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From the Editors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 December 2025

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From the Editor
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Business Ethics

This issue marks the beginning of our term as co-editors-in-chief of Business Ethics Quarterly (BEQ). We write to offer thanks and to articulate our vision for the journal.

Thanks first to the board of the Society for Business Ethics (SBE) for entrusting us with this responsibility. We know how important BEQ is to the SBE, and we will work hard to make it the best journal it can be.

Next, we offer thanks to former co-editors Frank den Hond and Mollie Painter for their tireless efforts on behalf of the journal these past four years. Over this span, BEQ received more than 400 manuscripts per year. (In 2025 we are on track to receive more than 500.) Processing manuscripts, meeting with journal staff and the SBE board, and dealing with all the mundane tasks that go into publishing each issue of the journal could be a full-time job. But of course it is performed by people like Frank and Mollie who already have full-time jobs. We thank them for their diligence, passion, and cultivation of new voices in the pages of BEQ.

We are fortunate to be taking over such a vibrant and well-managed journal. Change, including turnover on the masthead, is healthy and wise, and has always been part of BEQ’s DNA. We will make changes carefully, with an eye toward what the journal needs and where the field of business ethics is going. To this end, BEQ is once again accepting review articles. (For details on how to submit, see “author instructions” on our website.) And it is no longer accepting art reviews. Brian Berkey (University of Pennsylvania) has joined the journal as associate editor, in which capacity he will handle manuscripts in normative business ethics. Daniel Hjorth (Copenhagen Business School) has stepped down as art review editor. We thank them, along with BEQ’s existing associate editors, members of the editorial board, and our managing editor, Joanna Osiewicz-Lorenzutti, for their dedicated service to the journal.

Our vision for the journal is simple. We want Business Ethics Quarterly to publish the very best work in business ethics.

In identifying the best work, we will not discriminate on the basis of discipline, theory, methodology, or viewpoint. We do not favor philosophical as opposed to empirical approaches to issues. We are not “pro” or “anti” shareholder primacy or stakeholder theory. We take no stand on the link between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance. If the journal only published favored viewpoints, authors with unpopular views would not submit their best work to the journal, and its quality would suffer. Indeed, we plan not just to be open to authors’ best work, but to actively seek it out. This means approaching groups that might not otherwise think they have something to say to a business ethics audience and persuading them that they do.

We can’t do this on our own. We need you—BEQ’s readers—to submit your best work to us. We need you to encourage your colleagues to do the same. We will rely on the advice and judgment of BEQ’s talented associate editors and editorial board to help shepherd it through the publication process. Our goal is to ensure that authors’ experiences with BEQ are positive, whether this results in constructive comments on their work, speedy editorial decisions, or both. We regret that, due to the number of manuscripts we receive, we may sometimes fall short.

Our predecessors at BEQ have published some of the most impactful pieces in business ethics. In doing so, they have elevated not only the status of the journal, but the field as a whole and everyone working in it. They have helped to show that business ethics is worth taking seriously. With your support, we look forward to continuing this legacy.