Corporate governance has traditionally been defined as the set of mechanisms, processes, and relations by which corporations are directed and controlled (Shleifer and Vishny, 1997). Over the last two decades, its scope has progressively expanded beyond shareholder value to embrace broader responsibilities towards stakeholders and society (Aguilera and Jackson, 2003). This shift has been reinforced by new regulatory frameworks and policy initiatives in the field of sustainability, such as the EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Reporting (CSRD) and the integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria into corporate disclosure practices (European Union, 2022).

Despite these advances, corporate governance remains an underexplored lens in sustainability and innovation research, particularly in relation to how knowledge, information, and shared standards circulate and evolve within global value chains. Much of the existing debate (e.g., Cheng and Zeng, 2024; Gölzer and Fritzsche, 2017; Li et al., 2025; Taj et al., 2023) has emphasized the role of digital technologies – such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and IoT – as enablers of transparency, traceability, and stakeholder engagement. Yet, technology alone does not ensure accountability, learning, or strategic alignment among the diverse actors of complex supply chain networks (Cheng and Zeng, 2024). Recent studies increasingly highlight that governance acts not only as a control structure but also as an enabling architecture for knowledge integration and collective intelligence (Jarrahi et al., 2023; Nonaka et al., 2014).

Governance mechanisms such as board composition, leadership orientation, ethical culture, and decision-making structures are decisive in determining whether data circulating across supply chains remains fragmented or becomes “intelligent knowledge”—that is, contextualized, actionable, and capable of supporting collaborative decision-making (Silvestri et al., 2025; Marques et al., 2020).

Building on emerging insights from intelligent knowledge management and digital governance (Jarrahi et al., 2023; Kohli and Melville, 2019), this track seeks to advance the discussion on how governance and digital transformation interact to enable sustainable knowledge diffusion, stakeholder engagement, and systemic learning across global supply chains.

We invite conceptual, empirical, and methodological contributions that explore:

• How corporate governance can act as a cognitive and relational infrastructure for knowledge creation and diffusion;
• How governance frameworks cand facilitate trust, coordination, and shared sensemaking among networked actors in pursuit of sustainability goals.
• How governance structures enhance, complement, or limit the potential of digital tools, positioning governance as a decisive enabler of accountability, transparency, and sustainable value creation in global supply chains;
• How governance interacts with sustainable regulatory mechanisms, such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes, to directly connect corporate decision-making with environmental accountability and circular economy objectives;
• How integrated governance-policy architectures can foster cross-sector collaboration, ensuring that digital tracking, monitoring and reporting systems effectively align incentives, manage stakeholder expectations, reinforce transparency throughout the product lifecycle and normative legitimacy;
• How digital technologies can support the alignment between circularity and sustainability practices, by enabling data-driven monitoring, life-cycle traceability, and feedback loops that integrate environmental and social performance metrics into strategic governance decisions.

The topics listed above are indicative rather than exhaustive. We warmly welcome all research contributions that critically engage with the overarching theme of the track, offering novel theoretical, empirical, or methodological insights into the evolving relationship between corporate governance, intelligent knowledge, and sustainability in global supply chains.