Dear Colleagues,

In the aftermath of the worldwide economic and social shock of COVID-19, one should look beyond to a more sustainable economy and society with reduced excessive resource consumption and environmental degradation together with social inequity (Jones and Corral de Zubielqui, 2017). These aspects are the core value of sustainable development, that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Our Common Future, 1987). Therefore, to overcome this challenge, firms should combine economic, ecological, and social concerns within a coherent business strategy.

In this regard, the role of knowledge transfer (KT) in helping businesses becomes more sustainable is key aspect that has not received enough attention in the academic literature. KT is defined as the creation and exchange of knowledge between two agents (individual, team, unit, organization) to promote business learning and performance. In the context of sustainability, KT implies a change in management, where the concern with social and environmental dimensions is as important as the economic performance because the mutual exchange and learning processes among all stakeholders promote sustainable developments through the coproduction of knowledge (Kaiser et al., 2016). To promote KT, context and process specificity are relevant (García-Sánchez et al., 2019; Gaur et al., 2019; Minbaeva et al., 2003) because each firm and industry has specific stakeholders, barriers, and factors which could determine the best KT practices for sustainability. Moreover, ICTs play a pivotal role in the business’s sustainable development because technological processes can provide the access and means to share the knowledge that is created and transferred (Crupi et al., 2019).

In this Sustainability Special Issue, we welcome papers from a wide range of epistemological, conceptual, and methodological backgrounds in order to shed light on KT in the context of sustainable development, filling the gap in the literature. Thus, we encourage papers that examine this phenomenon from a multidisciplinary approach, employ different methodologies (e.g., qualitative, quantitative) at both micro- or macrolevels of analysis, and offer interesting theoretical and empirical findings that address, but are not restricted to, the following domains of inquiry:

• The relationship between KT models and firm’s sustainability; the influence of incentives and environmental, managerial, cultural, and institutional factors in enabling KT for sustainable development; the role of different stakeholders in KT for sustainable development.
• Integrating Industry 4.0 to achieve sustainable development at macro- or microlevels of analysis; KT mechanisms that explain differences in sustainable development;  cost and benefits of KT mechanisms for sustainability in SMEs.
• Social capital and KT in a context of sustainability; networks and trust between the agents that exchange knowledge for sustainable development.
• Human resources in developing socially and environmentally responsible KT practices; the role of personnel transfer/mobility to promote KT in a sustainability context; the effect of HRM practices on knowledge transfer related to the sustainability goals.
• Universities as sources of KT for sustainable development; KT between business labs and research institutes to achieve the sustainability goals.
• Challenges and opportunities behind AI, robotics and the digital technologies for KT on sustainable development; the value of big data to KT and their impact on sustainability; implementation of disruptive technologies to KT and their impact on firm sustainability.

References:

Crupi, A., Del Sarto, N., Di Minin, A., Gregori, G.L., Lepore, D., Marinelli, L., Spigarelli, F. (2020). “The digital transformation of SMEs – a new knowledge broker called the digital innovation hub”. Journal of Knowledge Management in press. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1108/JKM-11-2019-0623.

Gaur, A., Ma, H. and Ge, B. (2019). “MNC strategy, knowledge transfer context, and knowledge flow in MNEs”. Journal of Knowledge Management 23(9), pp. 1885-1900.

Jones, J., Corral de Zubielqui, G. (2017). “Doing well by doing good: A study of university-industry interactions, innovationess and firm performance in sustainability-oriented Australian SMEs”. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 123, pp. 262-270.

Kaiser, D.B., Köhler, T., Weith, T. (2016). “Knowledge management in sustainability research projects: Concepts, effective models, and examples in a multi-stakeholder environment”. Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 15(1), pp. 4-17.

Minbaeva, D., Pedersen, T., Björkman, I., Fey, C., Park, H. (2003). “MNC knowledge transfer, subsidiary absorptive capacity, and HRM”. Journal of International Business Studies 34(6), pp. 586-599.

Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development a Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. Retrieved from. http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm.

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Dr. Petra De Saá-Pérez
Dr. Nieves Lidia Díaz-Díaz
Guest Editors

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• knowledge transfer
• knowledge sharing
• corporate sustainability
• sustainable development