech startup hubs”, proactive urban strategies are needed to create knowledge spillovers into EEs. This study explores the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) knowledge practices in the EEs of Berlin and Sydney by using knowledge-spillover theory of entrepreneurship. The study utilizes a bibliometric analysis of secondary data in combination with exploratory stakeholder interviews conducted for both cities. Findings underline the critical role of experimental knowledge in driving the momentum of the EEs and the supporting role of policies imprinting knowledge practices. The paper shows how the dynamics of EEs can be explored empirically and raises awareness of the role of specialised and integrated policies in determining a city’s overall success in building EEs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Innovative Economy: Technology Management and Entrepreneurship)

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