Call for Papers

Sustainability transition requires a major shift away from the current extractive economic model. The most visible types of studies in this field subscribe to a systems-change theory and a multi-level perspective and argue that this transition must happen through an extensive and radical change in the prevalent societal, economic and business systems (Creed et al., 2022; Geels & Schot, 2007; Lehtimäki et al., 2023). In practice, transformation towards sustainable market economy calls for examining our ways of organizing innovation from fresh perspectives to understand how actors from different industrial sectors, public institutions, research facilities, and user, consumer and other stakeholder communities get together and shape evolving innovations and business ecosystems.
 
Sustainability transitions has leaned on technoscientific innovations, both in the theoretical and applied sense, but as the critical voices say (Shove and Walker, 2010), sustainability innovations do not occur in isolation from sustainable practices and ways of life, more typically understood as given “human needs” or “societal functions”. In this sub-theme, we suggest that sustainability transitions also take place amid a growing role of techno-economic decision-making – such as economics thought on research and innovation policy (Birch, 2017) – and involve novel theorizing on organizing (Creed et al., 2022) as actors from public organizations, third sector, academic institutions, and private business get together and shape evolving new ecosystems (Teerikangas et al., 2021). Innovative activities and arrangements – technological research and development, and the formation of enterprises, markets and regulatory regimes – emerge in crossing and blurring conventional organizational, institutional, disciplinary, cultural and national boundaries. These activities call for new methods and methodologies: away from a generic focus on long-term systemic transitions toward more hands-on toolsets, including codesign methods, for detailed pathway construction between multiple organizational sectors (Hyysalo et al., 2019).
 
This sub-theme aims to foster discussion on rationales and practices of collaboration among sustainability innovation ecosystem actors and academic and non-academic stakeholders. In particular, we seek to encourage discussion on the potential tensions between the collaborative developing sustainability supportive technologies into actual use and the private profit seeking with expectations related to novel technologies. We are interested in increasing our understanding about experimentations with new forms of structuring in techno-economies in sustainability transition at different levels of analysis. We think that topics of interest would include (but not be limited to) areas such as:

• How to design organizations and pathways for transitions that foster a sustainable economic and social development for our society?

• What kind of new economic and business formations (e.g., ecosystems, platforms, commons, circular economy) sustainable evolution engenders?

• What kinds of initiatives for radically new types of organizing can we detect?

• How do the fuss, porosity, aspiration, and imagination organize complex adaptive systems?

• How do public and private sector actors join in making up and performing innovative forms of ecosystem organizing?

• What kinds of metaphors, narratives and storytelling are related to organizing ecosystems, and how do they impact organizing activities and the actors?

• What kinds of barriers, clashes, or jams emerge in the intersections where organizational boundaries are crossed?

• How can we rethink the evolving organizational dynamics and temporality in boundary spanning ecosystems?

• Case studies which have applied novel methods to organizational restructuring.

• What kinds of interventions research could apply to organizational systems aimed at delivering sustainable ways of operating?

• How might researchers foster engagement from a wide variety of stakeholders to create more sustainable futures?

 
We call for submissions addressing these or alike questions through theoretical or conceptual inquiry or through an empirical analysis of a specific techno-economic domain, such as clean tech, energy, circular economy, smart cities, or other. Contributions integrating approaches from different disciplines in social sciences, sociology, urban studies, and organization studies to better address the challenge of designing organizations that foster sustainable and digital evolution of our society are welcomed.
 

References

• Birch, K. (2017): “Techno-economic Assumptions.” Science as Culture, 26 (4), 433–444.
• Creed, W.E.D., Gray, B., Höllerer, M.A., Karam, C.M., & Reay, T. (2022): “Organizing for Social and Institutional Change in Response to Disruption, Division, and Displacement: Introduction to the Special Issue.” Organization Studies, 43 (10), 1535–1557.
• Geels, F.W., & Schot, J. (2007): “Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways.” Research Policy, 36 (3), 399–417.
• Hyysalo, S., Marttila, T., Perikangas, S., & Auvinen, K. (2019): “Codesign for transitions governance: A Mid-range pathway creation toolset for accelerating sociotechnical change.” Design Studies, 63, 181–203.
• Lehtimäki, H., Aarikka-Stenroos, L., Jokinen, A., & Jokinen, P. (eds.) (2023): The Routledge Handbook of Catalysts for a Sustainable Circular Economy. Oxfordshire (UK): Routledge.
• Shove, E., & Walker, G. (2010): “Governing Transitions in the Sustainability of Everyday Life.” Research Policy, 39 (4), 471–476.
• Teerikangas, S., Onkila, T., Koistinen, K., & Mäkelä, M. (2021): Research Handbook of Sustainability Agency. Cheltenham (UK): Edward Elgar Publishing.
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