Emerald Publishing proudly announce the launch of a new groundbreaking journal in the field of sustainability entitled “Management & Sustainability: An Arab Review” (MSAR).
Given global concerns around sustainability and the achievement of the United Nations – Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in addition to the increasing role of both the public and private sectors in sustainable development, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), sustainability and responsible management research have gained momentum in academic and practitioner circles. More specifically, scholars have also highlighted different nuanced variations to the broad understanding of sustainability in different cultures, including the Arab culture (see sample references below).
Theoretically, despite emergent scholarly research on sustainability in the Arab world that is published sporadically in leading management journals (e.g. Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, among other journals), no dedicated research platform/forum (journal) exists to compile, build on and develop this conversation to-date.
On a practical level, Arab countries are in serious need to advance discussions on the sustainability discourse on their road towards development.
The rationale behind MSAR is, therefore, to agglomerate research under the broad umbrella of "management and sustainability" especially in Arab countries because this is underrepresented in the international literature.
On Friday 22nd of October, 2021, the launch event of the “Management and Sustainability: An Arab Review” (MSAR) journal was held physically at the GIU Berlin campus as well as broadcasted on zoom. MSAR aims at being the leading platform for scholarly discussions within the broad umbrella of management and sustainability in Arab countries as they relate to the international community.
As part of the launch event, Professor Ralf Klischewski, President of GIU Berlin welcomed the audience. Professor Lisa Fröhlich, President of CBS International Business School, Germany and spokesperson of the United Nations - Principles for Responsible Management Education (UN-PRME) Chapter DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) gave a seminar entitled “UN-PRME: Sustainability Narratives at CBS and the Chapter DACH”. Professor Noha El-Bassiouny, founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal and Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at the Faculty of Management Technology, the German University in Cairo (GUC), Egypt, also gave a presentation about MSAR journal as a leading international journal in the field of sustainability in the Arab world. The event was attended by students and members of the journal editorial board including Dr. Heba Ali, Assistant Professor of Finance at GUC and the assistant editor of the journal, Prof. Melike Demirbag Kaplan, Professor at Victoria Hochschule in Germany as well as Prof. Florian Becker-Ritterspach, Professor at the HTW Berlin and others.
The social media announcement of the event as well as a short video can be found here.
To create scholarly dialogue during the launch process, the physical launch event was followed by a keynote webinar entitled “Globalizing Responsible Management in the Arab Region: The Need for MSAR and Promising Areas of Research” on 5th of November, 2021 featuring Professor Oliver Laasch, University of Manchester, UK. The event was attended by scholars and members of the journal editorial board.
A recording of the webinar including an overview of MSAR and the need for contextualized knowledge and approaches related to sustainability can be found here on Youtube and here on LinkedIn.
A series of subsequent webinars are also planned on an ongoing basis, catering to the time constraints of scholars and board members in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres are noted below:
- 2 December 2021 Webinar: Professor Michael Haenlein, ESCP Europe will give a keynote entitled “Responsible Research in Marketing: What it is and Why it is important?”
- Interested scholars can RSVP by filling out this google form by 15th of November, 2021: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/15wjdbTa2C5gSjG4xoU5Jlk3PXCUdUG17VkbdWtA8LN0/edit?usp=sharing
- 22 January 2022 Webinar: Professor Shaker Zahra, University of Minnesota, will give a keynote related to responsible management as related to the Arab world…
- Interested scholars can RSVP by filling out this google form by 30th of December, 2021: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1eZx6_W1CaqYOaygDW0hv4bsLIqCHD2nDw1J2Sl1vRIU/edit?usp=sharing
Both webinars will give great insight into potential research areas related to sustainability and responsible management on a global level and in the Arab world in specific.
One of our esteemed board members, Professor Archie Carroll, has shared an encouraging and supportive endorsement of MSAR:
“It is my privilege to endorse and enthusiastically recommend the new journal, Management and Sustainability: An Arab Review. As I have observed the research coming out of the Arab countries over the past several years, it is clear that a journal that provides a specialized forum for research and thought on sustainability, CSR, and responsible management is long overdue. I encourage scholars in the region to submit their quality papers for consideration. I look forward to reading this new journal for years to come.”
We look forward to accepting submissions soon, and in the meantime encourage any potential authors to read through our aims& scope and author guidelines on the journal homepage found here.
Editor in Chief,
Noha El-Bassiouny
References
Al-Abdin, A., Roy, T., and Nicholson, J. (2017). “Researching CSR in the Middle East: The Current State and Future Directions”, CSR & Environmental Management, 25(1), pp. 47-65.
El-Bassiouny, D.; and El-Bassiouny, N. (2019). “Diversity, Corporate Governance and CSR Reporting: A Comparative Analysis between Top-listed Firms in Egypt, Germany and the US”, Management of Environmental Quality (MEQ), 30 (1), pp. 116-136.
El-Bassiouny, N.; El-Bassiouny, D.; K. A. Mohamed, E.; and Basuony, M. (editors - 2020). Ethics, CSR and Sustainability Education in the Middle East and North Africa Region: Conceptualization, Contextualization, and Empirical Evidence (Routledge).
El-Bassiouny, N.; El-Bassiouny, D.; Kolkailah, S.; Zahran, N.; and Moharram, S. (2020). “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Egypt”, In Idowu, S. and Idowu, M. (Eds.) Current Global Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Springer.
El-Bassiouny, N.; K. A. Mohamed, E.; Basuony, M.; and Kolkailah, S. (2018). “An Exploratory Study of Ethics, CSR, and Sustainability in the Management Education of Top Universities in the Arab Region”, Journal of Business Ethics Education, 15, pp. 49 – 74.
El-Bassiouny, N.; Darrag, M.; and Zahran, N. (2018). “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication Patterns in an Emerging Market: An Exploratory Study”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 31 (4), pp. 795-809.
El-Bassiouny, N.; Wilson, J.; and Esmat, S. (2017). “An Islamic Macromarketing Perspective on Sustainability” the Journal of Islamic Marketing, 8(2), pp. 187 – 203.
El-Bassiouny, N.; Seoudi, I.; Darrag, M.; & Zahran, N. (2015). “CSR and Religiosity in a Developing Country Context: A Comparative Case Study Approach” African Journal of Business and Economic Research, vol. 10 (2-3), pp. 7-45
El-Bassiouny, N.; Mohamed, A.; and Jamal, A. (2020). Individual Choice of Management Research Agendas: Ethical Guidance from Islamic Prioritization Heuristics, Emerald’s International Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences, 2(1), pp. 33 – 45.
Jamali, D., and Mirshak, R. (2007). “CSR: Theory and Practice in a Developing Country Context”, Journal of Business Ethics, 72, pp. 243-262.
Jamali, D., Sidani, Y., and El-Asmar, K. (2009). “A Three Country Comparative Analysis of Managerial CSR Perspectives: Insights from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan”, Journal of Business Ethics, 85(2), pp. 173 – 192.
Jamali D.; and Neville, B. (2011). Convergence versus divergence of CSR in developing countries: An embedded multi-layered institutional lens. Journal of Business Ethics, 102 (4), pp. 599–621.
Jamali, D.; and Karam, C. (2016). Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries as an Emerging Field of Study, International Journal of Management Reviews, 00, pp. 1 – 30.
Jamali, D.; and Sidani, Y. (2012). Introduction in: Jamali D., Sidani Y. (eds) CSR in the Middle East: Fresh Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, London
Jamali, D.; and Sidani, Y. (2013). Does religiosity determine affinities to CSR? Journal of Management. Spirituality & Religion, 10 (4), pp. 309–323.