Sustainable and Innovative Business in the Digital Age

Focus
This thematic stream examines how organisations leverage digital technologies, platform ecosystems, and data-driven innovation to navigate complex and uncertain environments. Research in this area explores the strategic use of business model innovation, entrepreneurial agility, artificial intelligence, and electronic systems to enhance responsiveness and competitive adaptability. Key inquiries include how cognitive complexity influences innovation under dynamic conditions, how digital infrastructure shapes innovation processes, and how organizations coordinate capacity, technology, and data to improve value creation. This stream draws from entrepreneurship, operations research, digital strategy, and information systems to understand how firms scale, pivot, and sustain performance in an era of rapid technological transformation.

Impact
This research supports firms in designing resilient digital strategies and reconfiguring operations for innovation-driven responsiveness. Insights from this work inform how platform enterprises integrate knowledge for sustainable entrepreneurship, how digital ventures attract capital beyond seed stages, and how explainable AI can be applied to strategic decision-making in finance. By linking innovation processes with environmental and technological uncertainty, this stream helps organisations build the cognitive and technical infrastructure required to sustain growth through digital transitions.

Outcomes

Akter, S., Sultana, S., Gunasekaran, A., Bandara, R. J., & Miah, S. J. (2024). Tackling the global challenges using data-driven innovations. Annals of Operations Research, 333(2), 517-532.

He, T., Liu, W., Shao, X., & Tian, R. G. (2023). Exploring the digital innovation process and outcome in retail platform ecosystems: Disruptive transformation or incremental change. Electronic Commerce Research, 1-30.

Shinkle, G. A., Sharma, A., Sharry, P., Tobias, J., Cartel, M., & Vergiawan, D. (2023). Business model idea screening: Advancing toward the Bullseye. Organizational Dynamics, 52(3), 100995.

Xi, H., Wang, Y., Shao, Z., Zhang, X., & Waller, T. (2024). Optimizing mobility resource allocation in multiple MaaS subscription frameworks: a group method of data handling-driven self-adaptive harmony search algorithm. Annals of Operations Research, 1-29.

Focus
This research stream investigates how organisations, industries, and regions integrate sustainability imperatives into innovation strategies and resource configurations. It examines the institutional, financial, and technological enablers of green transformation, including green credit systems, renewable energy development, and carbon market integration. A key concern is how enterprises build sustainable innovation capabilities in response to environmental pressures, policy frameworks, and societal expectations. Particular attention is paid to the role of organisational commitment, entrepreneurial orientation, knowledge integration, and AI-enabled infrastructures in facilitating the transition toward low-carbon, circular, and resilient economic and business models.

Impact
This stream informs policy and strategic decision-making at the nexus of innovation and sustainability. By offering evidence-based insights into how financial resilience, green credit, digital finance, and artificial intelligence can accelerate environmental responsiveness, this body of work supports public and private actors in navigating the transition to more sustainable operating models. It contributes to the development of cleaner industries, inclusive green innovation ecosystems, and cross-national pathways toward carbon neutrality. The research is particularly relevant to policymakers, energy economists, platform-based enterprises, and organisational leaders engaged in climate adaptation, ESG performance, and long-term sustainable growth.

Outcomes

Deng, Y., Nepal, R., Shao, X., Ding, C. J., & Wu, Z. (2024). Zooming in or zooming out: Energy strategy, developmental parity and regional entrepreneurial dynamism. Energy Economics, 140, 108021.

Sun, X., Zhao, D., Zhang, D., & Tian, F. (2021). Entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation capabilities in platform enterprises: The mediating role of knowledge integration. Chinese Management Studies.

Wechtler, H., Lindblom, A., & Lindblom, T. (2024). What drives retail entrepreneurs’ intentions to engage in CSR? The effects of societal concern, social pressure and state anxiety. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 1-18.

Zhang, X., Khan, K., Shao, X., Oprean-Stan, C., & Zhang, Q. (2024). The rising role of artificial intelligence in renewable energy development in China. Energy Economics, 132, 107489.