Andrea Piccaluga, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies

Rosa Grimaldi, University of Bologna

Tim Minshall, University of Cambridge

Zhou Yuan, Tsinghua University

Giovanni Tolin, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies

Company case studies were once central to R&D management research but have become increasingly marginal. This special issue seeks to restore their importance by publishing rigorous, in-depth case studies that capture how organizations manage their R&D functions and provide insights for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

The decline stems from publication pressures favoring quantitative work, diminished academic engagement with practitioners, and companies' limited willingness to participate in research. Yet case studies remain essential for understanding the complex, context-specific mechanisms shaping R&D processes that quantitative metrics alone cannot capture.

Submissions should present single or multiple company case studies grounded in rigorous qualitative methodology. Co-authored contributions from academics and practitioners are encouraged. Case studies should demonstrate depth of primary source access, advance existing theory or identify new research directions, and address topics including R&D strategy, organization, product development, and collaborations.

Appel publié par R and D Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• R&D strategy and organization
• Product and process development and innovation
• Creativity in R&D
• R&D collaborations and partnerships
• R&D activities in SMEs
• Intra-organizational and inter-organizational R&D processes
• How companies organize and manage R&D, technology, and innovation activities
• Single and multiple company case studies that advance theory in R&D management

Timeline

• June 22, 2026: R&D Management Conference track at University of Manchester for early feedback on paper ideas
• November 1, 2026: Submission window opens
• December 31, 2026: Full manuscript submission deadline

Aybars Tuncdogan, King's College London

Henk W. Volberda, University of Amsterdam

Ioana Stefan, Mälardalen University

While innovation creation has received substantial research attention, value capture from innovations remains critically important yet increasingly complex. Digital technologies, AI, data-driven business models, and globally distributed R&D networks have expanded innovation reach but also created new vulnerabilities through rapid copying, disruption, and security threats. Organizations must now navigate both traditional appropriability challenges in collaborative and open innovation contexts, and emerging information security risks that threaten R&D artifacts and intellectual assets.

This special issue brings together two typically separate research conversations: innovation appropriability mechanisms (patents, trade secrecy, licensing, complementary assets, ecosystem governance) and information security protection (technical defenses, organizational safeguards, insider threat management). The issue seeks to understand how firms organize to balance value creation with value capture while managing information security risks in an increasingly digital, data-driven, and open innovation landscape.

Appel publié par R and D Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Appropriability mechanisms for digital innovation, including appropriability regimes in platforms, ecosystems, and data-driven markets
• Hybrid protection strategies combining secrecy, security, and openness
• New forms of protection for new forms of competitive advantage (static vs dynamic)
• Profiting from innovation under platform dominance
• Governance of data, IP, and secrecy in university-industry collaborations and open science initiatives
• Governance and lifecycle strategies for protecting data, algorithms, AI models, etc.
• Risks of imitation, leakage, and exfiltration in digital/AI-driven innovation
• Strategies and mechanisms to protect data, algorithms, and AI models
• Protection strategies for innovations that move faster than the ability to protect them
• Value capture in Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing innovations
• Organizational designs and routines for secure collaboration
• Institutional and regulatory conditions shaping innovation security and value capture
• Closing and opening innovation in the digital era
• Insider threats to R&D knowledge
• Security-by-design and privacy-by-design principles in R&D and innovation processes
• Effective zero-trust policies in R&D departments and innovation processes

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Paper development workshop
• February 1, 2027: Submission window opens
• April 30, 2027: Full manuscript submission deadline

Saeedeh Ahmadi, University of Amsterdam

Saeed Khanagha, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Georg Reischauer, Leuphana University Lüneburg

Georg Reischauer, Johannes Kepler University Linz

Victor P Seidel, Babson College

Llewellyn D W Thomas, University of Sydney Business School

Llewellyn D W Thomas, Imperial College Business School

Innovation communication and framing are central to product development success across all stages, shaping how organizations coordinate internally and externally. Generative AI fundamentally disrupts traditional approaches to communicating and framing innovation, creating both opportunities and challenges. Firms are already experimenting creatively with these technologies, yet face significant risks including authenticity concerns, misinformation, and backlash from audiences skeptical of AI-generated content.

This special issue seeks interdisciplinary research examining how Generative AI shapes communication and framing of innovation at individual, organizational, industry, and ecosystem levels. Key areas include how AI-mediated communication transforms new product development processes, manages technological hype cycles, and navigates tensions between creativity and authenticity. The issue welcomes quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, and conceptual work across all innovation types and organizational contexts, with particular interest in research on non-venture firms including corporations, family businesses, and small-to-medium enterprises.

Appel publié par Journal of Product Innovation Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Conceptual foundations of Generative AI-driven communication and framing, including how AI-facilitated communication changes the nature of new product development processes across stages, types, and degrees of innovation
• Antecedents at various organizational levels that enable or obstruct AI-mediated information disclosures
• Impact of Generative AI-facilitated communication and framing on generativity within platform, entrepreneurial, and innovation ecosystems
• Role of emotions, humor, and metaphors in Generative AI-driven communication
• Intended and unintended consequences of Generative AI-driven communication and audience reception
• How firms use AI-based tools to convince skeptical audiences and align AI-mediated communication with powerful audiences such as regulators and politicians
• Competences required for mastery of AI-mediated communication across new product development stages
• How audiences respond to and instrumentalize AI-driven disclosures for their interests
• Forms of Generative AI-mediated communication that shape audience engagement and sensemaking in online communities
• Characteristics of effective AI-driven communication for product launches and technology-mediated innovation events
• Communication processes and mechanisms through which firms create and navigate hypes
• How hyped firms use Generative AI to communicate when innovations do not meet expectations
• Rumors in the context of Generative AI and their influence on firm innovation strategies
• How firms navigate firestorms and negative online discourse communicatively
• Generative AI use for communicating moonshots and visionary concepts
• How Generative AI identifies windows of opportunity for communicating innovation
• Effects of Generative AI-created messages on authenticity and creativity of innovation communication
• How firms balance authenticity across disagreeing audiences
• Comparison of human versus generative AI communications on creativity, accuracy, and authenticity
• Conditions under which Generative AI outperforms human communication
• How false, fabricated, or inaccurate information on new products spreads digitally and consequences for firm social evaluations
• Factors driving innovators and firms to communicate beyond their actual expertise and responses to inauthenticity claims

Timeline

• April 30, 2026: Proposal 1 deadline (optional)
• May 11, 2026: Decision on proposal
• June 2, 2026: Online information session with Q&A followed by proposal workshop
• November 30, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline
• February 28, 2027: First round decisions
• June 30, 2027: First revision due
• November 30, 2027: Second round decisions
• February 28, 2028: Second revision due
• June 30, 2028: Final editorial decisions

Associate editors

• Luigi M De Luca, Cardiff University

Anna Yström, Linköping University

Susanne Ollila, Chalmers University of Technology

Paul Carlile, Boston University

Deborah Roberts, University of York

This special issue examines spaces for innovation—such as living labs, maker spaces, and virtual environments—as crucial elements for stimulating innovation and enabling co-creation. While the role of physical spaces in fostering innovation has long been established, contemporary innovation involves multiple interrelated spatial modalities: physical, virtual, cognitive, and social. The special issue aims to advance interdisciplinary innovation management theory and practice by investigating how these diverse spaces are designed, experienced, and orchestrated to stimulate innovation.

The special issue addresses significant gaps in understanding how spatial configurations shape innovation in collaborative contexts. Key concerns include how different spatial modalities interact to drive innovation, the role of AI and technological systems in reshaping innovation spaces, the challenges of integrating knowledge across organizational and disciplinary boundaries, and how managers can orchestrate inclusive and ethical innovation environments. Additionally, the call seeks methodological advancements to capture the dynamic and evolving nature of spaces across their multiple dimensions.

Appel publié par Journal of Product Innovation Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Dynamics of Stimulating Innovation Across Spatial Modalities - how different modalities of space (physical, digital, cognitive, and social) stimulate innovation, both intentionally and serendipitously, and how these modalities interact over time
• AI-Augmented Spaces and Their Role in Stimulating Innovation - how AI-augmentation reshapes spaces for innovation and their management, including impacts on creativity, decision-making, collaboration, power relations, and ethical considerations
• Knowledge Integration and Boundary-Spanning in and across Spaces for Innovation - how spaces enable or constrain knowledge integration and boundary-spanning across organizational, disciplinary, and cultural divides
• Orchestrating Spaces for Innovation: Inclusion, Power, and Governance - how orchestration forms and practices shape spaces for innovation with attention to fairness, transparency, inclusion, and the dark sides of innovation spaces
• Methodological Advancements for Studying Spaces Across Modalities and Over Time - methodological approaches to capture the dynamic, multi-modal nature of spaces for innovation as they evolve, including mixed methods, ethnography, spatial and network analysis, and AI-driven tools

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Expected publication
• April 30, 2026: Proposal deadline for paper development workshop (optional)
• May 11, 2026: Decisions on proposal for paper development workshop
• June 8, 2026: Online information session with Q&A followed by paper development workshop (optional)
• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission window opens
• November 30, 2026: Full paper submission window closes
• February 28, 2027: First round decisions
• June 30, 2027: First round revision due
• November 30, 2027: Second round decisions
• February 28, 2028: Second revisions due
• June 30, 2028: Final editorial decisions

Associate editors

• Gerda Gemser, University of Melbourne

Claudia Buengeler, Kiel University

Stefan Hoffmann, Kiel University

Kristina Nickel, Kiel University

Carsten Schultz, Kiel University

Achim Walter, Kiel University

Responsible innovation seeks to align innovation with ethical considerations, societal values, and needs of current and future generations. However, it operates within significant tensions between innovation and regulation, economic incentives and ethical commitments, and short-term efficiency and long-term responsibility. These tensions have led to observable backlash across sectors, with organizations scaling back responsible innovation initiatives in response to political and societal shifts, seeking to restore previous operational states rather than simply resist change.

This special issue explores why responsible innovation provokes opposition, resistance, and counter-mobilization across individual, organizational, and societal levels. The issue recognizes that backlash need not be entirely detrimental—it may serve as corrective feedback revealing deeper tensions and pointing toward more integrative approaches. The call invites empirical research from multiple disciplines examining the catalysts, consequences, and contingencies of tensions in responsible innovation, including how organizations can develop strategies for strategic resilience and lasting social legitimacy.

Appel publié par Journal of Product Innovation Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Conceptualizing backlash across disciplines and its differentiation from resistance to change or non-adoption
• Forms of backlash in organizational settings and links to specific innovation types (digital, environmental, social)
• Individual, social, cultural, organizational, and economic factors driving responses to responsible innovation
• Moral and ethical judgments, social responsibility in business, and cross-cultural perspectives on responsible innovation
• Cognitive dissonance, perceived moralization, fear of economic loss, and political values shaping backlash responses
• Firm strategy, leadership communication, incentive schemes, organizational structure, and stakeholder engagement influencing backlash momentum
• Manifestations of backlash in innovation management processes, decision criteria, and innovation management instruments
• Consequences of backlash for innovation adoption, legitimacy, organizational learning, and reputational positioning at multiple levels
• Strategies for preventing delegitimization including legitimacy building, meaning creation, coalition management, and political activity
• Proactive narrative reshaping through framing, trust building, and resilience strategies to address negative backlash
• Anticipating and constructively working with tensions and dynamics of responsible innovation

Timeline

• April 1, 2026: Decisions on extended abstracts
• April 12, 2026: Optional submission of extended abstracts for PDW
• October 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline
• January 1, 2027: First round decision
• May 1, 2027: Submission of revised papers
• September 1, 2027: Second round decisions on revised papers
• November 1, 2027: Submission of revised papers
• December 1, 2027: Final decision

Rick Delbridge, Cardiff University

Bill Harley, University of Melbourne

Paolo Quattrone, Alliance Manchester Business School

Kerstin Sahlin, Uppsala University

Universities face unprecedented challenges including COVID-19, geopolitical tensions, financial pressures, and generative AI that require fundamental organizational innovation. While previous research has examined how universities contribute to industry innovation through collaborations, comparatively little attention has been paid to how universities innovate themselves as organizations to survive these turbulent times.

This special issue seeks interdisciplinary contributions examining universities' ability to innovate internally across governance, culture, leadership, capabilities, ecosystem engagement, work environments, and societal missions. The issue welcomes theoretical and empirical research exploring what drives, enables, or constrains innovation within universities.

Appel publié par Journal of Product Innovation Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Innovation in Governance and Strategy - governance structures, decision-making processes, exploration vs. exploitation, hybrid/ambidextrous organizations, organizational structures, business models, digital transformation, and generative AI
• Innovation in Culture and Leadership - culture of resistance to change, leadership styles, governance models, organizational cultures, academic autonomy, professional communities of practice, and organizational agility
• Organizational Structures, Capabilities and Learning - organizational structures and innovation diffusion, organizational learning processes, capabilities, routines, institutional logics, and alternative organizational forms
• Ecosystem Engagement and Open Innovation - global networks, international partnerships, orchestrating roles as hubs/intermediaries/boundary spanners, network structures, intra-university collaborations, alliances, partnerships with industry/government/civil society, and balancing academic independence with collaborative demands
• Innovation for Wellbeing and Work Environment - designing healthier and inclusive work environments, participatory innovation and co-design, bottom-up initiatives, and academic labour experiences
• Innovation for Societal Grand Challenges - aligning innovation with grand challenges like sustainability and social justice, mission-oriented organizational models, partnerships for co-creating solutions, and evaluating societal impact

Timeline

• January 21, 2026: Call for papers for Catalyst Essays and Original Articles
• March 2, 2026: Online information session and Q&A with Special Issue Guest Editors
• May 1, 2026: Deadline for Catalyst Essay proposals (maximum 2 pages)
• September 1, 2026: Deadline for full paper proposals for potential inclusion in the Paper Development Workshop (maximum 10 pages)
• November 1, 2026: Deadline for Catalyst Essay submissions (only accepted proposals)
• November 30, 2026: In-person paper development workshop at Cardiff Business School (optional)
• February 1, 2027: Deadline for full paper submissions (open to anyone)
• May 1, 2027: Final decision for Special Issue I (Catalyst Essays)
• May 1, 2028: Final decisions for Special Issue II (full papers)

Joon Mo Ahn, Korea University

Alberto Di Minin, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna

Sungjoo Lee, Seoul National University

Ahreum Hong, Kyung Hee University

This special issue addresses how artificial intelligence systems function as autonomous innovators rather than tools within R&D management. As AI systems including large language models and physical AI become active participants in innovation processes, existing frameworks assuming human actors must be reconceptualized. The core challenge extends beyond how AI assists humans to how much cognitive work should be delegated to AI and what consequences this has for organizations, ecosystems, and intellectual property.

The special issue examines four interconnected themes: determining optimal levels of AI delegation; understanding how agentic and physical AI reshape innovation ecosystem architectures as autonomous actors; reconceptualizing absorptive capacity for evaluating AI-generated knowledge; and addressing IP ownership and inventorship when non-human systems generate patentable outputs. Collectively, these themes interrogate how the distinction between AI-as-tool and AI-as-innovator requires new governance mechanisms and strategic frameworks for innovation management.

Appel publié par R and D Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Is there an inverted-U relationship between the degree of AI delegation in R&D and innovation performance, mirroring the over-search paradox?
• How do firms determine the optimal breadth and depth of AI involvement across different stages of the R&D process? Specifically, under what conditions does algorithmic management enhance or hinder innovation performance?
• What is the AI-era analogue of the NIH syndrome: how does uncritical acceptance of AI-generated knowledge erode internal expertise?
• What governance architectures enable effective human–AI teaming while preserving accountability, creativity, and strategic judgment?
• How do agentic AI systems alter the architecture of knowledge flows in open innovation ecosystems, and what new governance mechanisms are required?
• How does the participation of autonomous AI agents change the logic of platform-based open innovation, including roles, incentives, and boundary conditions?
• How do digital twins and AI-enabled simulation reshape the scope and speed of distributed experimentation across organisational boundaries?
• What new forms of inter-organisational trust, contracting, and coordination are needed when AI agents act as innovation partners?
• How must absorptive capacity (or dynamic capabilities) be reconceptualised when the primary external knowledge source is an AI system rather than a human partner?
• What organisational routines and managerial processes enable firms to transform AI-generated knowledge into innovation value?
• What individual competencies — technical, cognitive, and relational — distinguish high-performing innovators in human–AI contexts?
• What learning mechanisms allow firms to continuously upgrade AI-related innovation capabilities over time, particularly in relation to exploration and exploitation?
• How should inventorship and IP ownership be attributed when agentic AI systems autonomously generate patentable outputs, and what theoretical frameworks from open innovation research best capture this challenge?
• What strategic logic governs firms' decisions to release model weights, training data, or fine-tuned AI capabilities into open-source commons?
• How do trained model weights, fine-tuning data, and emergent AI capabilities constitute a new category of strategic asset, and how do firms govern access to and monetisation of these assets?
• Under what regulatory and institutional conditions does the open-source AI movement accelerate versus impede innovation diffusion?

Timeline

• May 30, 2026: PDW (paper development workshop) at R&D Management Workshop, Seoul, Korea
• July 4, 2026: PDW at KOSIME summer conference, Jeju, Korea
• December 1, 2026: Special Issue Submission Open
• June 30, 2027: Deadline for SI Submission
• July 1, 2028: Publication of SI Articles

Appel publié par Technovation. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Timeline

• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Konstantin Hondros, Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Armed Forces Hamburg

Leonhard Dobusch, University of Innsbruck

Astrid Mager, Austrian Academy of Sciences Vienna

Patricia Aufderheide, American University Washington

Patrick Cohendet, HEC Montréal

This special issue addresses the intersection of creativity, copyright, and generative AI within organizational and management contexts. As GenAI technology rapidly generates novel content across various forms, it raises critical questions about copyright management, ownership rights, and creative practices that have previously remained underexplored in management and organizational literature. The call seeks to examine how regulatory uncertainty and rapid technological development create both opportunities and challenges for creative work.

The editors invite empirical and conceptual research exploring how organizations navigate copyright and creativity amid GenAI adoption. Contributions are welcome from diverse disciplines including management, media studies, cultural studies, sociology, and science and technology studies, and from various fields potentially affected by GenAI such as creative industries, journalism, digital platforms, and scientific research. The special issue aims to make copyright a more accessible research topic and foster an interdisciplinary community examining creativity management in the context of emerging digitalization.

Appel publié par Innovation. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Creativity in the shadow of GenAI: How does GenAI affect the creation and management of creative content? How do creative and artistic practices change through GenAI use? What role does copyright play in creative transformations?
• Doing copyright: How does GenAI foster copyright-related practices within and across organizations? Who are the actors and actants doing copyright in GenAI contexts? How are these practices shaping the organization of creativity? How is emerging GenAI regulation affecting organizations and creativity?
• Conflicts over copyright: How do conflicts over copyright foster or impede creativity? What is the role of digitization in these conflicts and their evolution with GenAI? How do these conflicts affect organizational creativity and technological innovation management?
• Inequality and copyright: How does GenAI affect access to knowledge within and across organizations? Who owns copyright and how does GenAI influence ownership structures? What are the consequences of copyright inequality for creativity?
• Alternatives to copyright: What are alternatives to exclusive copyright regimes in GenAI contexts? How do commons-based and knowledge-sharing approaches challenge or facilitate the management and organization of creativity?
• Researching copyright: What are methodologically promising ways to investigate the interrelation between copyright and creativity in organization and management? What are specific obstacles in the GenAI context?

Timeline

• January 25, 2026: Deadline for submission of abstract of approximately 1,000 words describing planned contribution
• February 27, 2026: Online paper development workshop to provide feedback on early-stage submissions
• September 30, 2026: Manuscript submission deadline