Session organisers:

• Silvia Rita Sedita (University of Padova, Italy)
• Luciana Lazzeretti (University of Florence, Italy)
• Dieter F. Kogler (University College Dublin, Ireland)
• Jose-Luis Hervas-Oliver (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

Description:

Social and environmental issues are increasingly considered pivotal for shaping future trajectories of regional development and can be analyzed under a variety of perspectives: the innovation management and process, the organizational forms and business strategies, the institutional setting, and the consumption angle.

A cross-disciplinary approach is needed to create the basis of a theoretical and empirical understanding of how to include social and environmental concerns into consolidated and promising trajectories of regional development.

The special session aims to bring together scholars from different disciplines to exchange their perspectives on the following and related topics:

• Place-based sustainable innovation trajectories and policy actions
• The interplay between economic, ecological, and social values at the local, regional, or national system level
• Cross-fertilization processes leading to local sustainable development
• The role of sustainable certifications, and certified companies, such as the B Corps, to stimulate local/regional/national transformation towards sustainability
• The role of bottom-up movements involving organizations (for profit and non profit) and communities of consumption in creating the basis for an ecology of sustainability
• Regional innovation processes and systems centered around technological, organizational, and institutional change towards environmental and socio-economic sustainability
• The spatial dimension of green and social innovation and entrepreneurship