Strategic Foresight for Sustainable Digital Transformation​

Submit your paper here from 1 July 2026!

Introduction

Firms today operate in a poly-crisis environment, forcing them to make decisions with decade-long consequences amid rapid technological change. While management research on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has proliferated (Pizzi et al., 2020; Rodaro et al., 2025), integrated theories connecting strategic foresight routines, such as scenario planning, horizon scanning, back-casting, and real-time Delphi, to sustainable digital transformation remain underdeveloped. Scholars have begun revisiting foundational strategic frameworks to address this complexity (Zupic et al., 2025), yet clear evidence on how foresight practices modify these strategies to mitigate risk is lacking. For instance, recent evidence suggests that 
prioritizing ESG factors is crucial for mitigating bankruptcy risk (Colantoni et al., 2025), but the specific digital antecedents of this relationship remain under-theorized.

This special issue addresses that gap by seeking interdisciplinary work that clarifies the mechanisms linking foresight practices to technology road-mapping, investment sequencing, and measurable sustainability outcomes across sectors and firm sizes. This special issue aims to explain how strategic foresight capabilities guide sustainable digital transformation to deliver long-term ESG value.

We encourage submissions, conceptual, empirical, or review-based, that advance theory or practice by addressing the following thematic pillars:

• A Capabilities View of Foresight and Strategy: How firms convert weak signals into technology portfolios and staged investments aligned with ESG targets (Amjad et al., 2025; Qureshi & Soomro, 2024). We invite work that updates classic corporate strategy and growth matrices (Zupic et al., 2025) through the lens of foresight and digital sustainability.
• SME Competitiveness and Resilience: Evidence on how foresight-enabled adoption of digital technologies strengthens resilience and prepares smaller firms for disruption (Carayannis et al., 2025; Sudirman et al., 2025).
• Leadership, Governance, and AI: Insights into culture and governance for AIaware foresight, including ethical decision systems, board oversight, and topmanagement cognition (Bevilacqua et al., 2025; Forés et al., 2025). This includes determinants of AI adoption (Maldonado-Canca et al., 2025) and the ethical implications of AI-driven change (Schwaeke et al., 2025; Suljic, 2025).
• Strategic Alignment, Risk, and Performance: Clearer links between foresightled digital strategies and ESG performance metrics. We are particularly interested in how these strategies influence financial stability and bankruptcy risk (Colantoni et al., 2025) alongside standard investor disclosures (Işık et al., 2025; Zeng et al., 2025).
• Ecosystems and Entrepreneurship: Digitalization interacts with entrepreneurship and sustainable development, particularly in emerging markets (Fedajev et al., 2025; Osinubi et al., 2025; Vo Thai et al., 2025). We seek to advance holistic approaches to sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems (Theodoraki et al., 2022), exploring how resource shortages impact intention (Bullini Orlandi et al., 2025) and the role of AI in venturing (Uriarte et al., 2025).

List of Topic Areas

​​Human and organisational behaviour in digital transitions: How foresight practices shape attitudes, norms, and behaviours underpinning sustainable digital transformation, including prejudice, bias and exclusion risks, organisational learning dynamics, and the cultivation of digital literacy and digital competence across the workforce.

• Learning, capabilities, and sensemaking: Micro- and meso-level studies of how managers, employees, teams, and boards interpret weak signals, learn from 
  experimentation, and develop dynamic capabilities to navigate ESG-oriented digital transformation paths.
• Inclusive foresight and prejudice reduction: Foresight processes and participatory methods that surface diverse stakeholder voices, address prejudice 
  and discrimination in data, algorithms, and decision routines, and support just transitions for different employee and community groups.
• Digital literacy, skills, and workforce transitions: The role of digital skills, reskilling and upskilling programmes, and literacy initiatives in enabling SMEs and larger organisations to adopt AI and other digital technologies in ways that support long-term sustainability objectives.
• Behavioural risk, ethics, and governance: How cognitive biases, risk perceptions, and ethical frames of decision-makers influence technology roadmapping, 
  ESG prioritisation, and responses to bankruptcy and performance risks in digital transformation.
• Methodologies for sustainable road-mapping: Foresight methods applied in Industry 4.0 contexts with clear links to ESG milestones and corporate strategy 
  evolution (e.g. scenario planning, horizon scanning, back-casting, real-time Delphi).
• Value creation, risk and metrics: Approaches to aligning financial and sustainability KPIs within digital strategies, including work connecting ESG 
  prioritisation to bankruptcy mitigation and long-term value.
• SME resilience, entrepreneurship, and ecosystems: Mechanisms through which foresight-enabled digitalisation strengthens SME resilience, entrepreneurial activity, and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems, particularly in emerging and developing contexts.

References

Amjad, F., Abbas, J., & Alotaibi, F. M. (2025). Innovative strategies for SMEs’ sustainability: Crowdfunding, Industry 4.0, and sustainable business models using SEM-ANN approach. Journal of the Knowledge Economy. Advance online publication. 
Bevilacqua, S., Cillo, V., & Gartner, J. (2025). Enhancing top managers’ leadership with artificial intelligence: Insights from a systematic literature review. Review of Managerial Science. Advance online publication. 
Bullini Orlandi, L., Zardini, A., & Rossignoli, C. (2025). Less is more: Digital and physical sustainability shortage impact on entrepreneurial intention. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 21(1), 44. 
Carayannis, E. G., Draper, J., & Bhaskar, B. (2025). Enhancing SME resilience through artificial intelligence and strategic foresight: A framework for sustainable competitiveness. Technology in Society, 81, 102835. 
Colantoni, F., Berndt, T., Rudisser, M. S., & Tron, A. (2025). ESG prioritization: The impact of sustainability on mitigating bankruptcy risk. Strategic Change. Advance online publication. 
Fedajev, A., Radulescu, M., & Miraldi, C. (2025). Drivers of entrepreneurship in Europe: The role of digitalization, innovation, capital investments, unemployment, and sustainability. European Journal of Innovation Management. Advance online publication. 
Fores, B., Lane, P. J., & Garcia-Lorenzo, A. (2025). How do family firm ownership and governance structures impact the digitalization of business strategy for sustainability: A catalyst or an obstacle? Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility. Advance online publication. 
Işık, C., Ahmad, M., & Pata, U. K. (2025). The nexus of economic growth, energy prices, climate policy uncertainty, and digitalization on ESG performance in the USA. Climate Services, 38, 100572. 
Maldonado-Canca, L. A., Guerrero-Baena, M. D., & Fernandez-Portillo, A. (2025). AI in enterprise management: Determinants of purchase intention among CEOs without AI experience. Journal of Enterprise Information Management. Advance online publication. 
Osinubi, T. T., Asongu, S. A., & Tchamyou, V. S. (2025). What role does digitalization play in the entrepreneurship–sustainable development nexus in Africa? Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 11(1), 100500. 
Pizzi, S., Caputo, A., Corvino, A., & Venturelli, A. (2020). Management research and the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs): A bibliometric investigation and systematic review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 276, 124033. 
Qureshi, M. I., & Soomro, M. A. (2024). Foresight: A trinity to comprehend digital transformation, resilience, and sustainability beyond COVID. Foresight, 26(5), 749–754. 
Rodaro, C., Caputo, A., Sarfo, C., & Kargina, M. (2025). Enterprising strategies for Sustainable Development Goals: A bibliometric and systematic literature review. Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy. Advance online publication. 
Schwaeke, J., Voigt, K. I., & Möslein, K. M. (2025). Artificial intelligence for good? Enabling organizational change towards sustainability. Review of Managerial Science. Advance online publication. 
Sudirman, I. D., Purnomo, M., & Qomariyah, A. (2025). Enhancing digital technology adoption in SMEs through sustainable resilience strategy. Journal of Small Business Strategy, 35(1), 97–114. 
Suljic, V. (2025). Strategic leadership in AI-driven digital transformation: Ethical governance, innovation management, and sustainable practices for global enterprises and SMEs. SBS Journal of Applied Business Research, 13(1), 17–35. 
Theodoraki, C., Dana, L. P., & Caputo, A. (2022). Building sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems: A holistic approach. Journal of Business Research, 140, 346–360. 
Uriarte, S., Rio-Belver, R. M., & Garechana, G. (2025). Artificial intelligence technologies and entrepreneurship: A hybrid literature review. Review of Managerial Science. Advance online publication. 
Vo Thai, H. C., Nguyen, P. V., & Nguyen, H. M. (2025). A strategy-tripod perspective on digitalization for sustainable development: Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 37(1), 32–61. 
Zeng, J., Ren, J., & Lo, K. (2025). Shaping effect of digitalisation on corporate social responsibility: Evidence from born-global entrepreneurial firms. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 21(1), 55. 
Zupic, I., Čater, T., Caputo, A., & Uršič, D. (2025). Mapping the influence of Ansoff's corporate strategy. Strategic Change. Advance online publication.

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: ​https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/emjb
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: ​https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/emjb#jlp__author_guidelines
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: ​01/07/2026​ 
Closing date for manuscripts submission: ​01/11/2026

Guest Editor Biographies

Renato Pereira, PhD is Professor of General Management at Iscte Business School in Lisbon, Portugal. He holds an HDR and a Ph.D. in Management Sciences and a Ph.D. in African Studies. He is the Associate Dean for Internationalization and Research, the Director of the master’s in international management. Additionally, he coordinates the Emerging Markets Research Center at ISCIM in Maputo, Mozambique. Renato Pereira's research portfolio includes courses in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and International Business. He has also held visiting academic positions in over 15 countries, contributing to a global perspective in his fields of expertise. His research is well-recognized, with regular publications in indexed journals.

Andrea Caputo, PhD is Professor of Strategy and Negotiation at the University of Trento, Italy. He received his PhD from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. His award-winning research was published in over 100 contributions concerning entrepreneurial decision-making, negotiation, digitalization and sustainability, internationalization and strategic management of SMEs. Since 2021 he has been ranked among World's Top 2% Scientists List of outstanding researchers prepared by Elsevier BV, Stanford University, USA. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Management Reviews, Editor-in-Chief of Strategic Change and J of Enterprising Communities, and editor of the “Entrepreneurial Behaviour” Emerald book series.

Christina Theodoraki, PhD is Full professor in Entrepreneurship at IAE Aix-Marseille University. She is Chair elect at the Academy of Management, Entrepreneurship Division. She is Advisory Board Member at the Institute for Development Strategies at Indiana University, Research associate at the Chair of Entrepreneurship Territory Innovation (ETI) – IAE Paris- Sorbonne, Business Development Manager at the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Research Network (EERN), Editor of Small Business Economics, Associate editor of the Journal of Small Business Management, Management & Prospective – Gestion 2000, and Revue internationale PME, and member of several editorial boards. Her books and chapters have been published in Oxford University Press, Springer, Edward Elgar, De Gruyter Publishing, Emerald Publishing.