Innovation at the Crossroads: Technology, Institutions, and Societal Transformation in Times of Systemic Uncertainty
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Innovation at the Crossroads: Technology, Institutions, and Societal Transformation in Times of Systemic Uncertainty
Journal: Technology in Society
Publisher: Elsevier
Submission Deadline: 18 September 2026
Introduction
Contemporary economies, institutions, and societies are experiencing a convergence of profound and interrelated challenges evolving at unprecedented speed — including the rapid diffusion of AI and data infrastructures, spread of advanced manufacturing systems and robotics, geopolitical fragmentation of global value chains, green and digital transitions driving new socio-technical regimes, and mounting skills shortages and social inequalities.
Technologies are no longer neutral efficiency-enhancing tools or simply drivers of sectoral disruption — but a constitutive force in the emergence of new societal models and power structures. Technological change is no longer driving mere episodic waves of Schumpeterian "creative destruction" but is continuously reconfiguring the very foundations of social organization, coordination across public-private actors, cultural production, and political authority.
The contemporary relationship between technology, markets, institutions, policy, and society sits at the intersection of three competing governance regimes:
🇺🇸 A US model characterized by tight State–Big Tech security alliances and market concentration — a form of "technological nationalism"
🇪🇺 A European model combining strong regulation with selective mission-oriented industrial policies for technological sovereignty
🇨🇳 A Chinese model of direct state orchestration of techno-industrial development
These regimes represent not just alternative policy choices — but fundamentally different political economies of power, control, and social distribution of technological risks and benefits.
Scope & Significance
This Special Issue seeks to provide a critical and global perspective on the co-evolution of technologies, institutions, and societies across multiple levels of analysis — including firms (MNCs, SMEs, high-tech start-ups), universities, governments, entrepreneurial ecosystems, policy systems, and markets.
It addresses questions of who governs emerging technologies, who benefits from them, and whose values they ultimately serve — advancing integrative frameworks that explain how competing institutional regimes shape the social legitimacy, distributional outcomes, and governance capacity of emerging technologies across regions.
The editors welcome conceptual, empirical, review, and policy-oriented papers — both qualitative and quantitative — addressing multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and internationally significant topics.
Thematic Areas & Topic Areas
Theme 1 — Institutional Frameworks, Governance Regimes, and Technological Change
Institutional enablers and constraints of emerging technologies
Competing governance models — US, EU, China — and their implications for technological development, regulation, and market structure
Governance of AI, data, and digital infrastructure — regulation, risk management, and public interest
Theme 2 — Firms, Organizations, and Socio-Technical Transformation
Organizational restructuring, governance change, and cultural adaptation in MNCs, SMEs, and tech start-ups
Digitalization, automation, and platformization in global innovation networks
Balancing innovation, efficiency, regulatory compliance, and social responsibility
Theme 3 — Entrepreneurial Universities and Knowledge-Based Start-ups
Transformation of universities into entrepreneurial and innovation-driven institutions
University entrepreneurial ecosystems, Science Parks, and Innovation Districts as drivers of regional and societal impact
Academic entrepreneurship, knowledge and technology transfer, and mission-oriented innovation
Creation, scaling, and governance of university technology-based start-ups and spin-offs
Theme 4 — Production Systems, Global Value Chains, and Geopolitical Reconfiguration
Digital manufacturing, automation, and technological disruption of production systems
Supply chain restructuring, resilience strategies, and local value capture
Industrial policy, new forms of technological dependence, and technological sovereignty
Theme 5 — Future of Work, Inequality, Legitimacy, and Societal Consequences
Labour market transformation, skills formation, automation, and employment relations
Social acceptance, trust, ethics, and legitimacy of emerging technologies
Distribution of risks and benefits — inclusion, exclusion, and socio-economic inequality
Geographies of discontent and uneven territorial development driven by technological change
Guest Editors
Prof. Marina Ranga (Corresponding Guest Editor) La Salle – Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain 📧 marina.ranga@salle.url.edu
Prof. Anne-Laure Mention RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia 📧 anne-laure.mention@rmit.edu.au
Prof. Marcelo Amaral Fluminense Federal University, Brazil 📧 marceloamaral@id.uff.br
Prof. João J. Ferreira University of Beira Interior, Portugal 📧 jjmf@ubi.pt
Prof. Hugo Zarco Jasso La Salle – Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain 📧 hugo.zarco@salle.url.edu
Key Deadlines
⏰ Manuscript Submission Deadline: 18 September 2026
Submission Guidelines
Submit your paper through Editorial Manager, the official online submission system for Technology in Society, before the submission deadline.
When submitting, select Article Type: "VSI: Innovation Crossroads" (Please select this item to link your paper to the Special Issue.)
All submissions will undergo peer review and be evaluated based on originality, significance, technical quality, and clarity.
⚠️ All submissions must be original and must not be under review elsewhere at the time of submission.
For author guidelines, visit the official Technology in Society journal page on the Elsevier ScienceDirect website.
About the Journal
Technology in Society, published by Elsevier, is a premier international peer-reviewed journal with a CiteScore of 21.9 and Impact Factor of 12.5. It supports open access publishing and is dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary research on the complex relationships between technology, institutions, and society. It provides a leading global platform for scholars exploring how technological change shapes and is shaped by governance, culture, economics, and political structures across diverse national and regional contexts.
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