Leadership and Sustainability: Building a Better Future

Dear Colleagues,

In a world facing unprecedented challenges, such as climate change, resource depletion, social inequality, and increasing armed conflicts, the role of leadership has never been more critical in shaping a sustainable future for humanity.

Prior research has recognized sustainability as a wicked problem that encompasses numerous dimensions and challenges (Kerekes, 2023; Likhacheva et al., 2023). At its core, sustainability seeks to achieve a harmonious balance between the well-being of present and future generations and the planet's capacity to support life and provide resources. The complexity arises from the intricate interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic systems, with each influencing the others (Metcalf and Benn, 2013) in ways that are unique to each country and region. For instance, financing presents a particularly intricate issue for developing countries and the global south, as they withstand the worst of the impacts of climate change (Aminu et al., 2023).

The knowledge base on sustainability and leadership is growing rapidly, addressing some sustainability dimensions and challenges and relating to managerial leadership, sustainable leadership, leadership for sustainable change, leadership for corporate sustainability, responsible leadership, and ethical and transformational leadership, but mostly on corporate levels and in developing countries (Hallinger and Suriyankietkaew, 2018; Zhao, L. et al., 2023). Furthermore, there is a lack of research on the long-term impact of sustainability strategies and a lack of standardized metrics and measurement tools for assessing sustainable leadership practices poses challenges for evaluating their effectiveness and making meaningful comparisons across organizations.

This Special Issue aims to increase the existing literature on leadership and sustainability focusing on building a better future and touching on areas that have not received adequate attention by using holistic and interdisciplinary research approaches in an attempt to bridge the gaps in this area of research. Although not limited to only these topics, we call for articles addressing:

• Cross cultural and global perspectives of leadership and sustainability and the emergence of leadership and sustainability in developing countries and the role of sociocultural forces in different contexts.
• Multi-level analysis of sustainable leadership (individual, organizational, industry, community, global).
• Long-term impact assessment of sustainable leadership initiatives.
• Leadership and sustainability in non-corporate settings (e.g., non-profits, government, academia).
• Technology and innovation to support and develop leadership and sustainability for a better future.
• Corporate social responsibility and sustainable leadership.
• Challenges and barriers to future leaders of sustainability.
• Challenges and role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in sustainable development.
• Entrepreneurial leadership and sustainable development.
• Sustainability strategies, governance, policy-making, and effective practices.
• Globalisation, multinational companies and sustainable planning and implementation of sustainable policy.
• Assessment and review of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries performance and future development.
• Environmental challenges as financial opportunities in the modern financial system.
• Circular economy, sustainable consumption, co-creation, coproduction, and collaboration for sustainability.

References

Aminu, N., Clifton, N. and Mahe, S. (2023) ‘From pollution to prosperity: Investigating the Environmental Kuznets curve and pollution-haven hypothesis in sub-Saharan Africa’s industrial sector’, Journal of environmental management, 342, pp. 118147–118147. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118147.

Hallinger, P. and Suriyankietkaew, S. (2018) ‘Science Mapping of the Knowledge Base on Sustainable Leadership, 1990-2018’, Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland), 10(12), p. 4846. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124846.

Kerekes, S. (2023) ‘Chasing the Impossible. Sustainable Development Is a Wicked Problem, but It Can Be and Should Be Tamed’, World futures, 79(3), pp. 394–405. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2021.1974263.

Likhacheva, K., Bretagnolle, V. and Arpin, I. (2023) ‘An exploration of the influence of problem wickedness on project pluralism in sustainability science’, Sustainability science [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-023-01373-6.

Metcalf, L. and Benn, S. (2013) ‘Leadership for Sustainability: An Evolution of Leadership Ability’, Journal of business ethics, 112(3), pp. 369–384. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1278-6.

Zhao, L. Yang M.M. and Michelson, G. (2023) ‘Trends in the Dynamic Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility and Leadership: A Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis’, Journal of business ethics, 182(1), pp. 135–157. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05035-y.

Dr. Hiba K. Massoud
Dr. Nasir Aminu
Dr. Mushtaq Hussain Khan
Guest Editors

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• knowledge sharing and transfer, organisational learning for leadership and sustainability
• diverse leadership and sustainability
• environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) for sustainable development
• sustainability challenges and opportunities
• building a sustainable economy
• leadership and sustainability in education/higher education
• sustainability performance targets, indicators, success factors and reporting
• innovation and technology for sustainability and sustainable leadership