Abstract
Research on sustainability has grown considerably since the past 25 years. Sustainability science research so far revolves around four areas: biological research; geophysical research; technological research; and social research, with the last two being the foci of this special edition. Technological research niche focuses on the design of devices and systems to produce more social goods with less environmental harm, whereas social research is interested in how human institutions, economics systems and beliefs shape the interactions between societies and the environment (Kates, 2000). Most of the present efforts in these areas concentrate on multinational enterprises and large organisations, especially of Western origin. According to Ndubisi (2008) this trend has left a wide gap in our understanding of sustainability trajectories of smaller firms, particularly from Asia and Africa.
According to Porter and van der Linde, (1995), on one side of the ecology-economy trade-off are the social benefits that arise from strict environmental standards, and on the other are industry’s private costs for prevention and clean-up – costs that lead to higher prices and reduced competitiveness. Many developing nations on Asian and African continents are viewed as non-competitive, which makes strict adherence to social environmental standards a remote goal as it is capable of worsening the existing state of non-competitiveness. Nonetheless, the growing environmental friendly initiatives by some Asian and African businesses are beginning to challenge this idea. As such, it is timely to report the outcomes of rigorous research on sustainability trajectories, namely the nature, models, initiatives, distinct patterns over time, variability, and outcomes of technological and social sustainability by Asian and African SMEs.
This special issue of JAAS focuses on technological and social research with the aim of understanding how small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in Asia and Africa contribute towards sustainability of their business environment. We solicit cutting edge research articles in form of theoretical, empirical or case study focusing on Asian and/or African SMEs. Potential topics include, but are not limited to the following:
The deadline for submission is
All papers will go through a double blind review process. Please submit all manuscripts as double spaced MS Word files with all tables and figures placed within the text. To help you in developing your research in this area, consider submitting papers to the