Motivation for the Special Issue

The 2030 Agenda requires that different actors - governments and public administrations, companies, non-governmental organizations, and individuals - actively contribute to eradicate poverty and combat climate change, by extending environmental protection, inclusion and social justice, education, health and economic growth (Aust et al., 2020). However, the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) entails significant challenges. The studies carried out show that progress is being made in achieving the SDGs, but neither the speed nor the scale are adequate to improve the current levels of poverty, hunger, education and health that characterize certain territories, the climate emergency or the structural disadvantages and discrimination suffered by women (United Nations, 2021).

In this regard, the follow-up of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development in relation to each of the 17 SDGs has been structured based on 232 macroeconomic indicators with the purpose of establishing the scope of compliance with such objectives in each country. This approach requires an updated and continuous information compilation that has begun to be addressed progressively, slowing down the measurement of the sustainability of the territories and the performance of comparative studies that facilitate decision-making. In this sense, it seems advisable that academics focus their efforts on carrying out this type of analyses that allows knowing what the current state of progress is in relation to each indicator. In addition, it seems appropriate that researchers strive to create composite or synthetic indicators that represent a multidimensional concept in a simplified way in one or several simple indicators. These aggregated indicators must summarize, in one value, several aspects that may be interrelated, reducing the complexity of the information, and facilitating its comparability (García-Sánchez et al., 2021a).

This macro approach makes it difficult to assess the commitment of the different actors, the strategies, policies, and actions that they are implementing and the resulting impacts in relation to the desired social, economic, and environmental advances. Thus, although we are witnessing a substantial increase in the number of researchers and articles interested in the actions that the different actors are carrying out in relation to the SDGs and global strategies regarding the 2030 Agenda, current knowledge is in an incipient state. The authors who have directed their efforts towards the analysis of the role that the agents or main decision-makers in the public sphere – politicians and public managers - and private - directors, board members and shareholders – may play as well as the possible interactions that may occur between them are limited.

Currently, public managers are taking on the challenge of fulfilling the 2030 Agenda without knowing the initial position of the SDGs in their territory. In addition, the lack of precise criteria that determine the achievement of these objectives makes it difficult to assess their attainment. For this, the development of homogeneous and easy-to-implement indicators that quantify the evolution and fulfillment would help to achieve the commitments acquired by the governments. In this sense, Martínez-Córdoba et al. (2020; 2021) analyzed SDGs 6 and 11 (directly related to the management of local governments), offering a set of public policies to implement that would allow the 2030 Agenda to be fulfilled.

To this end, we find papers that analyze the balance between human development and environmental conservation, assessing cities to offer local governments and other stakeholders mechanisms that detect urgent problems in the development of more livable and sustainable cities (Kawakubo et al. al., 2018). Likewise, Holman (2009) proposes a review of the literature in order to ascertain the incorporation of local sustainability indicators in local government structures, pointing out the opportunities that these sustainability indicators would provide in the management of cities.

In the private sphere, surprisingly, we know that only a small number of companies report their contribution to the SDGs (Sachs et al., 2018) and, in general, they do so incompletely (Di Vaio and Varriale, 2020), indicating that the business commitment to the 2030 Agenda could be symbolic (Aust et al. 2020; van der Waal and Thijssens 2020). This situation is not in line with the benefits they receive, since 70% of companies consider that this favors relations with stakeholders and increases corporate reputation. In addition, 45% consider that the SDGs make it possible to find new business modalities or customer segments. This may be due to the existence of critical areas of the SDGs that are neglected by companies (Gunawan et al., 2020; van der Waal et al., 2021). However, the evidence of the latest research could suggest that companies focus on specific SDGs and show a preference for contributing to industrialization, infrastructure, and innovation; economic productivity; and climate change, whereas they avoid those initiatives relating to basic needs or human health and rights (van Zanten and Tulder, 2020). It seems that companies try to promote a corporate culture that encourages, in addition to regulatory compliance, transparency and good business practices, and the promotion of alliances among companies belonging to the same sector and across sectors (García-Sánhez et al., 2021b, Raimo et al., 2021). In this sense, it is necessary to improve the current knowledge.

We also know that the previous divergences in business commitment could be associated with the size, country, and industry in which a firm operates (Rosati and Faria, 2019a, 2019b). According to institutional theory, there are studies that show that financial analysts, through the purchase and sale recommendations they make of company shares, and the presence of institutional investors in the shareholding favor commitment to the SDGs and their integration in the corporate sustainability strategy, as required by the SDG Compass model (García-Sánchez et al., 2020a and 2020b). However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the decision-makers’ characteristics that may be conditioning the adoption of commitments to the SDGs and their degree of substantiality (García-Sánchez et al., 2021b). Thus, highlighting the altruistic nature that these initiatives can present, it is essential to determine the effect that the heterogeneity and discretionarily that characterize managers and directors can have in this regard, as well as the effect that the presence of institutional investors can have, as these actors make or condition the ultimate decisions on the company’s orientation (Calza et al., 2016).

Manuscript Topics

The main goals for this special issue are to develop an integrated knowledge related to managing innovative actions and design measures to help achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda. Thus, we encourage academics to submit conceptual and empirical research which may involve quantitative or qualitative methods in order to develop the theory, to extract managerial implications from a multi-level perspective and to determine the existing gaps with the aims to establish a path for future research.
Possible topics and research questions would be the following, but are not limited to:

1. The how and why of public and private sustainable commitment to the 2030 Agenda. Measurement proposals.
  • Concepts, theories, and methods to manage the economic, social and environmental transformation of our society
  • What are the different strategies, politics, processes, and activities for developing transformation in a future society?
  • How do we measure the performance and impacts?
    • What barriers and drivers are critical during the processes?
    • How can these actions and mechanisms achieve value creation from the economic, social and environmental
      point of view, including future generations?
    • How can these actions and mechanisms attract investments?

2. SDG activities and interactions.
  • How do actors, such as public administration, enterprise, NGOs, mass media, and international agencies, interact in 

    SDG activities and assign responsibilities?
  • What do these interactions look like?
  • What the more favorable interactions are for the development of SDG activities and initiatives?
  • How do they balance their compromise with the different SDG?
  • How can these actors manage the divergences of these interactions?

3. SDG activities and agents.
  • What are the main agents and more favorable governance structures for the development of SDG activities and 

    initiatives?
  • What are the stimuli and motivations of these agents?
  • How do they balance compromises and financial performance in their organizations -firms and public 

    administration-?
  • How can these agents overcome the institutional and organizational barriers and the resource constraints?
  • How does the compromise level diverge across industries, markets, and countries?

Instruction for Authors
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Please submit your manuscript to online submission system
https://aimspress.jams.pub/

References

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