Journal of Business Economics (JBE) – Call for Papers for the Special Issue on “Value-creation and Innovation in the Digital Age”

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Call for Papers for the Scientific Conference of the Erich-Gutenberg-Arbeitsgemeinschaft Köln e.V. in Cologne Germany (June 07, 2018) and the Special Issue (JBE) on

“Value-creation and Innovation in the Digital Age”

The emergence of new and powerful digital technologies, platforms and infrastructures (such as social media, cloud computing, Internet of Things, or blockchain) has transformed today’s value-creation and innovation landscape in significant ways (Nambisan et al., 2017). Digital innovation radically changes the nature and structure of new products and services. In this context, novel value creation and value appropriation pathways emerge. Moreover, innovation collectives that involve dynamic sets of actors with diverse goals and capabilities lead to new approaches for innovation processes. Entire industries are transformed in the wake of the digital age. The potential benefits resulting from this digitization trend are enormous. At the same time, these disruptive technologies and changing business models are forcing companies to rethink and redesign their established ways of doing business.

In this context, the rise of digitization has led scholars to increasingly question the explanatory power and usefulness of extant innovation and value-creation theories. More research is necessary to fully understand how value-creation and innovation change in the digital age and how organizations will be affected by these developments. However, digitization not only affects innovation management, but also all other corporate functions. For this reason, the critical review of Gutenberg’s Theory of the Firm with respect to the theoretical coverage of digitalization is another important goal of this year´s scientific conference.

In summary, the upcoming Scientific Conference of the Erich-Gutenberg-Arbeitsgemeinschaft aims at exploring and discussing state of the art research on value-creation and innovation in the digital age. Moreover, the conference also invites participants that examine antecedents and outcomes of digital value-creation and innovation, aiming at better understanding the reasons why companies fail to foresee or adapt to obvious change. We invite papers that provide novel conceptual perspectives, present relevant empirical or experimental insights, and/or are based on case studies.

Suitable topics of interest within the context of value-creation and innovation in the digital age include but are not limited to:

• Industrial Internet of Things (Industry 4.0)
• Digital business model (innovation)
• Data-driven innovation
• Digital services
• Digital marketing
• Digital leadership
• Digital workforce and new work
• Cooperations and networks in the digital age
• Digital platforms and ecosystems
• Theoretical aspects of digitalization

Submission procedure

• All submissions must follow the editorial guidelines of Journal of Business Economics, which can be obtained from the journal website (www.springer.com/11573).
• Submitted abstracts and papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.
• Extended abstracts (max. 600 words) as well as papers have to be submitted in English. The presentation at the Scientific Conference of the Erich-Gutenberg-Arbeitsgemeinschaft on June 07, 2018 may be held in German or English.
• All papers will be reviewed in an anonymous, double-blind process by distinguished referees with regard to relevance, originality, and research quality in order to guarantee the highest possible quality.
• Extended abstracts must be submitted to the chairman of the Erich-Gutenberg-Arbeitsgemeinschaft (digital-value-creation@industrial-management.org), using “JBE (Special Issue) Value-creation and Innovation in the Digital Age” as the subject heading. After the conference the full papers must be submitted online via the website www.springer.com/11573 choosing the corresponding article type.
• Accepted contributions are considered for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Business Economics (JBE). Further information is available at www.springer.com/11573. For this, full papers must have been presented at the scientific conference in Cologne.

Tentative schedule

• Submissions of extended abstracts: May 02, 2018
• Initial decision and author notification: May 09, 2018
• Paper presentation at the scientific conference in Cologne/Germany: June 07, 2018
• Submission of full papers: October 31, 2018
• Publication of the special edition of the journal: March 30, 2019 (estimated)

Editors of the special issue

Prof. Dr. Kai-Ingo Voigt, Vorsitzender der Erich-Gutenberg-Arbeitsgemeinschaft
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Lehrstuhl für Industrielles Management
Lange Gasse 20, 90403 Nürnberg
kai-ingo.voigt@fau.de

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Günter Fandel
FernUniversität in Hagen
Zentrum für Produktionsökonomie und Entscheidungsmanagement
Universitätsstr. 41, 58097 Hagen
Guenter.Fandel@FernUni-Hagen.de

References
Nambisan, S., Lyytinen, K., Majchrzak, A. & M. Song. (2017). Digital innovation management: Reinventing innovation management research in a digital world. MIS Quarterly, 41(1), 223-238.