Journal of Business Ethics - Guidelines for Special Issue Proposals

                                                                                                

 

The governing objectives of the Journal of Business Ethics (JBE) for Special Issues are (a) scholarly excellence, (b) relevance to business ethics, and (c) novelty and significance of topic. JBE supports diversity in all its forms (including gender, background, expertise, and geography). In terms of the relevance for business ethics, the following two editorials are useful: 

• Focusing on Ethics and Broadening our Intellectual Base (this opens in a new tab) and
• Deepening Ethical Analysis in Business Ethics (this opens in a new tab)

Prospective guest editors may also consult recent as well as on-going calls for Special Issues available on the Journal Updates page (this opens in a new tab), and Collections page (this opens in a new tab) of JBE’s website.

Proposals concerning any topic of business ethics will be welcome for consideration by both the Co-Editors for Special Issues and the Editors-in-Chief. JBE will consider proposals twice per year with the due dates for proposals being September 30 and March 31 of each year. Proposals received after these deadlines will only be considered in the next round.

The Co-Editors for Special Issues in consultation with the Editors-in-Chief will review all submitted proposals and may recommend (a) acceptance, (b) revisions, or (c) rejection of each proposal.

Proposals following the guidelines below should be submitted to JBE’s Managing Editor at jbusinessethics@monash.edu (this opens in a new tab) and marked to the attention of the Co-Editors for Special Issues.

Guidelines for Special Issues

JBE Special Issues generally comprise a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 9 manuscripts, excluding the introductory/editorial essay by the guest editorial team. Each manuscript can be up to 12,000 words in length, and might be published within a regular issue of JBE as a separate section. The editorial for the Special Issue may be in the form of an ‘introductory essay’ of approximately 1,000 words which briefly summarises the essays within the special issue, or an ‘editorial essay’ of 5,000-8,000 words which go beyond a brief summary of the Special Issues’ essays, e.g., commenting on the future of the field 'Special Issues’ call for papers should be openly and widely circulated. Submissions may not be restricted in any manner, (i.e., involve only people who attend a particular conference or workshop, incorporate select invited manuscripts).

Rules for submitting a Special Issue Proposal

The proposal should be submitted as a MS Word document with the Call for Papers embedded within. Please include the following information:

1. The name and contact details of the Guest Editors

2. The title of the Special Issue

3. The abstract or summary of the proposed topic

4. Justification for why the Special Issue is needed

5. Explanation of the suitability of the topic for Journal of Business Ethics

6. A copy of the Call for Papers

7. A proposed schedule for each stage of the process including timelines and deadlines for receiving, reviewing and revising manuscripts into final publishable form. It is expected that collections of papers are submitted for publication within 18 months of the submission deadline stated in the Call for Papers or the conference at which the papers were presented.

8. Backgrounds of the proposed Guest Editors (including expertise on the topic in question and editorial experience).

9. A statement of how the Special Issue takes diversity into consideration.

10. A list or description of indicative scholars who might submit to the Special Issue and a list of proposed ad hoc editorial board members/reviewers (including email addresses or affiliations) for the Special Issue.

11. A strategy for promoting the call for papers (including details of any conference or workshop with which the Special Issue might be associated).

Upon approval by Co-Editors for Special Issues and the Editors-in-Chief, the Call for Papers should be circulated widely by the Guest Editor(s) in venues besides JBE.
Special Issues online submission and reviewing process

Submitted papers must adhere to the Editorial style of Journal of Business Ethics which can be found at: Instructions for authors (this opens in a new tab). All papers must be submitted through the JBE on-line submission system (Editorial Manager (this opens in a new tab)).

The following process should be adhered to:

1. Guest Editors are required to run the submission and review process through Editorial Manager. Editorial Manager will be set up to allow editor, reviewer, and author access to individual Special Issues. Guest Editors need to liaise with the Co-Editors for Special Issues, who will put the Guest Editors in touch with the relevant parties at SpringerNature to make the necessary arrangements. This includes the allocation of a unique identifier which will be added to the list of available article types in Editorial Manager to distinguish the Special Issue from other Special Issues and regular articles. The allocated name for the Special Issue needs to be clearly identified in the Call for Papers.

2. All submissions to the Special Issue must be reviewed on the basis of a double-blind peer-review process conducted in Editorial Manager.

3. The Guest Editors are invited to submit an introductory/editorial essay that provides a substantive and critical overview of the topic.

4. The Guest Editors may not be an author on any submitted paper other than the introductory/editorial essay. Any conflicts of interests (real, potential, or apparent) with authors must be announced as soon as possible to Co-Editors for Special Issues. Co-editors for Special Issues should be informed of papers with a member of the JBE editorial team as a co-author, as these papers are handled independently to avoid conflicts of interests.

5. The Guest Editors assess all submissions for rejection without review or review within a designated short time period, to be agreed upon with the Co-Editors for Special Issues, after the submission deadline identified in the Call for Papers.

6. A paper rejected from a Special Issue cannot be resubmitted to a regular issue of the Journal of Business Ethics. This should be mentioned in the Call for Papers.

7. The Guest Editors assign papers to reviewers in Editorial Manager and must adhere to further instructions provided by the Co-Editors for Special Issues.

8. Review reports are assigned to the Guest Editors, who make the final decisions about revisions and rejections.

9. Revised papers are assigned to the Guest Editors, who re-assign papers for further review or makes a final decision.

10. During the review process, the Co-Editors for Special Issues and/or Editor(s)-in-Chief, may request additional reviews for particular papers, further revisions, and have the right, in consultation with the Guest Editors, to reject papers if they do not fulfil standards of scholarly excellence.

11. The reviewers are sent a copy of all the decision letters as soon as the decisions are made.

12. The Guest Editors have access to all papers and the related files throughout the review and selection process.

13. Final acceptance decisions in Editorial Manager will be made by the Co-Editors for Special Issues and Editor(s)-in-Chief, in consultation with the Guest Editors.

14. The Guest Editors are responsible for selecting a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 9 papers for the special issue, in consultation with the Co-Editors for Special Issues and Editors-in-Chief.

15. Guest Editors should - as a rule - avoid submission deadline extensions. All extensions need to be approved beforehand by Co-Editors for Special Issues.

16. Final approval and the go ahead are given by the Co-Editors for Special Issues and/or Editors-in-Chief, for the collection to go to press.

17. The Co-Editors for Special Issues and Editors-in-Chief can decide to cancel a Special Issue if the call does not receive a sufficient number of papers to permit high quality, if Guest Editors fail to deliver the Special Issue and related decisions in a timely manner or fails to negotiate an extension with the Editors-in-Chief, and/or for other reasons at the discretion of the Editorial staff.