Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility: Taking stock and looking forward

In this editorial, we would like to share recent developments at BEER with our community and discuss some journal performance metrics, not least in the light of the recent 2022 Clarivate Impact Factor announcement. We would also like to share some further improvement initiatives, including calls for Associate Editors & Editorial Review Board Members. But, before that, we would like to start with some exciting news—the appointment of Prof. Martina Linnenluecke as a new Co-Editor-in-Chief.

We are delighted to announce that Prof. Martina Linnenluecke, University of Technology Sydney, has joined our team of Co-Editors. Martina is an internationally recognised scholar who conducts research on the strategic and financial implications of corporate adaptation and resilience to global environmental change, with a specific focus on the impacts of climate change. She has published over 100 academic articles, book chapters and conference papers, and has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work. Her areas of expertise include sustainability, resilience, environmental finance, and the impacts of climate change on companies, industries and markets. She is the author of the book The Climate Resilient Organization, and has extensive experience in working with government and industry on climate adaptation strategies.

Following the title change from Business Ethics: A European Review to Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, this is the second year in which the Clarivate Impact Factor for the journal is split between the two titles. Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility is listed with an Impact Factor of 2.1; and Business Ethics: A European Review is listed with an Impact Factor of 4.8. The lower Impact Factor for the new title was to be expected given that the 2022 Clarivate Impact Factor tracks citations for two volumes (2020 and 2021), only one of which (2021) is so far available for the new title. Hence, we would expect a greater Impact Factor for the new title next year.

Considering the Clarivate title change procedures and the Impact Factor split, the Scopus CiteScore is probably a more accurate yardstick to evaluate the current performance. Here, the CiteScore Impact Factor is 6.2 for 2022, and BEER—with its new title—continues to be safely positioned in Q1 in all of its subject areas. In the Ethics (Philosophy) category, BEER is ranked 13th out of 762 outlets (98th percentile). This performance level is also reflected by an increasing number of downloads (215,000 in 2022, as opposed to 197,000 in 2021) and a stable acceptance rate, as a reflection of a greater quantity of submissions of higher quality we have experienced.

In fact, output has more than doubled over the last 3 years, and we have a number of high-quality Special Issue projects lined up to be published in the second half of 2023. As an illustration of the breadth of topics addressed by BEER, we recently published Special Issues titled ‘Capitalism & Ethics’ (Flynn et al., 2023) and ‘The Enterprise at the Service of Society’ (Marco Perles et al., 2023); and we are currently in the final stages of completing the Special Issues ‘Corporate Social Responsibility throughout the Covid-19 Crisis’ as well as ‘Corporate Change Agents for Sustainability: Transforming Organizations from the Inside Out’. In addition, we have recently started our 2023 call for Special Issue proposals.

In recent years, we have developed into an increasingly global outlet, both in terms of readership (Figure 1a) and submission origin (Figure 1b). The United States, United Kingdom and China remain the three main countries from which we have received the greatest number of submissions and where published articles have been most downloaded, followed by various European countries, such as Spain and Italy. Unfortunately, however, we have seen less activity from African and South American countries, but this gap is less pronounced than a few years ago, indicating that progress has been made in terms of increasing the geographical scope of the journal both in terms of readership and submissions.

It is also worth mentioning that the quality of the papers being published in BEER is continuously improving, with published papers and papers under review receiving several awards at conferences. To take one recent example, the paper by Maggi et al. (2023) has received the Best Paper Contribution to Practice Award at the International Family Enterprise Research Academy (IFERA), one of the most renowned conferences in the field of family business.

Whilst we are pleased with the progress of the journal, we continue taking action to foster its further improvement. One of such actions is the above-mentioned appointment of the new Co-Editor-in-Chief Prof. Martina Linnenluecke. We have also strengthened our team of Associate Editors. In addition, we have established an Editorial Review Board, with experts in specific BEER-related topics who can level up the quality of the reviews.

However, the job is not completed. In response to the increasing number of submissions, our quest for new Associate Editors and Editorial Review Board members continues. Thus, if you are interested in joining the team and your expertise falls within the scope of our journal, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected].

Associate Editors play a crucial role for BEER. They would typically handle around 15–20 manuscripts per year. This includes the desk review stage in which Associate Editors offer timely and well-reasoned advice to the Co-Editors-in-Chief as to whether a paper should be desk rejected or sent out for review. Crucially, Associate Editors organise and oversee the review process, and make recommendations to a Co-Editor-in-Chief based on the referees' reports on the reviewed manuscript as well as their own judgement. Editorial Review Board members commit to review around five manuscripts per year, including their subsequent revised versions. They offer timely and well-reasoned advice to the Associate Editors as to whether a paper should be accepted, rejected or revised. The review should provide sufficiently detailed and constructive feedback on manuscripts regardless of the decision recommendation; this include, but is not limited to, writing and flow, positioning, theory building, methodological and analytical rigour, theoretical contributions and practical implications. The feedback should both point to the areas that can benefit from further development and suggest ways to improve the manuscript.

We hope that the above guides will serve as initial clarifications of what we expect from both roles, and motivate you to apply for one of them. We look forward to discussing collaboration opportunities with you! We are confident that by recruiting great talents, all together, we will be able to further improve the level and impact of BEER.