Editorial: generative AI and the small business frontier – charting pathways toward meaningful social impact
Lorne Cummings, Mark Steins, Dominik MahrPurpose
This study aims to examine how small and medium-sized enterprises can leverage generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to create social impact, by developing a multidimensional framework linking GenAI adoption with social-value creation.
Design/methodology/approach
This editorial adopts a conceptual synthesis approach, that integrates insights from the special-issue papers with emerging research and identifies principal domains of social impact.
Findings
Social impact is not a property of GenAI but a contingent outcome of how it is applied and adopted. While firms may have similar GenAI potentialities across various impact domains, success is dependent on human, organisational, sectoral and institutional contexts.
Practical implications
This editorial provides a framework for assessing where GenAI can support social-value creation whilst managing ethical, organisational and workforce risks. Impact accrues through organisational processes rather than through adoption itself.
Originality/value
The social impact of GenAI is extended beyond productivity and efficiency and positioned as a multidimensional and contingent outcome of technology adoption. A four-element framework links GenAI capability, organisational mechanisms, enabling and constraining conditions and stakeholder outcomes, which then informs a research agenda.