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Sustainable Business and Developing Collaborative Interorganizational Relationships

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 7296

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
2. Tias School for Business and Society, Tilburg University, 5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands
Interests: how organisations deal with a diversity of interests, identities and perspectives and how trust between organizations can be built, dynamics of small groups
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
1. Faculty of Management, Open University, 6419 AT Heerlen, The Netherlands
2. Faculty of Psychology, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca 400000, Romania
Interests: team dynamics; social cognition; decision-making in organizations; multiparty collaboration

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A Special Issue will be prepared for the journal Sustainability that has, as a theme, Sustainable Business and Developing Collaborative Interorganizational Relationships. We invite papers that focus on the interorganizational relationships of multi-stakeholder initiatives involving private, public organizations and non-profit organizations, that aim to address societal and environmental problems.

Themes can be:

- What makes these collaborative initiatives successful in terms of contributing to the societal sustainable development goals, from a relational point of view;

- What are the organizational and relational dynamics when working in such partnerships where a diversity of interests, identities and perspectives is prevalent (e.g. dynamics around trust, power, conflict, identities);

- What entails adequate governance of these initiatives and what are the challenges thereof;

- What are important factors in creating such collaborative initiatives, e.g., how to involve various stakeholders and engage them; how to design collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives; how to intervene so as to develop collaboration; how to develop collaborative skills for those participating in these partnerships;

- What are critical perspectives on such collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives.

We invite papers from various disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, organization theory, policy sciences, environmental sciences, or combinations thereof. Contributions can be theoretical and/or empirical. Paper should be not exceed 10.000 words, including references and appendices.

Prof. Dr. Sandra Schruijer
Prof. Dr. Petru Curşeu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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.

Keywords

  • interorganizational collaboration
  • relational dynamics
  • governance
  • intervention and development

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 622 KiB  
Article
Sustainability Transition through Dynamics of Circular Construction Projects
by Elonie Kooter, Mart van Uden, Alfons van Marrewijk, Hans Wamelink, Ellen van Bueren and Erwin Heurkens
Sustainability 2021, 13(21), 12101; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132112101 - 02 Nov 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2278
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to better understand the dynamics of circular construction projects and how these interorganizational projects contribute to the transition towards a circular economy. It is essential that the construction sector develops and adopts interorganizational initiatives to support the [...] Read more.
The aim of this paper is to better understand the dynamics of circular construction projects and how these interorganizational projects contribute to the transition towards a circular economy. It is essential that the construction sector develops and adopts interorganizational initiatives to support the transition to a circular and low-carbon construction economy. A benefit of being involved in such initiatives is that organizations reflect on the emergence and acceptance of new practices related to changing organizational roles and responsibilities. In this paper, we study eight circular construction projects within the context of an interorganizational initiative to stimulate the transition towards a circular economy by exploring insights from evaluations thereof. We build upon literature from Sustainability Transitions Research (STR), circular construction research, and interorganizational project studies. Our findings show three clusters of dynamics that are relevant in the realization of circular ambitions in interorganizational construction projects: (1) prerequisites, (2) temporal dynamics in interorganizational projects, and (3) contextual influences. These insights highlight factors that enable the realization of circular ambitions in construction projects and contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of interorganizational construction projects and their role in the context of STR. Full article
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17 pages, 1518 KiB  
Article
Interorganizational Collaboration in Innovation Networks: An Agent Based Model for Responsible Research and Innovation in Additive Manufacturing
by Enrico Cozzoni, Carmine Passavanti, Cristina Ponsiglione, Simonetta Primario and Pierluigi Rippa
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7460; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13137460 - 04 Jul 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2764
Abstract
The significant progress in scientific research and innovation has led to the need for a new paradigm to legitimise the innovation process in society and politics. The European Union, with the Horizon 2020 framework program and Horizon Europe, institutionalises this change by defining [...] Read more.
The significant progress in scientific research and innovation has led to the need for a new paradigm to legitimise the innovation process in society and politics. The European Union, with the Horizon 2020 framework program and Horizon Europe, institutionalises this change by defining the concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI), aiming at greater inclusiveness and sustainability in the research and innovation processes. This paper aimed to present an agent-based model (ABM) to simulate the dynamics between the different actors that cooperate within networks during the innovation process, taking the inclinations toward RRI practices into account. The different types of agent, their characteristics, and the different strategies that they follow have been formulated within the Horizon 2020 project I AM RRI-Webs of Innovation Value Chains (IVCs) of Additive Manufacturing (AM) under consideration of RRI. Besides, some experiments are reported to validate the model, ensuring its rigor and making our model a useful tool for policymakers, assisting them in defining strategic guidelines for disseminating and encouraging RRI best practices and defining the critical factors of the innovative cooperative process. Full article
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15 pages, 980 KiB  
Article
Distrust, Identification and Collaboration Effectiveness in Multiparty Systems
by Sandra G. L. Schruijer and Petru Lucian Curșeu
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7364; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13137364 - 30 Jun 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1553
Abstract
Multiparty collaborative systems are created to tackle important societal challenges, yet studies that investigate the relational dynamics of such systems remain scant. Our study explores the role of distrust within and between parties, as well as identification with one’s own party, in the [...] Read more.
Multiparty collaborative systems are created to tackle important societal challenges, yet studies that investigate the relational dynamics of such systems remain scant. Our study explores the role of distrust within and between parties, as well as identification with one’s own party, in the collaborative effectiveness of such multiparty systems (MPS). We use a behavioral simulation context in which distrust, identification, and collaboration effectiveness are assessed at three moments in time: namely, at the onset of the MPS (expectations related to within and between group interactions), during the interactions, and at the end of the simulation. The simulation was played 11 times with different groups, as part of an organization development program for a large organization. We show that high initial expectations of distrust between parties decrease collaboration effectiveness over time, while identification with one’s party has a positive influence on collaboration effectiveness. Moreover, our results show that distrust between parties interacts with distrust within parties in such a way that the highest level of collaboration effectiveness is reported by parties with low within-group distrust and low between-party distrust. The lowest collaboration effectiveness is reported by parties with low within-group distrust and high levels of between-party distrust. Full article
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