Calls for Papers (special): International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD)

Special Issue On: Sustainable Entrepreneurship in a Socially Responsible World

Submission Due Date
5/31/2012

Guest Editors
Prof. Vincenzo Maggioni, Faculty of Economics Second University of Naples, Italy            
Prof. Ahmed B. Abdel-Maksoud, Faculty of Business and Economics, United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Prof. Jens Mueller, Waikato Management School, The University of Waikato, New Zealand

Introduction
This special issue has the ambitious aim to discuss the emerging interest in socially responsible entrepreneurship and sustainable management and its organizational determinants. In 1987, the World Commission on Economic Development (WCED) popularized the term ‘sustainable development’ in its well-cited report, Our Common Future. According to the WCED, sustainable development “is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Social and political contests are then the fundamental part of the journey of negotiating the balance between society, state, and market. Are emerging markets sensitive to corporate responsibility issues? The WCED asserted that sustainable development required the simultaneous adoption of environmental, economic, and equity principles. This assertion was met with skepticism as it challenged the deep-rooted assumption that environmental integrity and social equity were at odds with economic prosperity. Many large multinationals have accepted the argument that these principles of sustainable development were internally consistent. Over time, corporate commitment to sustainable development has changed considerably. As corporate sustainable development becomes more commonplace, there is an associated need to understand the forces that influence this commitment. It is important to understand how social and economic processes interact in order to answer when and why firms commit to sustainable development and how a sustainable and “eco-friendly” entrepreneurship can be developed in a socially responsible world. Thus, we welcome papers that analyse and interpret policies for the creation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem: which entrepreneurial ecosystems and populations of firms are sources of economic growth? Is there a right entrepreneurial rate that can guarantee growth and regional development? How can policies catalyse the emergence or creation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem? Which policies can encourage entrepreneurship and small business in order to be classified as selective (e.g., tax breaks, subsidies or incentives for particular targeted groups of companies or industries) or broad (i.e., they promote an entrepreneur-friendly environment through fiscal policies, rules of the labour market, competition, business regulations, startup costs, capital access, etc.)?

Objective
This special issue welcomes papers that focus on the concept of entrepreneurship and management in a corporate sustainable perspective through i) eco-control systems and environmental management theories, ii) knowledge management theories, iii) eco-management theories, iv) corporate social responsibility theory, and v) any other theoretical lens that enhances the understanding of the interface between firms and sustainable socially responsible development. Papers considering the impact of corporate sustainable values on the performances of family enterprises are also encouraged, as well as empirical research using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. Case studies (single in-depth cases or comparative cases) that are theoretically and empirically grounded are welcomed. We also consider conceptual papers that draw on the existing literature and develop innovative contributions that improve our understanding of the topic. Thus, we are looking for a wide variety of papers that contribute to the creation of a solid evidence base concerning sustainable management inside enterprises.

Recommended Topics
Topics to be discussed in this special issue include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Building business value through sustainable growth and green marketing
• Challenges of eco-leadership: leadership for sustainable innovation
• Consumer responses to corporate sustainable development initiatives
• Critical perspec¬tives on corporate sustainable development in a globalized economy
• Cultural context of sustainability entrepreneurship
• Developing capabilities and com¬petence for sustainable business management and firm performance
• Entrepreneurship and innovation for sustainability
• Evolving sustainably: reinventing the meaning of development
• False promise of corporate sustainable development: evidence from multinational companies
• Governance choices for corporate sustainable development
• Incorporating sustainable business practices into company strategy
• Individualism vs. collectivism: organizational integrity and social equity
• Legitimacy and competition, paradox and dysfunctionality in sustainable development
• Mapping the interface between corporate identity, ethics and corporate sustainable development
• Shareholder value ideology, reciprocity and decision making in moral dilemmas
• Stakeholder power and organizational learning in corporate environmental management
• Sustainable development and corporate performance
• Sustainability entrepreneurs, ecopreneurs and the development of a sustainable economy
• Sustainopreneurship: social entrepreneurship and ecopreneurship, via sustainability entrepreneurship
• Using psychological science to achieve ecological sustainability

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit papers for this special theme issue on “Sustainable Entrepreneurship in a Socially Responsible World” on or before May 31, 2012. All submissions must be original and may not be under review by another publication. INTERESTED AUTHORS SHOULD CONSULT THE JOURNAL’S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS at http://www.igi-global.com/Files/AuthorEditor/guidelinessubmission.pdf. All submitted papers will be reviewed on a double-blind, peer review basis. Papers must follow APA style for reference citations.

All submissions and inquiries should be directed to the attention of:
Prof. Vincenzo Maggioni
Faculty of Economics
Second University of Naples
Italy      
Guest Editor
E-mail: vincenzo.maggioni@unina2.it

Special Issue On: Smart, Sustainable and Just: Higher Education and the Remaking of the Right to the City

Submission Due Date
12/10/2012

Guest Editors
Dr. John Blewitt and Dr. Nick Theodorakopoulos (Aston Business School, Aston University, UK)

Introduction
Thinking and acting sustainably involves, among other things, being able to make connections, working inter-professionally, crossing disciplinary boundaries and thinking holistically. This invariably means applying a systems approach to understanding the dynamic interrelationship between human action and the planetary environment with all the intellectual challenges that complexity and chaos theory throws in. But in practice many of us still work deep within specific professional or disciplinary silos that sometimes act as a break on policies and practices that aim to fashion a more sustainable world. What is of the utmost importance is to transcend, and transform, established ways of doing things, to move way beyond comfortable habits and routines and to vigorously but constructively critique initiatives that fail to make the necessary connections. In other words, everything is in some way related to something else. Higher education is no exception; quite the opposite. Its role is to help make these connections real, apparent and obvious.

Of course, there is more to know and more to learn. Information and data is not knowledge and understanding. New digital media technologies may provide us immense amounts of facts and figures while offering all manner of exciting social, technological affordances and possibilities.  But, the brave new digital world of cloud and ubiquitous computing has a significant and growing ecological footprint. New media technologies and their associated practices also require a range of interconnected capabilities and literacies for them to be used effectively and democratically: to empower rather than to control citizens, to stimulate rather than restrict social enterprise and sustainable economic activity, and to facilitate learning that is genuinely social, creative and generative of new conditions of possibility. Digital technologies have the capacity to empower and unite, to enlighten and to enhance but also to divide and alienate, to misinform and disconnect, to suppress and to repress. The Rockefeller Institute has identified the digital imperatives of future urban environments mapping out a planet of civic laboratories. the capacity to do so inclusively.  At the same time social, urban and ecological resilience is predicated on clear and identifiable limits. New production processes, such as the 3-D printer (Pearce et al., 2010), may make more with less and have the capacity to do so inclusively.  At the same time social, urban and ecological resilience is predicated on clear and identifiable limits.

Thus, with the majority of the planet’s human population now living in urban areas, with economic development proceeding at a pace in India and China and new cities being built within a decade and existing ones doubling in size within a generation issues of food supply, water, employment, living space, resource use, energy security, health, well-being, peace and co-operation are all priorities. If not of equal importance then they certainly are connected in such a way that not one can be addressed in isolation from another. Thus urban design, sustainable architecture, business development, social learning, local food and digital technology are all constitutive of attempts to fashion sustainable and regenerative learning environments. Terreform Inc. is developing ideas for a green self-sufficient New York City in association with Michael Sorkin and the City College of New York, indigenous and local knowledge is becoming integrated into the way human beings understand and relate to the world about them even if pharmaceutical corporations are overly anxious to slap a patent on ancient remedies that have been otherwise free for millennia.

So how do we pull all this together? Make the necessary connections, traverse disciplines, co-operate inter-professionally, learn sustainably while simultaneously making new and old cities - our increasingly urbanising world -  liveable, ecologically sustainable and socially regenerative? What R&D projects, experimental initiatives can be scaled up or down to make things work at neighbourhood and regional level? How can existing institutions of higher learning assist? What should they NOT do? What do we all have to learn and how should we learn? How can urban dwellers nurture our sensitivity and sensibility to self and others, including the many other species with which we share this Earth? Where does institutionalised Higher Education fit in to all this when learning has to proceed throughout life in a complex of spaces and places, real and virtual? How can space connect with place and learning with a future that does not repeat the mistakes of past generations? What role, then, does a higher education play in the sustainable, digital, environmentally and socially just city of the future? Does it have to be configured in the way it is at present? How can higher education prevent itself from being a pedagogic junkspace left over after neoliberal economic policies have stripped the public realm? How can higher education move beyond its own ideological, metaphorical and physical walls? How can it contribute to the right to the city, indeed, the right to a sustainable and just city? As David Harvey writes,

The question of what kind of city we want cannot be divorced from that of what kind of social ties, relationship to nature, lifestyles, technologies and aesthetic values we desire. The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.

Objective
Taking a cue from Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey and Peter Marcuse's work on 'the right to the city', the objective of this SI will focus on how higher education practice can cross disciplinary, professional, spatial and technological boundaries in order to make connections in a holistic manner; and, in so doing help remake the right to the city in the 21st century along technologically smart, ecologically sustainable, socially just and democratic lines.

Recommended Topics
Topics to be discussed in this special issue include (but are not limited to) the following:

• E-development (e-learning, e-health, e-business, and e-society)
• Eco-innovation and eco-entrepreneurship
• Environmental change and human development
• Environmental justice
• Higher education
• New media technologies and knowledge for sustainable development
• Resilience
• Social networking and urban democracy
• The Right to the City
• Urban food security

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit papers for this special theme issue on International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD) on or before  December 10, 2012. All submissions must be original and may not be under review by another publication. INTERESTED AUTHORS SHOULD CONSULT THE JOURNAL’S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS at http://www.igi-global.com/Files/AuthorEditor/guidelinessubmission.pdf.  All submitted papers will be reviewed on a double-blind, peer review basis. Papers must follow APA style for reference citations. Please send a brief summary or abstract to John Blewitt, j.d.blewitt@aston.ac.uk, if you would like to discuss ideas for a possible contribution to the Special Issue. John will most happy to advise and comment where ever he can.

All submissions and inquiries should be directed to the attention of:
Dr. John Blewitt and Dr. Nick Theodorakopoulos
Guest Editors
E-mails: j.d.blewitt@aston.ac.uk; N.THEODORAKOPOULOS@aston.ac.uk