Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
“Tackling Grand Challenges: Transformative Innovations in Research and Management”
Co-Guest editors: Russo Spena T, Öberg C & Mele C
Deadline: 31 December 2025
Transformative changes within emerging socio-technical systems are imperative for addressing global challenges and fostering sustainable development that ensure long-term societal well-being. As the world faces increasing economic, environmental, and social complexities, technology innovations alone are insufficient to drive the systemic shifts needed for sustainable progress. Instead, large-scale transformations must extend beyond technological advancements or market-driven innovations to encompass a holistic and integrative approach. These transformations require the convergence of human, organizational, and technological dimensions, necessitating the reconfiguration of institutional structures, governance mechanisms, and socio-cultural paradigms.
Within this context, business-to-business (B2B) markets represent a particularly important arena for systemic transformation. The complexity of relationships, value co-creation processes, and supply chain dynamics in B2B contexts offers fertile ground for exploring how businesses can collaboratively drive sustainable change. Research in this area can help uncover how inter-organizational networks, partnerships, and ecosystems in B2B settings can enable and accelerate large-scale socio-technical transformations. Business scholars hold a pivotal role in shaping and guiding these societal transformations. The management discipline is uniquely positioned at the intersection of economic, social, and environmental systems, offering insights that can drive meaningful and lasting changes. To effectively contribute to transformative processes, scholars must engage in fundamental shifts in innovation cultures, managerial and governance practices, cognitive frameworks, and holistic change management strategies. These transformations present not only significant opportunities but also complex challenges, requiring scholars to refine their expertise, develop new theoretical perspectives, and actively engage in interdisciplinary collaboration. By doing so, they can contribute to the rethinking of existing models while fostering adaptability and forward-looking strategies that drive inclusive and sustainable progress, ultimately generating knowledge that informs actionable solutions to address both current and emerging global challenges.
Early-career researchers—including Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) candidates—are particularly well-positioned to contribute as engaged scholars in this evolving landscape. As the next generation of thought leaders and innovators, they have the opportunity to challenge existing paradigms, propose novel conceptual approaches, and critically analyze how best to navigate the pressing socio-economic and environmental challenges of our time. Their work, often rooted in practitioner-oriented research projects, offers a unique opportunity to generate actionable knowledge with direct impact on business practice, especially within B2B contexts.
Their research can provide fresh perspectives on change dynamics, helping to shape frameworks that facilitate sustainable transitions across industries and societies. By leveraging both theoretical advancements and practical applications, these scholars play a crucial role in bridging academic inquiry with real-world impact.
We encourage submissions that critically engage with the following key thematic areas:
- Investigating and proposing comprehensive change management frameworks that can effectively guide organizations through transformative processes (Mele et al., 2022; Rosenbaum et al., 2020; Wilson & Daugherty, 2018).)
- Examining the role of cross-sectoral collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and collective efforts in driving systemic change with particular emphasis on inter-organizational dynamics typical of B2B networks (Bendell et al., 2010; Ostrom, 2000)
- Exploring innovative leadership approaches and organizational strategies that prioritize sustainability, resilience, and ethical decision-making in an era of rapid change (Sharma & Lenka, 2024; Smith et al., 2020).
- Analyzing strategies for reshaping market structures, business models, and industry practices to align with principles of environmental and social sustainability (Fehrer et al., 2020; Mattsson, 2016; Ottosson et al., 2020).
- Understanding the impact of AI and emerging technologies on transformation processes in B2B networks. Contributions may address both opportunities and challenges linked to digital transformation in industrial markets (Li et al., 2021).
The Executive Doctoral Business Administration Council (EDBAC) organizes a conference related to the special issue theme (for conference information: https://edbac.org/ems2025).
We encourage authors of papers related to the special issue themes to submit their work. As always, all submissions suitable for the special issue will be considered and reviewed on the same terms regardless if they were presented at a particular conference.
List of Topic Areas
The special issue will focus on, but is not limited to, the following topics:
- Human-Centered AI for a Transformative Society: Ethics, Inclusion, and Impact
- AI, Digital Twins, and the Future of Sustainable Development
- The Role of Generative AI in Reinventing Knowledge Work and Creativity
- Digital Technologies as Drivers of Social Innovation and Inclusive Growth
- Balancing Technological Disruption and Human Resilience in a Transforming Society
- Organizational Transformation in the Age of AI and Digital Disruption
- Agile Organizations: Adapting to Uncertainty and Complexity in a Transformative Society
- Purpose-Driven Leadership for Large-Scale Social and Environmental Change
- Employee Well-being and Engagement in the Age of Transformative Change
- From Resistance to Adoption: Cultural Shifts in Organizations Facing Transformation
- Public-Private Partnerships for Driving Systemic Change and Sustainability
- Multi-Stakeholder Ecosystems: New Governance Models for a Transformative Society
- The Role of Digital Platforms in Enabling Cross-Sector Collaboration
- Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science: Engaging Society in Innovation
- Market Shaping for Sustainability: Business Models that Drive Systemic Change
- Regenerative Business: Moving Beyond Sustainability to Net Positive Impact
- Market Mechanisms for Responsible Consumption and Production
- Green Finance and Impact Investing: New Pathways for Transformative Change
- The Role of institutions in Enabling a Fair and Inclusive Digital Economy
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Author guidelines must be strictly followed.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Key Deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 11/08/2025
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 31/12/2025
References
- Bendell, J., Collins, E., & Roper, J. (2010). Beyond partnerism: Toward a more expansive research agenda on multi-stakeholder collaboration for responsible business. Business Strategy and the Environment, 19(6), 351-355.
- Degbey, W., Pelto, E., Öberg, C., & Carmeli, A. (2024). Customers driving a firm’s responsible innovation response for grand Challenges: A co-active issue-selling perspective. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 41(2), 379-402.
- Fehrer, J. A., Conduit, J., Plewa, C., Li, L. P., Jaakkola, E., & Alexander, M. (2020). Market shaping dynamics: interplay of actor engagement and institutional work. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 35(9), 1425-1439.
- Li, S., Peng, G., Xing, F., Zhang, J., & Zhang, B. (2021). Value co-creation in industrial AI: The interactive role of B2B supplier, customer and technology provider. Industrial Marketing Management, 98, 105-114.
- Mattsson, L. G. (2016). Bridging gaps between policies for sustainable markets and market practices. IMP Journal, 10(2), 339-356.
- Mele, C., Russo-Spena, T.,Corsaro, D. and Kleinaltenkamp, M. (2022), “Guest editorial: Crisis management in the COVID-19 pandemic waves”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 37 No. 10, pp. 1949-1958.
- Ostrom, E. (2000). Collective action and the evolution of social norms. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3), 137-158.
- Ottosson, M., Magnusson, T., & Andersson, H. (2020). Shaping sustainable markets—A conceptual framework illustrated by the case of biogas in Sweden. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 36, 303-320.
- Rosenbaum, M. S., Edwards, K., Ramírez, G. C., & Grady, J. (2020). Transformative service research: thoughts, perspectives, and research directions. The Routledge Handbook of Service Research Insights and Ideas, 424-442.
- Sharma, S., & Lenka, U. (2024). How does transformational leadership impact organizational unlearning: insights from persistence theories. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 37(1), 150-172.
- Smith, W. K., Binns, A., & Tushman, M. L. (2020). Complex business models: Managing strategic paradoxes simultaneously. Long Range Planning, 53(1), 101956.
- Tarba, S. Y., Ahammad, M. F., Gregory-Smith, D., Cooper, C. L., & Bauer, F. (2024). The role of innovation in for-profit firms’ tackling of grand challenges: Special issue editorial. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 41 (2), 161-167.
- Van de Ven, A. H. (2007). Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Social Research: Oxford University Press.
- Wilson, H. J., & Daugherty, P. R. (2018). Collaborative intelligence: Humans and AI are joining forces. Harvard Business Review, 96(4), 114-123.
