1. Introduction
The multi-dimensional focus of the term sustainability relates to balancing corporate social responsibility that includes balancing economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability. Researchers have argued that the focus of the firm should be on environmental or social performance while keeping intact or enhancing the economic performance. The multi-scale focus of sustainability entails aspects such as geographical (city, region or country), institutional (individual firm or a partnership) and temporal scales (month, year or decade). The broad interpretation of the term makes research on enhancing sustainability, interesting as well as challenging. Nonetheless, sustainability provides a gold mine of research opportunities for researchers.
It is just over a year ago when half a dozen scholars from across the world linked with Transnational Corporations Review (TNCR), proudly called themselves ‘the friends of TNCR’, and sat down on a sunny Sunday in a Canadian famous brand coffee shop in Ottawa, the Capital of Canada, and conceived this special issue of TNCR in the broader area of technology, Innovation and sustainable development. TNCR is an academic journal dedicated to publishing peer-reviewed, high-quality research on issues related to transnational corporations. Faced with the global challenges of climate change, energy efficiency and sustainability, transnational corporations must introduce real measures to make themselves and their product range less environmentally damaging, and more conducive to a sustainable world. Strong environmental and short-term economic pressures have led to a shift towards more eco-friendly products, less emissions and resource consumption. Corporations can also find new sources of income by increasing sustainability, cutting costs and maximising resource efficiency. Thus, the technological and management innovation presents an excellent business opportunity.
In order to establish a discourse on technology, innovation and sustainable development that will engage corporation managers, academic and research institutions and those concerned about the structural and institutional changes needed to make the transition to sustainable development in both emerging and developed countries, a call for papers was issued for a special issue focussed on technology, innovation and sustainable development. Topics of interest in this special issue included but were not limited to:
(1) Sustainability and management innovation
Interface
Sustainability and Management
Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Design
Sustainable Design and Business Strategy
Sustainability and Accounting, Finance
Sustainability and Marketing
Sustainability and Transnational Corporations
Sustainability and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Sustainability and Ethics
Sustainability and Business Strategy
Sustainability and Social, Law
Sustainability and Corporation Culture
Sustainability and Environment
Sustainability and Developed Countries
Sustainability and Developing Countries
Green Procurement
Green Supply Chain and Logistics
(2) Sustainability and technology interface
Technology Development and Innovation
Sustainability and Natural Resources
Sustainable Design
Innovation of Green Technologies
Green Information Technology and Energy
Sustainability and Green Information Technology Infrastructure
Cloud computing and virtualisation
In the call for papers we welcomed original papers, review papers, technical reports and case studies. We also encouraged inclusion of conceptual, analytical, empirical and applied articles. Twelve manuscripts were submitted for consideration in the special issue. Nine manuscripts were approved and sent out for review. Only six papers were finally accepted for the special issue. Although the number of articles published in this special issue is not very large, they reflect a broad variety of research directions, insights and methodologies. An interesting aspect is that the papers come from all over the world reflecting the true nature of the journal TNCR. presents an overview of the six papers contained in this special issue. The papers are listed in alphabetical order based on the surname of the first author.
Table 1. Classifications of the papers in the special issue.
2. Overview of the contributions
The contributions of the six articles published in this special issue are summarised below in the sequence used in .
Understanding consumer perception towards adopting a new technology is important but complex. Mobile banking is an emerging issue for financial management as the financial sector all over the world is striving to capitalise on the enormous benefits of the mobile phone and of mobile technology and self-service technology through virtual medium to assimilate with their service delivery system (Saxena and Chaudhari). Mobile banking involves multifaceted issues including security and operation as well as trust and consumer intentions to use. KumarV, KumarU and Akhter in their paper, ‘Mobile banking: A tradeoff between mobile technology and service for consumer behavioral intentions’, unveil consumer perceptions about mobile banking in terms of issues inhibiting use of this dynamic service. Additionally, they recommend design criteria shedding light on those issues that create a negative attitude towards accepting this service through comparing results in different countries. In this regard, a two-phase exploratory type empirical study was conducted to capture the critical factors that contribute to shaping consumer attitudes towards mobile banking. Trust, security, accessibility, superior service and user-friendly design have been identified as the most important issues influencing consumers to develop either favourable or unfavourable attitudes towards this dynamic technology driven service. Authors recognised the differences in behaviour of consumers having different demographic characteristics. Income, education and literacy, age and ethnographic background have a noticeable impact on adoption behaviour, particularly in consumer perceptions of security and privacy, which are essential for developing a positive attitude. The findings, primarily based on respondents from Bangladesh, were also compared those from other countries via literature review to understand its scope for generalised application.
While sustainability is central to research on supply chains, there has been relatively little research on diversity and impact on supply chain sustainability performance. Such practices, also called sustainable plans, are the ones that improve not only supply chain economic performance, but also their environmental and social performances. However, there are only few case analyses of innovative organisations successfully adopting sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices. Also, there are many challenges related to best practices, and they are challenges for SSCM. These include the identification of said practices, the difficulty in knowing which practices have a real impact, determining methods to effectively adopt them, as well as the willingness of a successful firm to share their best practices with rivals (Maire, Bronet, & Pillet, Citation2005). Laurin and Fantazy in their pilot study paper ‘Sustainable supply chain management: A case study at IKEA’ explore the extent to which IKEA has successfully integrated sustainability practices into the management of the supply chain. Here primary data were gathered from IKEA as a global case study. This case study focuses on IKEA’s sustainability efforts within the three broad categories of SCM: inbound functions such as purchasing and procurement, operations and production such as design and manufacturing, and outbound functions such as packaging, marketing and reverse logistics. The research reveals that sustainability practices can be successfully implemented across an organisations’ entire supply chain, including second and third tier suppliers to gain positive environmental and social impacts while still promoting a strong economic bottom line. Interesting results include the following: (i) a superficial or partial implementation of sustainability practices is ineffective; only a holistic approach to both environmental and social policies will lead to genuine sustainability; (ii) building relationships with various stakeholders within the organisation and across the supply chain is a successful approach and (iii) continuously improving and searching for ways to inflict positive and meaningful change is important.
Managing sustainability becomes more complex when … competition which was once amongst businesses has become a competition among their supply chains (Christopher, Citation2016), where significant attention needs to be paid to the management of external elements of the value chains (Ross, Citation2011). On the other hand, the ‘interconnectedness of the enterprises’ and ‘closely integrated channels of suppliers and customer’ create stronger core competency for businesses and therefore should improve their competitiveness. Such a new ecology of competition and new kinds of business models which can be better defined on the basis of business ecosystem platforms are catching strength since they are believed to give sustainable competitive advantage. Miri Lavassani in his paper ‘Coopetition and sustainable competitiveness in business ecosystem: A networks analysis of the global telecommunications industry’ used the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) of intermediate goods and services to explore the business ecosystems of the global telecommunications industry and conducted a networks analysis of the sector. Unlike most existing studies that have assessed the business ecosystem at the individual and/or business levels, this paper conducts exploratory analysis across the industries or countries; both can provide complimentary outcomes for a comprehensive strategic analysis. The goal of this paper is to provide assessment tools to explore and analyse the role and importance of industries, countries and communities in the business ecosystems from different perspectives. This paper utilises Joo and Shin's definition of a business ecosystem as a “mutually dependent system interconnected by a loose foundation of various members such as customers, suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders”. To achieve sustainable competitive advantage businesses are required to go beyond the “conglomerate-driven” resource-based view and employ “ecosystem-based” strategies (Joo & Shin, Citation2017). This study provides frameworks that can assist business managers to recognise the structure of their business ecosystems and accordingly plan for achieving sustainable competitiveness.
Climate change remains the most significant risk to our businesses and neighbourhoods. Martin, McKay and Ballamingie in their article ‘Climate change and housing production in Ottawa, Canada: The business case for change’ argue that after World War II in North America, suburbs became the preferred model of city growth i.e. a low-density car-oriented residential development. However, today the politics, economics and ecology of housing are changing. Authors make a case that this model is not sustainable and the housing industry must mitigate and prepare for a changing climate in the form of increasing severity of heat waves, flooding and ice storms. The paper is a dialectical approach to housing and climate change looking specifically at the case study of the City of Ottawa, Canada. It highlights risks to Ottawa’s housing industry due to climate change include stricter regulation, producer liability, disrupted production, interrupted supply chains and changing consumer preferences. The paper makes the business case for change to an industry and regulatory regimes that are over-invested in traditional assumptions and economies and underinvested in innovation. It then investigates some barriers to change and the different perceptions of the problem between the housing industry and the state, arguing that action to reduce and protect communities from climate change has been slow, disjointed and incremental. The authors while identifying barriers to change and offering some solutions argue that producers, regulators and consumers of housing must all share responsibility for cutting greenhouse gas and prepare for changing weather patterns.
Business process reengineering (BPR) is a management innovation that has been found to revolutionise company’s business processes for better efficiency and sustainability. BPR invariably leads to adoption of new information system, such as enterprise resources planning (ERP), thus requiring significant organisational and process changes. Not only is change management at times challenging in itself, changes always have certain risk factors attached to them. The inherent dynamic nature of risk at every instance of change in an organisation emphasises the need for change and risk management (Aven, Citation2011; Smith & Fischbacher, Citation2009). Misra, Rana, Verma, V. Kumar and U. Kumar in their article ‘Modeling change management and risk management in a financial organization due to information system adoption’ model and evaluate both change management and risk management, in a financial organisation adopting ERP system. In order to picture the purposeful relationship among strategic actors, the actor dependency concept has been applied to model change management problems in the current loan repayment process of a finance company. This actor dependency technique is described and illustrated by studying a case for which change and risk management has been applied. The framework explains the prospects and alterations associated with BPR and can evidently integrate the change related issues in the course of system analysis. This technique explores the various vulnerabilities and opportunities of risk associated with re-engineering. The framework drawn is global in the sense that the re-engineered processes and associated risks are not limited to any one country or industry, hence widely implementable.
Renewable energy is part of the back-bone of sustainability. The global community demands preservation of fossil fuels and the growth of renewable energy. However, Pearce in his article ‘Australian energy policy: Shortfalls and roadblocks for sustainable change’ argues that this is not the case when it comes to Australia especially in the case of oil and gas. As a result of the principles laid down by the global community, there is growth occurring in renewable energy. The Australian government is not keeping up with the changes that are occurring in the market place and with the current and future needs of the Australian society. This paper explores three case studies that indicate the impact on businesses and the Australian community due to the lack of comprehensive federal Australian Energy Policy. The three case studies explored are: The South Australian Electricity Crisis; the status of Australia’s gas resource and regulatory regime; and Australia’s national strategy for the conservation of oil. The Australian government has a climate change target and has implemented the emission reduction policy by creating an Emission Reduction Fund and a Renewable Energy Target that aims at growing the share of renewable energy to around 23% by 2020. However, the three case studies indicate that the climate change policies are not in sync with state government energy policies on electricity, gas, oil and its use in the transport sector. By using multiple case study methodology, the research question that this paper explores is whether Australia should have a federal energy policy that takes into consideration the principles proclaimed by the global community. The paper concludes that the Australian Government should not wait for crises to occur whereby businesses and the community suffer before implementing appropriate policies.
Concluding remarks
This editorial paper introduces the special issue of the TNCR on ‘Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development’. It was very satisfying to get successful papers containing studies done in Canada, USA, Bangladesh, India and Australia to give us a glimpse of geographically diverse culture and challenges. Two aspects are worth mentioning. First, none of the six accepted articles directly touched the social dimension of sustainability which confirms the notion that research on social dimension is still scarce, in relative terms. Second, all articles where case study was the predominant methodology dealt with large organisations. A major part of production activities, whether goods or services, around the world are carried by SMEs. Thus, SMEs offer one of the biggest opportunities to implement practices to enhance sustainability and we believe that researchers in this field can significantly enhance this sector by conducting successful case studies of SMEs and disseminating them widely.
All six papers went through a rigorous review process with significant critique from experts interested in the field. We expect that the special issue will be useful to practitioners, policy makers and researchers concerned with implementing sustainability through management innovation or technology.
Acknowledgements
Needless to say that we would like to thank all those who contributed to putting together this collection of research articles in the form of a peer reviewed special issue. Most importantly and specifically, we thank Hugh Dang, Managing Editor of the journal, who gave us the opportunity to guest-edit this special issue. We are also grateful to Dr Yanwen Dong of Fukushima University who has always been available for advice. We sincerely thank both for their continued support and insights into developing this special issue. We also extend our heartfelt gratitude to all who helped us in reviewing the papers. The special issue editors wish to thank the following reviewers for their time and contribution:
Mahmud Shareef Akhter, North South University, Dacca, Bangladesh
Hugh Dang, Ottawa United Learning Academy, Ottawa, Canada
Yanwen Dong, University of Fukushima, Fukushima, Japan
Yogesh Dwivedi, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
Kamel Fantazy, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Canada
Saroj Kaul, Jindal Global University, Sonepat, India
Dong Kim, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, USA
Uma Kumar, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Vinod Kumar, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Kayvan Miri Lavassani, North Carolina Central University, Durham, USA
Bharat Maheshwari, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada
Hanuv Mann, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Canada
Inder Jit Singh Mann, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Subhas C. Misra, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India
Prafula Pearce, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Aditha J. Persaud, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Vedmani Sharan, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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