Adopting digital technologies such as AI, blockchain, and data analytics has increasingly enabled organisations to align business activities with sustainability and social goals (Hermann, 2022). These innovations can improve health outcomes, enhance climate resilience (Falcke, Zobel, & Comello, 2024), create jobs (Hossain, Park, & Shahid, 2023), reduce food insecurity (Chandio et al., 2025), and boost energy efficiency (Xiao et al., 2025), thereby contributing to sustainable communities (Al-Emran & Griffy-Brown, 2023; Mesherry & Chen, 2024; Xue, Green, & Zhang, 2023).
However, rapid technological advancement is reshaping governance and compliance systems (Hamzah, Sulaiman, & Ismail, 2026). As organizations become increasingly dependent on digital technologies, concerns surrounding cybersecurity, data breaches, cyberattacks (Ferrell et al., 2024), privacy, security, transparency, and algorithmic bias further complicate governance (Dwivedi et al., 2021; Gardezi et al., 2024). Ultimately, the intersection of digital transformation and governance offers both opportunities and challenges (Du & Xie, 2021), demanding new governance models for resilient, sustainable transformation (Beach, Lee, & Chen, 2026; Scherer & Voegtlin, 2018).
Within this debate, existing research largely focuses on organisational outcomes (i.e., ESG, performance, disclosure/reporting). Comparatively less attention has been paid to the internal processes and managerial innovations through which sustainable and responsible embedding of change is happening in organisations. Furthermore, the dark sides and unintended consequences of technological transformation, including issues related to governance and sustainability landscape such as power imbalances, exclusion, inequality, and fairness, remain underexplored.
This special issue intends to unpack these gaps by advancing research at the intersection of technology, governance, and sustainability. It aims to encourage critical reflection on how organisations and societal can integrate technological innovation responsibly while fostering sustainable development.
The aims of this special issue are threefold:
- It intends to integrate research on technological disruption, governance, and sustainability, which have often developed in isolation but are strongly interrelated in today’s world. It aims to advance the debate by explicitly stimulating research that explores these critical interrelationships.
- It aims to shed light on the organisational embedding processes and managerial innovations that enable organisations to address sustainability and governance challenges associated with digital transformation.
- It attempts to open a new debate on the broader societal responsibilities associated with changes in technology, governance and sustainability landscape, particularly regarding ethics, inclusion, and fairness.
This special issue welcomes interdisciplinary and methodologically innovative studies that contribute to new insights into how technology, governance and sustainability can be integrated to support responsible organizations and sustainable societies.
List of topic areas
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- How technology enables governance and sustainable transformation.
- Organizational processes supporting digital, governance, and sustainable innovation.
- Ethical tensions in sustainable technological change.
- Digital transformation, corporate governance, and innovative management for sustainable and circular economy transitions.
- How technology, corporate governance and management can help achieve SDGs and ESG standards.
- Engaging key theories (stakeholder theory, institutional theory, paradox theory) for understanding and solving ethical and sustainability issues in digital governance.
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cg
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/cg
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Key deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/11/2026
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 31/03/2027
