Strategic Management for Sustainable Growth and Development

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose of this Special Issue is to enhance the knowledge and stimulate discussion at the intersection of strategic management and sustainable development.

Issues related to sustainable development are becoming more and more crucial to companies, regardless of their location, size, or industry. The grand challenges of climate change, loss of biodiversity, poverty, etc. require fast action by all sectors of society. Furthermore, the upcoming post-pandemic economic recovery may present new opportunities for investing in sustainable transformation and growth.

Whether sustainability efforts result in performance improvements is a question that scholars have attempted to answer. Regardless of the efforts, it still seems unclear how and when companies can generate positive performance outcomes through investing in sustainable development. This may be a question of internal or external organizing; however, what is clear is that efforts so far have not resulted in the desired outcomes at the global level.

Strategic management deals with the major initiatives that general managers take to enhance the performance of a firm. The scholarly emphasis of the field has shifted between the firm’s internal resources or capabilities and characteristics of the external environment as drivers of firm performance. Issues related to sustainable development emerged on the agenda of strategic management decades ago, but the issue remained rather marginal until a surge of interest occurred during the past decade. The ideas of triple bottom line and shared value, along with corporate social responsibility and its financial performance implications, are well covered by existing studies, but there are still many relevant issues where further research is needed. These topics are the focus of this Special Issue, including (but not restricted to):

• Linkages between firm performance and sustainability;
• Beyond CSR/ESG—firm-level measurement of sustainability and impact;
• Sustainability indicators for SMEs;
• Firms’ contribution to achieving SDGs—inclusion of SDGs to firm strategy, management, measurement and communication;
• Growth of sustainable enterprises;
• Linkages between firm growth and environmental /social impact;
• Business models for sustainable growth;
• Competencies and capabilities needed for sustainability and sustainable growth;
• Sustainable investment;
• Macro-level and multi-level studies on sustainable growth and development.

The Special Issue welcomes literature reviews, meta-analyses, bibliometric studies, and empirical studies using either quantitative or qualitative methods.  

Prof. Dr. Kaisu Puumalainen
Dr. Anna Vuorio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Sustainable Development Goals
• SDG
• sustainable entrepreneurship
• sustainable growth
• social impact
• environmental impact