Corresponding Manager: Antonio Crupi (crupi.antonio@unime.it)
Track Manager(s): Antonio Crupi, Alessandra Costa, Fabrizio Cesaroni, Andrea Amanti, Sami Miniaoui
Description
While digital transformation and AI are often associated with efficiency, innovation and connectivity, they also bring a wide range of unexpected, uncontrollable, yet natural challenges and consequences. From algorithmic biases to job displacement, environmental impacts, and social inequalities, digital transformation and AI adoption carry substantial risks that are too often overlooked. This track invites conceptual and empirical contributions that explore this dark side of digital transformation and AI adoption across firms, industries, and societies. Key themes include:
1. AI and business model transformation: exploring tensions between value creation, value capture and sustainable value propositions.
2. Governance Challenges in Digital Transformation: how digitally driven innovations reshape decision-making and innovation processes.
3. Responsible AI and Digital Transformation: integrating ethical, environmental, and governance principles into AI adoption.
4. Digital Transformation, AI and Grand Challenges: The double-edged impact of Digital Transformation and AI in confronting — and sometimes intensifying — global Grand Challenges.
5. Reconfiguring Innovation Strategies in the Digital Era: navigating open innovation ecosystems, collaborations, value distribution and sustainability outcomes for survival and success.
6. Industry Case Studies: real-world insights on how firms and industries se AI and digital transformation to innovate and adapt.
Keywords
AI-driven business models innovation; Responsible digital transformation; Open Innovation Ecosystems; Ethical and Social Implication; Grand Challenges.
Key References
Costa, A., Crupi, A., Cesaroni, F., & Abbate, T. (2025). Exploring the role of artificial intelligence in addressing sustainable development. A semantic analysis of AI patents. Technovation, 148, 103335.
Crupi, A., Elia, G., Pigni, F., Raguseo, E., & Solazzo, G. (2025). Editorial for the Special Section on “Twin Transition and Entrepreneurial Behavior: Navigating the Path to Green and Digital Transformation for Sustainable Entrepreneurship”. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.
Aagaard, A., & Vanhaverbeke, W. (2024). The twin advantage: leveraging digital for sustainability in business models. In Business Model Innovation: Game Changers and Contemporary Issues (pp. 227-262). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Appio, F. P., Platania, F., & Hernandez, C. T. (2024). Pairing AI and sustainability: envisioning entrepreneurial initiatives for virtuous twin paths. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.
Mancuso, I., Petruzzelli, A. M., Panniello, U., & Vaia, G. (2025). The bright and dark sides of AI innovation for sustainable development: Understanding the paradoxical tension between value creation and value destruction. Technovation, 143, 103232.