Operations Analytics, Regulation, and Economic Attitudes toward Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Operations analytics is the study of the management of operations through the lens of data, using analytics techniques. The data analytics lens offers operations management practitioners the ability to harness the value of data, of any size, structure or shape, to aid strategy and decision making. Some application areas of operations analytics, such as logistics and supply chain management, have a long history and are deeply embedded. However, like other areas, the study of sustainable operations—that is, operations that do not deplete human, environmental, economic and other forms of capital—is nascent and has yet to see the wide application of data analytics techniques.  

Therefore, our aim is to stimulate research on how the sustainable operations community can harness the value of data analytics to advance and support sustainable economies. Certain areas of sustainable operations seem like natural beneficiaries of data analytics. For example, big data techniques and machine learning excellently fit the study of smart manufacturing. However, there are likely to be many other less obvious applications. For example, when and how may text analytics, network, web and mobile analytics reveal the drivers of sustainable outcomes in operations? How can large datasets be used to help businesses to manage/mitigate some of the costs of climate change? How do macroeconomic indicators influence the implementation of platforms of, for example, green technology product development and green innovation? How can data analytics be used to improve the regulatory outcomes and governance of responsible businesses, public policy design and evaluation?

To tackle these and other valuable questions, we call for papers at the nexus of data analytics, climate change economics, sustainable operations, regulation and governance, energy policy, the green economy and sustainable development. We are open to all research approaches: Contributions may review existing research, report case studies, empirically test models or, even, conceptually envision novel applications of data analytics in sustainable operations with sustainable economies.

Dr. Maxwell Chipulu
Dr. Nicholas Vasilakos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• operations analytics
• responsible business regulation
• green economy
• climate change economics
• data analytics
• sustainable operations
• environmental sustainability