In Times of Crisis: Sustainable Innovation and Performance Management in the SMEs
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 55845
Special Issue Editors
Interests: entrepreneurship; innovation; SMEs; strategic alliances; interorganizational networks; cooperation; partnerships
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: creative, smart, and sustainable cities; regional and urban networks; corporate social responsibility; mining industry; sustainable urban entrepreneurship; living labs; entrepreneurship in general; accounting; management control; auditing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In times of crisis and fundamentally due to COVID-19, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been affected by this economic and social pandemic. It is therefore crucial that scientific research continues to increasingly serve as a conduit for solutions to overcome the negative effects of this pandemic crisis and similar crises in the future. This Special Issue will comprise a selection of papers addressing topics, approaches, and tools to understand how, in times of crisis, the performance management in SMEs, including family business, can be affected. Therefore, research papers should address the multifaceted topics around sustainable innovation and performance management, such as (1) entrepreneurship, (2) performance, (3) green innovation, (4) regional competitiveness, (5) partnerships, and (6) business resilience, among others. These topics should include definitions of the concepts of entrepreneurship, sustainable innovation, and performance management as well as the identification of factors affecting these types of phenomena. In addition, these surveys should identify situations in which managers/owners of SMEs have adapted their businesses to respond to the disruption caused by COVID-19 and explain how they made this rapid change operational as well as the impact it had on their performance; explain whether social responsibility has become more important in the way of business management; determine whether digitization was important in addressing the crisis and to what extent, among others. Measurement tools for assessing these topics are also requested as well as theoretical frameworks to face similar crises. Perspectives guiding the design of sustainable innovation, resilience, and performance management in the context of SMEs should be presented to consider when implementing public policies for increasing competitiveness, including those aimed at approved special economic support to mitigate the severe effects of this virus.
Papers should also use various support theories to explain sustainable innovation and SME performance management in times of crisis, such as chaos theory, sustainability theory, resource-based theory, network theory, circular economy, absorption capacity theory, and fuzzy set theory, among others. Thus, in general, this Special Issue will be devoted to the study of the benefits of sustainable innovation practices, social responsibility, digitalization, resilient management, and adequate performance indicators in times of crisis for the SMEs of various countries and regions worldwide.
Empirical, conceptual, exploratory articles are welcome that use quantitative and qualitative methodology per se, or a combination.
Papers selected for this Special Issue will be subject to a rigorous peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.
Prof. Dr. Mário José Baptista Franco
Dr. Margarida Maria Mendes Rodrigues
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- COVID-19
- sustainable innovation
- digital entrepreneurship
- entrepreneurial resilience
- SME performance
- crisis management
- government support
- organizational response
- impact of business
- skills
- social responsibility
- social entrepreneurship
- family firms
- employment and unemployment
- risk management
- creative entrepreneurship
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