Call for Chapters - Handbook of Research on Digital Strategy - Deadline: May 10th 2021

Objective
The Elgar Handbook of Research on Digital Strategy aims to present a comprehensive state-of-the-art representation of emerging and established “digital strategy”, particularly in relation to the strategic issues that firms must deal with in digital markets and/or with digital products and services. Ultimately, the various essays will serve to depict the contours of the major investigation threads that shape the digital transformation process at the firm as well as market and industry levels and are expected to influence it deeply in the future. Attention will also be given to the policy implications and, in general, societal challenges that digitalization implies.

The Handbook is the product of a far-reaching undertaking encompassing contributions from digital strategy experts from virtually all the world’s continents, outlining the key conceptual and empirical advancements and assessing the pervasive impact and fast-growing relevance of digital strategy. Looking at key areas such as “digital innovation”, “digital capabilities”, “digital governance”, “digital convergence”, “digital competition” and “digital business models”, the volume draws a research agenda for the future of digital strategy research.

Pulling together various compelling segments of inquiry rooted in specific theories and applications, this innovative and inspiring Handbook makes it available to executives, entrepreneurs, consultants and students and scholars in management a myriad of new insights into the nature and process of digital strategy design, deployment and advancement.
This is going to be a particularly compelling endeavor for a young, mid-career, and more senior scholars in digital strategy, who experience the invaluable opportunity to join their best work to a core of selected chapters that spread from a roster of distinguished authors providing seminal contributions in the field.

Guidelines for Contributors
As indicated earlier, the Handbook aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the digital strategy field by gathering a special collection of chapters expressly drafted for this endeavor by a selected range of prominent authors in the domain.

The Handbook intends to turn into an essential and invaluable reading for executives, entrepreneurs, consultants, students and scholars, who are looking for winning a sharper and more profound appreciation of the contours of people, structures, technologies, and processes currently involved in crafting and implementing digital strategies.

Each chapter is expected to be conceptually strong and/or grounded in sound and rigorous empirical investigation to analyze a specific dimension of digital strategy. The Handbook will feature chapters inspired by a wide range of theories, such as the dynamic capabilities perspective, the resource-based theory of the firm, institution- and information-based approaches, behavioral reasoning, and others.

All chapters are expected to be accurate in the approach they use to study digital strategy. For the explicit purpose of the Handbook, we are particularly interested in chapters that provide a concise but nonetheless rigorous, insightful, and crystal-clear overview of a specific issue of digital strategy. We are also interested in a few chapters able to propose a speculative outlook on aspects that are at the onset of their exploration cycle in the digital strategy realm.

All submissions are subject to the usual review process. Chapters are made of original, unpublished works that is not concurrently under review for publication in another outlet.
Chapters are also expected to follow the standard formatting guidelines of the publisher.
We expect the Handbook to be composed overall of 23-25 chapters. A range of authors, who are recognized contributors in the field, have already accepted to write a set of chapters that promises to be as sharp as intriguing as they may be. We truly welcome additional proposals coming from scholars and researchers that may contribute to this endeavor.

Virtual Meeting
Right after the final deadline for full chapter submission in the summer of 2021 (i.e., possibly in July), we envision to organize a one-day virtual workshop with the fundamental participation of all the Handbook chapters authors. The virtual meeting is aimed to offer chapters authors the invaluable opportunity to present their work, interact directly with the other Handbook contributors, share their wisdom and exchange productive feedback. Subsequently, the Handbook editors will collect all the feedback, notify it to each chapter author(s) and assign them a deadline to revise and resubmit their chapters.

Content (tentative)
Introduction (by the editors)
Part 1 – Foundations of Digital Strategies
Part 2 – Antecedents of Digital Strategies
Part 3 – Process of Digital Strategies
Part 4 – Consequences of Digital Strategies
Part 5 – Frameworks of Digital Strategies
Concluding Remarks (by the editors)

Specific Themes
“digital competition”
“digital dynamics”
“digital innovation”
“digital capabilities”
“digital governance”
“digital convergence”
“digital business models”
“digital regulation”
“societal challenges of digital strategy”
“future of digital strategy research”

Manuscripts needs to be written in American English and in the range of 6000-8000 words length, with APA referencing.

Please send your handbook chapter proposal to the emails of all the three editors:
• Carmelo Cennamo: cce.si@cbs.dk
• Giovanni Battista Dagnino: g.dagnino@lumsa.it
• Feng Zhu: fzhu@hbs.edu