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Articles for regulat issue
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From Automation to Augmentation: Strategic Gaps in Managing AI and Economic Growth
From Automation to Augmentation: Strategic Gaps in Managing AI and Economic Growth
Guest Editors:
Samuel Ribeiro-Navarrete (Ph.D), VIZJA University (Poland) and Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences (Lithuania). Email: samuelribeironavarrete@gmail.com
Klaus Ulrich, ESIC Business & Marketing School (Spain) and ESIC University (Spain). Email: Klaus.u.b@gmail.com
Background and Motivation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the global economic environment. AI has emerged as one of the most disruptive and transformative technologies of recent times, revolutionising entire industries, organisations and economies across the globe (Climent et al., 2024; Malik, 2024; Mensikovs, 2024). This technology enables companies, for example, to increase efficiency, optimise costs and provide management tools with great potential to reconfigure competitive environments, catalyse innovation and redefine the relationship and collaboration between machines and humans (Dissanayake et al., 2024; Dhaheri et al., 2024; Faruqui et al., 2025). AI is an unprecedented opportunity for business transformation, entrepreneurial innovation and sustainable economic growth (Al Halbusi, 2025; Fang et al., 2024; Gurjar et al., 2024; Lanzalonga, 2024). However, its integration into business strategy, entrepreneurial ventures and innovative ecosystems reveals significant gaps in understanding strategic management, economic impact and social implications (Razaei, 2025; Vesely & Amaris, 2025). In this sense, potential improvements in efficiency, fostering innovation and the democratisation of entrepreneurship are being adopted in a heterogeneous and uneven manner, with their potential remaining subordinate to business culture, ethics and the challenges of measuring them (Kleinrichert, 2024; Reis et al., 2025; Tlili, 2024).
This special issue seeks to address these gaps, calling on researchers to conduct rigorous, interdisciplinary research that explores how AI can be strategically managed to drive sustainable economic growth and social value (Alessandro et al., 2024; Carayannis et al., 2025). Furthermore, it seeks to advance both theoretically and empirically in the interrelation of technology and organisational dynamics, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and macroeconomic outcomes (Roundy et al., 2024; Roy et al., 2025; Tabata et al., 2025). The special issue seeks to address and understand these issues by contributing to the understanding of how AI can be applied beyond automation to enhance human skills, the capacity to innovate, and reshape economic systems.
Topics and Research Questions
This special issue aims to contribute to the theoretical and empirical advancement of the role of AI in strategic business management, entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic growth. In this regard, three research objectives are sought to guide the studies within the framework of this call for papers. First, an analysis of the impact of AI on organisational transformation and the construction of competitive advantages, analysing the integration of technology-derived systems and the transformation of business structures, cultures and processes, and how these can be transformed into new sources of sustainable competitive advantages adapted to the emerging new economy. Secondly, research on the role of AI in identifying new business opportunities and business innovation in mature companies and start-ups, emphasising the tools offered by this technology when it comes to detecting business opportunities, predicting trends, developing new innovative business models, managing data in accordance with regulations and addressing privacy challenges. Finally, measuring the impact of AI on innovation and economic growth, addressing potential barriers to adoption and productivity gains, while also considering its impact on the labour market and the challenges arising from its transformation and the development of novel metrics to measure its value in the industrial and services sectors.
We invite researchers to contribute to the following subtopics, including but not limited to:
- The Strategic Management of AI
- Organizational transformation: How does AI adoption require changes to structures, culture, and processes?
- Human-AI collaboration in strategic decision-making: Best practices, cognitive biases, and evolving managerial roles.
- AI and competitive advantage: Beyond efficiency—new sources of sustained value creation.
- Leadership in the age of AI: Skills, roles, and the challenges of guiding AI-driven change.
- Entrepreneurship and the AI-Driven Startup
- AI for opportunity recognition: Using predictive analytics and generative models to discover unmet needs.
- AI-driven business model innovation: Redefining value creation, delivery, and capture.
- Challenges for AI-centric startups: Talent acquisition, data governance, and regulation.
- Democratization of entrepreneurship: Lowering barriers to entry through accessible AI tools.
- Innovation and AI
- AI as a catalyst for innovation: Accelerating ideation, R&D, and commercialization.
- The future of R&D: AI in drug discovery, materials science, and scientific breakthroughs.
- Ethical and social implications of AI-driven innovation: Inclusivity, equity, and responsible design.
- Intellectual property and creativity in the AI era: Legal and managerial challenges.
- The Productivity Paradox of AI: Measuring Economic Impact
- Measurement gaps: Capturing AI’s impact on services, customization, and welfare beyond GDP.
- Diffusion lag: Why adoption is uneven and how this shapes aggregate productivity.
- Capital-labor substitution: Modeling trade-offs between efficiency gains and job displacement.
- AI as a general-purpose technology: Complementary investments and new economic models.
We therefore expect researchers to produce work that provides novel insights, rigorous academic methodologies, and valuable academic, managerial, and regulatory applications that enable the advancement of technology and its democratised implementation in order to achieve greater economic and social well-being.
Submission dates:
Submissions Open: October 1st 2025.
Submission Deadline: September 30th 2026.
References
Alessandro, G., Federica, D., Cristina, B., & Luca, A. (2024). Artificial Intelligence in the Eyes of Society: Assessing Social Risk and Social Value Perception in a Novel Classification. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2024, 7008056.
Al Halbusi, Popa, S., Sota-Acosta, P., & Alshallaqi, M. (2025). The nexus of managerial and technical AI knowledge, disruptive innovation and the circular economy: The role of organizational change capability and financial resilience. Technology in Society, 82, 102937.
Carayannis, E.G., Dumitrescu, R., Falkowski, T., Papamichail, G., & Zota, N.R. (2025). Enhancing SME resilience through artificial intelligence and strategic foresight: A framework for sustainable competitiveness. Technology in Society, 81, 102835.
Climent, R.C., Haftor, D.M., & Staniewski, M.W. (2024). AI-enabled business models for competitive advantage. Journal of Innovation Knowledge, 9(3), 100532.
Dissanayake, H., Manta, O., Iddagoda, A., & Palazzo, M. (2024). AI applications in business: Trends and insights using bibliometric analysis. International Journal Of Management Education, 22(3), 101075.
Dhaheri, M.H.A., Ahmad, S.Z., & Papastathopoulos, A. (2024). Do environmental turbulence, dynamic capabilities, and artificial intelligence force SMEs to be innovative? Journal of Innovation Knowledge, 9(3), 100528.
Fang, C.Y., Li, H.Y., & Wang, Y.T. (2024). Unleashing the potential: the impact of AI on corporate entrepreneurship with top management involvement. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-03-2024-4364.
Faruqi, N., Raju, N.V.D.S.S.V.P., Sivakumar, S., Patel, N., Bhaskaran, S.V., Khanam, S., & Bhuiyan, T. (2025). Gen-Optimizer: A Generative AI Framework for Strategic Business Cost Optimization. Computers, 14(2), 59.
Gurjar, K., Jangra, A., Baber, H., Islam, M., & Sheikh, S.A. (2024). An Analytical Review on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Business Industry: Applications, Trends, and Challenges. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 52(2), 84-102.
Kleinrichert, D. (2024). Empathy: an ethical consideration of AI & others in the workplace. AI & Society, 39(6), 2743-2757.
Lanzalonga, F. Marseglia, R., Irace, A., & Biancone, P.P. (2024). The application of artificial intelligence in waste management: understanding the potential of data-driven approaches for the circular economy paradigm. Management Decision, https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-10-2023-1733.
Malik, S., Muhammad, K., & Waheed, Y. (2024). Artificial intelligence and industrial applications-A revolution in modern industries. Ain Shams Engineering Journal, 15(9), 102886.
Mensikovs, V., Simakhova, A., & Sipilova, V. (2024). Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Socio-Economic Development. European Journal of Sustainable Development, 13(3), 569-590.
Rzaei, M. (2025). Artificial intelligence in knowledge management: Identifying and addressing the key implementation challenges. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 217, 124183.
Reis, M.I., Goncalves, J.N.C., Cortez, P., Carvalho, M.S., & Fernandes, J.M. (2025). A context-aware decision support system for selecting explainable artificial intelligence methods in business organizations. Computers in Industry, 165, 104233.
Roundy, P.T., & Asllani, A. (2024). Understanding AI innovation contexts: a review and content analysis of artificial intelligence and entrepreneurial ecosystems research. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 124(7), 2333-2363.
Roy, S.K., Dey, B.L., Brown, D.M., Abid, A., Apostolidis, C., Christofi, M., & Tarba, S. (2025). Business Model Innovation through AI Adaptation: The Role of Strategic Human Resources Management. British Journal of Management, 36(2), 546-559.
Tabata, M., Wildermuth, C., Bottomley, K., & Jenkins, D. (2025). Generative AI Integration in Leadership Practice: Foundations, Challenges, and Opportunities. Journal of Leadership Studies, 18(4), 41-54.
Tlili, A., Denden., M., Abed, M, & Huang, R.H. (2024). Artificial intelligence ethics in services: are we paying attention to that?! Service Industries Journal, 44, 15-16, 1093-1116.
Vesely, S. & Amaris, G. (2025). AI-driven income inequality and preferences for redistribution. Economic Analysis and Policy, 87, 642-648.
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