Call for Papers

CfP special issue on "Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) for Online Marketplaces"

No longer accepting submissions

Guest editors

  • Sunghan Ryu, USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Series Editor of SAGE Business Cases, shryu(at)sjtu.edu.cn
  • Kees Koedijk, Faculty of Banking and Finance, Utrecht University; and Fellow of CEPR, Editor of Journal of International Money and Finance, c.g.koedijk(at)uu.nl
  • Victor Chow, John Chambers College of Business and Economics, West Virginia University, victor.chow(at)mail.wvu.edu
  • Xiang Gao, Research Center of Finance, Shanghai Business School, gaoxiang(at)sbs.edu.cn 

Theme

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) refer to the three central factors in measuring the sustainability and societal impact of an investment in a corporate entity (Friede et al. 2015; Ketter et al. 2020; Van Duuren et al. 2016; Vo et al. 2019).[i] The ESG perspective emphasizes social objectives beyond the traditional financial objectives of the companies and has a great impact not just in production but more importantly on supply chain, resources allocation, marketing channels, and customer networking within and across global markets (Drempetic et al. 2020). The three-factor ESG has been considered salient in the entire society, including policymakers and social activists, but has become particularly critical in the area of investment (Al-Shaer and Zaman 2019; Benlemlih et al. 2018). ESG metrics have been derived from reports and news articles, evaluating the company in different sustainability and social impact aspects (Benlemlih et al. 2018; Drempetic et al. 2020; Friede et al. 2015; Van Duuren et al. 2016).

Yet there is a lack of research for the impact of ESG around real-world marketplaces, where companies transact and interact with consumers and other stakeholders. More specifically, online marketplaces' ESG activities are becoming more prominent, as we could see the rapid growth of successful online marketplaces across the world (Keating et al. 2009; Liao et al. 2010; Schmitz and Latzer 2002). While the call to explore and examine the sustainability topic has been recently articulated in related information systems (IS) domains (Ketter et al. 2020; Pan et al. 2021), relevant academic contributions in the online marketplace domain are still dismal. After an initial special issue on sustainability in Electronic Markets (Jablønski et al. 2020), the purpose of this special issue is to initiate and grow a research stream to examine the key aspects of online marketplaces from the perspective of ESG in different sectors, e.g., commerce, service, tourism, entertainment, and open avenues for future research and managerial implications. The special issue also seeks to analyze the importance of each ESG factor in the online marketplaces. Both theoretical and empirical papers are encouraged to contribute to the special issue.

Central issues and topics

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Interactions between ESG, sustainable development, and online marketplaces; 
  • Measurements of ESG in online marketplaces on firm-, industry- and/or macro-level;
  • Impact of ESG and sustainability on online marketplaces and their stakeholders such as government, employees, customers, communities, and suppliers;
  • ESG cost and performance evaluation on online marketplaces' decisions;
  • Consequences of good or bad ESG practices and communications by online marketplaces;
  • ESG and sustainability indicators for SMEs and startups in online marketplaces; ESG and sustainability challenges of emerging online platforms in media and entertainment sectors;
  • Business models for online marketplaces and ESG choices and sustainable growth;
  • Linkages between macro-level, industry-level, and firm-level factors on sustainable growth and environmental considerations in online marketplaces;
  • Responsible and sustainable investment in online marketplaces.

Review process

All manuscript submissions will go through an initial round of screening by the special issue editorial board to ensure that they fit the objectives of the special issue and Electronic Markets and can be reasonably improved during the time frame of the special issue. The authors should follow the authors' guideline of Electronic Markets for formatting their manuscripts. Manuscripts that pass the initial screening will go through the review process. It is expected that a manuscript will go through a maximum of three rounds of revision and will be published online first once accepted for publication.

Electronic Markets is a Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)-listed journal (IF 6.017 in 2021) in the area of information systems and supports methodological and theoretical pluralism, i.e., empirical or theoretical work, qualitative research and design science are all welcomed by the journal.

Important deadline

* Submission deadline: April 15, 2023

References

Al-Shaer, H., and Zaman, M. 2019. "Ceo Compensation and Sustainability Reporting Assurance: Evidence from the Uk," Journal of Business Ethics (158:1), pp. 233-252.

Benlemlih, M., Shaukat, A., Qiu, Y., and Trojanowski, G. 2018. "Environmental and Social Disclosures and Firm Risk," Journal of Business Ethics (152:3), pp. 613-626.

Drempetic, S., Klein, C., and Zwergel, B. 2020. "The Influence of Firm Size on the ESG Score: Corporate Sustainability Ratings under Review," Journal of Business Ethics (167:2), pp. 333-360.

Friede, G., Busch, T., and Bassen, A. 2015. "ESG and Financial Performance: Aggregated Evidence from More Than 2000 Empirical Studies," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment (5:4), pp. 210-233.

Jablønski, M., Timmers, P., and Sarkis, J. 2020. "Sustainability in Business Models in the Network Economy," Electronic Markets (30:4), pp. 675-678.

Keating, B. W., Quazi, A. M., and Kriz, A. 2009. "Financial Risk and Its Impact on New Purchasing Behavior in the Online Retail Setting," Electronic Markets (19:4), pp. 237-250.

Ketter, W., Padmanabhan, B., Pant, G., and Raghu, T. 2020. "Addressing Societal Challenges through Analytics: An ESG Ice Framework and Research Agenda," Journal of Association for Information Systems (21:5), pp. 1115-1128.

Liao, C. C., Palvia, P., and Lin, H. N. 2010. "Stage Antecedents of Consumer Online Buying Behavior," Electronic Markets (20:1), pp. 53-65.

Pan, S. L., Carter, L., Tim, Y., and Sandeep, M. 2021. "Digital Sustainability, Climate Change, and Information Systems Solutions: Opportunities for Future Research," International Journal of Information Management), pp. 102444.

Schmitz, S. W., and Latzer, M. 2002. "Competition in B2C e-Commerce: Analytical Issues and Empirical Evidence," Electronic Markets (12:3), pp. 163-174.

Van Duuren, E., Plantinga, A., and Scholtens, B. 2016. "ESG Integration and the Investment Management Process: Fundamental Investing Reinvented," Journal of Business Ethics (138:3), pp. 525-533.

Vo, N. N. Y., He, X., Liu, S., and Xu, G. 2019. "Deep Learning for Decision Making and the Optimization of Socially Responsible Investments and Portfolio," Decision Support Systems (124), pp. 113097.

[i] The concept of sustainability or sustainable development is usually traced back to the report "Our Common Future Produced" by a United Nations (UN) commission in 1987. Sustainability in the context of business and economics is often aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), presented by the UN in the document "Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development." See https://sdgs.un.org/goals for more details.