Special issue 02/2022: Sustainability and clusters from a strategic perspective

2021-10-29

Guest Editors: Teresa Martínez Fernándeza and Gloria Parra Requenab

a Universitat Jaume I, Castelló (España); b Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (España)

Since the appearance of the well-known Brundtland Report in 1987, sustainability has come to play a vital role in economic and social activity worldwide. Decades later, sustainability is defined as meeting current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs, ensuring a balance between economic growth, environmental care and social welfare (CMMAD, 1998). Thus, in recent years there has been growing social, institutional and scientific concern about the impact of human activity on the sustainability of ecosystems, leading to more and more calls for sustainable development as that mode of progress that maintains this delicate balance today, without endangering the resources of tomorrow. This requires a change in the economic, productive and consumption paradigm on the part of institutions, economic agents and social groups. Following the recommendations of the UN (2015), it is essential that all states and actors in social and economic life contribute effectively to sustainable development.

A further step leads to the question of how to achieve sustainable development. Many of the current challenges facing society can only be solved from a global perspective in terms of sustainability. This is a commitment to social progress, environmental balance and economic growth. In this context, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda as a new roadmap to achieve such sustainable development, defining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a series of common objectives to protect the planet and ensure the well-being of all people (Betti et al., 2018). Sustainability is therefore only achievable if these three aspects are chained together through business practices, legislation, and public policies that favor their care.

Firms, as central actors in the economy, have a dual role to play in sustainable development by being, on the one hand, generators of sustainability issues and, on the other, essential to achieve more competitive and sustainable environmental, social and economic settings (Baumgartner and Rauter, 2017). So much is this so that, without firms, the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda could not be achieved (Eikelenboom and de Jong, 2019). From this approach, a multitude of stakeholders, such as international organizations, governments, social agents, consumer groups and non-governmental organizations, demand that companies implement sustainable positions to make their competitiveness compatible with their commitment to solving the natural and social problems generated by economic activity (Kiron et al., 2017).

In this framework, in recent years sustainability has become an important perspective within the organizational field (Amui et al., 2017) and particularly so in business strategy. Academically, the business–sustainability relationship has been analyzed from various theoretical approaches, two of the more notable of which are the following: 1) corporate social responsibility (CSR), which has been the pioneering perspective in analyzing business responsibilities based on social expectations and needs; and 2) corporate sustainability (CS), which has offered an approach that connects companies with sustainable development through the generation of economic, environmental and social value, linked to the widely extended perspective of the Triple Bottom Line.

Recently, following the basics of these approaches, the novel concept of sustainability orientation (SO) appeared. This is understood as a proactive strategic posture that will enable companies to undertake a drastic business transformation process that includes sustainability concerns, behaviors and practices in which economic, environmental and social interests are balanced (Khizar et al., 2021). Thus, companies must incorporate sustainability into their strategies in order to respond to the uncertainty of the environment by adapting their strategic orientation.

Another topic that has been gaining interest in recent years in the business literature is the link between entrepreneurship and sustainable development, although it is still at an early stage, especially for analyzing how companies detect and take advantage of opportunities linked to sustainable development. To progress in the theoretical and empirical development of the entrepreneurial orientation to sustainability (EOS), it has been recommended: 1) to advance in the study of its antecedents, both internal and external, such as social capital, dynamism, hostility, age of the firm or gender of managers (Martínez et al., 2015); and 2) to analyze how EOS impacts on firm performance (Criado-Gomis et al., 2020), in both developed and developing countries. Studies show mixed results, pointing out that EOS plays a key role in sustainable development, while acting efficiently in sustainability entails higher costs that limit the economic impact. In this sense, a deeper and more comprehensive examination that assesses possible moderating and mediating effects is required (Criado-Gomis et al., 2020), as EOS may be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to achieve superior outcomes.

Under these premises, we consider the relationship between sustainability and competitiveness of territorial agglomerations. The aim is to focus on those territorial concentrations where a series of economies or advantages are generated for the companies and organizations located there. Within a broad conceptualization, the district (Becattini, 1979) and the cluster (Porter, 1998) are two of the concepts (perhaps the most popular) in which spatial or territorial analysis has taken place. These realities are constantly created and reconfigured by multiple stakeholders through a peculiar multilevel relationship of cooperation and competition, as a key condition for the firms that integrate them to obtain competitive advantages, thanks to features such as self-organization, "chaotic" organization, robustness and resilience.

Starting from this context, we can observe how sustainability in clusters/districts arouses great academic, social and political concern. Hence, in the cluster literature calls are being made for new approaches to address the competitiveness and sustainability of territorial agglomerations (Díez-Vial and Montoro-Sánchez, 2017). There is therefore a need for more research aimed at enabling managers and policy-making institutions to understand the key elements behind the sustainability orientation of territorially concentrated firms when innovating. This will increase knowledge about the causes of sustainable innovation and its relative impact. This knowledge is especially important because of the growing importance of eco-innovation as a source of competitive advantage for companies. Likewise, it is also important because of the current need for a more sustainable economy in terms of its social and economic contribution.

Therefore, the objective of this special issue is to gather the most recent contributions in the field of sustainability and its relationship with the territory from a strategic perspective. The topics on which this issue is based include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Key elements of the sustainability orientation of territorially concentrated companies.
  • Causes of sustainable innovation and its impact on the territory.
  • Progress and research on entrepreneurship and innovation for sustainable development in a cluster environment.
  • Influence of the territory on the achievement of the SDGs.
  • Role of the various territorial actors in sustainable development.
  • Innovation in the cluster as a catalyst for sustainability / Agenda 2030.

 

Keywords:

Sustainability, circular economy, territory, district/cluster, SDGs, entrepreneurship, innovation.

Referencias:

Amui, L. B. L., Jabbour, C. J. C., de Sousa Jabbour, A. B. L., & Kannan, D. (2017). Sustainability as a dynamic organizational capability: a systematic review and a future agenda toward a sustainable transition. Journal of Cleaner Production, 142, 308-322.

Baumgartner, R. J., & Rauter, R. (2017). Strategic perspectives of corporate sustainability management to develop a sustainable organization. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 81-92.

Becattini, G. (1979). Dal “Settore industriale” al “distretto industriale”. Alcune considerazioni sull’unità d’indagine dell’economia industriale. Rivista di Economia e Politica Industriale, 1, 7-21.

Betti, G., Consolandi, C & Eccles, RG (2018). Supporting sustainable development goals is easier than you might. Sustainability, 10, 7, 2248.

Brundtland, G. H., Khalid, M., Agnelli, S., Al-Athel, S., & Chidzero, B. J. N. Y. (1987). Our common future. New York, 8.

Comisión Mundial del Medio Ambiente y del Desarrollo (1988). Nuestro Futuro Común. Madrid. Alianza.

Criado-Gomis, A., Iniesta-Bonillo, M. A., Cervera-Taulet, A., & Ribeiro-Soriano, D. (2020). Women as key agents in sustainable entrepreneurship: A gender multigroup analysis of the SEO-performance relationship. Sustainability, 12(3), 1244.

Díez-Vial, I., & Montoro-Sánchez, Á. N. (2017). From incubation to maturity inside parks: the evolution of local knowledge networks. International Journal of Technology Management 73(1-3), 132-150.

Eikelenboom, M., & de Jong, G. (2019). The impact of dynamic capabilities on the sustainability performance of SMEs. Journal of Cleaner Production, 235, 1360-1370.

García-Villaverde, P. M., Rodrigo-Alarcón, J., Ruiz-Ortega, M. J., & Parra-Requena, G. (2018). The role of knowledge absorptive capacity on the relationship between cognitive social capital and entrepreneurial orientation. Journal of Knowledge Management, 2(5), 1015-1036.

Khizar, H. M. U., Iqbal, M. J., & Rasheed, M. I. (2021). Business orientation and sustainable development: A systematic review of sustainability orientation literature and future research avenues. Sustainable Development.

Kiron, D., Unruh, G., Reeves, M., Kruschwitz, N., Rubel, H., & ZumFelde, A. M. (2017). Corporate sustainability at a crossroads. MIT Sloan Management Review, 58(4).

Martínez-Pérez, Á., García-Villaverde, P. M., & Elche, D. (2015). Eco-innovation antecedents in cultural tourism clusters: External relationships and explorative knowledge. Innovation, 17(1), 41-57.

Molina-Morales, F.X. & Martínez-Fernández, M.T. (2009): “Too much love in the neighborhood can hurt: How an excess of intensity and trust in relationships may produce negative effects on firms”, Strategic Management Journal, 30: 1013-1023.

Porter, M. E. (1998) Clusters and the new economics of competitiveness. Harvard Business Review, December, 77-90.

Ruiz-Ortega, M. J., Parra-Requena, G., García-Villaverde, P. M., & Rodrigo-Alarcón, J. (2017). How does the closure of interorganizational relationships affect entrepreneurial orientation?. BRQ Business Research Quarterly, 20(3), 178-191.

Proposed timetable:

  • Original submission date: March 30, 2022.
  • Expected publication date: July,