Conceptualizing and studying the contribution of networks in environmental management and sustainable development
这篇特刊引言文章将网络在环境管理与可持续发展中的作用置于元问题和社会技术系统的传统中，为后续研究提供了概念框架，并介绍了特刊中的其他四篇论文。
Abstract This special issue of Business Strategy and the Environment examines the role and contribution of networks to environmental management and sustainable development. The paper has two main purposes. It situates networks and their contribution to environmental management and sustainable development within the tradition of meta‐problems and socio‐technical systems. This provides an important conceptual frame for the field. It offers a robust setting within which a number of other theories can be set. The need to establish this conceptual framing is particularly important, as the interest in networks from researchers and practitioners has progressed rapidly during the past five years. Moreover, it is anticipated that this interest in networks will continue to develop as the focus of attention moves from issues of environmental management, to sustainable development, and then on to the association between sustainable development and other forms of global change. The significance of these and other trends is identified. The paper also introduces the other four contributions to this special issue, which examine the role of networks from a number of theoretical and empirical perspectives. The paper concludes by drawing out a set of research themes that appear to deserve critical attention in the future. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment