NAMA 2024 – Call for Papers

Management, Technology, and Entrepreneurship for Sustainability

Living within planetary boundaries will require fundamental changes. Technological solutions are needed to, for example, provide secure and clean energy, avoid emissions and waste, and control global material flows. Deploying these rapidly and at scale will require innovative business models. This can only be achieved if the economic and political framework is designed to support acceptable changes in production and consumption patterns to industry, business, and consumers. The accompanying innovation and transition processes to develop and implement such sustainable solutions require a holistic approach that leverages technology, management, economics, and entrepreneurship. NAMA 2024, the autumn conference of the Sustainability Management Section of the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB), aims to shed light on these multiple disciplines. It will bring together researchers and practitioners from these disciplines to discuss recent advances and their crucial roles from a business research perspective. As no single discipline can solve the multifaceted challenges, the focus is on interdisciplinary, holistic, and innovative solutions that reduce environmental impacts, promote sustainable economic growth, and improve societal well-being within the limits of our planet's ecosystems.

Potential topics and research questions include, but are not limited to

• What role do firms and individuals play in fostering a societal and ecological transition to sustainability?
• How can firms speed up processes of organizational learning and strategic change to steer them onto more sustainable pathways?
• How can the change towards sustainable production and consumption patterns be accelerated?
• Which role do stakeholders play, what impact do they have and how can their behavior towards accelerating a transition to sustainability be influenced?
• What is the role of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ecosystems in spurring sustainability-oriented change?
• How can novel, sustainable business models look like that support economic transformation?
• How can sustainable bioeconomy and circular economy systems be designed and which impacts can they have on achieving sustainability goals?
• How can we alter the architecture and governance of complex global supply chains (e.g., toward a circular economy) to increase their sustainability?
• How can we achieve transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply and value chains?
• How can innovative yet under-utilized research approaches (e.g., design science, co-creation, real-world laboratories, action research, field experiments) generate solution designs and novel insights that propel fast and long-lasting change?
• How can we analyze, assess and optimize the sustainability impacts of companies?

Conference Submissions

We accept submissions in English as well as in German. Submissions are invited in the form of abstracts of max. 2 pages (including references, figures, tables, etc.; formatted with Times New Roman font, 12 pt). The abstracts should show the motivation and relevance for sustainability, highlight the methodological approach and provide a short summary of the contribution.

All submissions will be reviewed by the program committee. Please hand in your submission via the conference submission system by June 30, 2024. The link to the system is accessible on the following page: Submission & Registration.

Doctoral Consortium

In addition to traditional conference elements like paper presentations, speeches, and panel discussions, there will be a doctoral consortium held the day before the main program (October 9). This consortium aims to enhance the ability of PhD students to publish their research in top-tier international journals while providing a platform for open discussion of their projects and concerns with both peers and established scholars in sustainability management. The consortium will offer guidance on paper writing and publishing, an intensive paper development workshop, a casual Q&A session, and networking opportunities.

The doctoral consortium is limited to approximately 10-15 promising PhD students in the field of sustainability management, broadly defined. Interested students must apply separately for the consortium, as applications will be evaluated independently from those for the main conference. To apply, candidates should submit a CV and an extended abstract of their PhD project or paper (maximum 7 pages, including title page, references, figures, and tables, formatted in Times New Roman font, size 12) to Prof. Claudia Doblinger (claudia.doblinger@tum.de) by May 31, 2024. Admission to the doctoral consortium entails a commitment to submitting a full paper one month prior to the event, as well as reviewing and providing feedback on at least two of your peers’ full paper submissions.