Organizations today operate in increasingly complex and uncertain environments shaped by rapid digital transformation, growing sustainability pressures, evolving stakeholder expectations, and heightened societal scrutiny. These dynamics have profoundly altered how organizations are managed, compelling firms to rethink their strategies, structures, and management practices in order to remain competitive, legitimate, and socially responsible. As recent research shows, contemporary management challenges can no longer be addressed through isolated functional or disciplinary perspectives, but instead require integrative approaches that account for technological, social, and institutional change (Hanelt et al., 2021).
A growing body of literature highlights digital transformation as a central driver of organizational adaptation, emphasizing its implications for strategy, governance, and organizational design (Hanelt et al., 2021; Cuel et al., 2024). At the same time, sustainability imperatives and ESG‑related pressures have intensified, increasing the relevance of responsible management practices and the need to address broader societal expectations (Barbosa et al., 2023). In this context, organizational legitimacy, trust, and stakeholder relationships have emerged as critical resources that enable organizations to secure social acceptance and sustain long‑term performance (Blanco‑González et al., 2025).
Recent studies further underline that responsible management is closely linked to human and social outcomes within organizations. Beyond financial and environmental considerations, attention has increasingly turned to employee well‑being and the quality of work environments as key dimensions of sustainable organizational performance. Evidence suggests that corporate social responsibility, when strategically managed, plays a significant role in enhancing employees’ mental well‑being through the development of social and psychological capital, reinforcing both organizational resilience and social legitimacy (Cachón‑Rodríguez et al., 2025).
Despite these advances, existing research remains fragmented across domains such as management, marketing, entrepreneurship, sustainability, finance, and management‑related education. This fragmentation limits cumulative understanding of how these dimensions interact in shaping organizational responses to contemporary challenges. Addressing this gap calls for integrative and interdisciplinary research that connects strategic, organizational, and institutional levels of analysis, while remaining sensitive to contextual and comparative differences across organizational and geographical settings (Cuel et al., 2024).
This Special Issue responds to these needs by providing a platform for high‑quality theoretical and empirical research on contemporary challenges in management and business. It seeks to advance holistic explanations of organizational adaptation, legitimacy, and value creation by bringing together diverse perspectives and methodological approaches. By fostering dialogue between global management debates and context‑sensitive research, the Special Issue aims to contribute to the development of more sustainable, innovative, and socially legitimate organizations in today’s evolving business landscape.
List of topic areas
- Contemporary challenges in management, finance, and organizations under conditions of uncertainty, volatility, and change.
- Strategic management, governance, organizational legitimacy, and organizational adaptation to economic, technological, and societal transformations.
- Innovation, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, and technology‑driven organizational and managerial change.
- Organizational learning, management education, and the use of new learning technologies to enhance performance and decision‑making.
- Sustainability strategies, ESG practices, sustainable finance, and organizational legitimacy in responsible management.
- Organizational legitimacy, trust, reputation, transparency, and stakeholder relations.
- Employee well‑being, human sustainability, responsible leadership, and people management.
- Entrepreneurship, business models, financing decisions, and value creation in dynamic and competitive markets.
- Marketing, consumer, and financial perspectives on sustainability, organizational legitimacy, and value creation.
- Integrative, interdisciplinary, comparative, and international approaches to management, finance, and education research.
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/arla
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/arla
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.
Journal Information: Scopus Journal Q2, H-index 26
Key deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 15/09/2026
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 29/12/2026
For more details refer here
