We asked the editors of Cambridge management and cross-disciplinary journals to select recently published articles covering topics they felt would be hotly debated, discussed and researched in 2025.

Margaret Kenney, Managing Editor, Business and Politics

“The first three articles consider the influence of non-state actors on regulatory policy cross-nationally, as well as in the US and EU. As stakeholder engagement continues to increase, the authors draw attention to how non-state actors influence policymaker decisions on emerging technologies — in this case, AI and ride-hailing. Finally, Coleman discusses how firms can leverage antidumping trade remedies to protect themselves from outside competition. The next article (Preble and Early) adds to the growing conversation about the increased use of economic statecraft tools amidst geopolitical tension. The authors find that the US sanctions enforcement body places particular pressure on high profile companies in order to draw more attention to the violation and enhance the reputational costs. Finally, Wellhausen, Feir, and Thrall take up an important, but understudied, issue in business and political science: stakeholder credibility and public opinion. The authors use a “first-of-its kind survey” to investigate how an American Indian Nation engaged with a bank branch that is owned by another American Indian nation.”

Article: AI regulation in the European Union: examining non-state actor preferences

Article: Antidumping Protectionism and Globalized Economies

Article: Enforcing economic sanctions by tarnishing corporate reputations

Article: Informational lobbying, information asymmetry, and the adoption of the ride-hailing model policy in the U.S. States

Article: Stakeholder Cues, National Origin, and Public Opinion Towards Firms: Evidence in the Context of the First Bank in an American Indian Nation

Xiao-Ping Chen, Editor-in-Chief, Management and Organization Review

“Have you wondered why it takes at least 3 to 5 years to get a paper published in management journals, whereas in other applied disciplines such as health science or engineering, the publishing cycle is significantly shorter? In this perspective paper, the authors described how they ventured into mental health research during the COVID-19 pandemic and experienced first-hand how health and medical sciences have vastly different publishing expectations and norms from those in management, while still upholding scientific standing and addressing real-world problems. The authors encourage us to engage in a deep discussion about what is responsible research, which may help us to develop diverse evaluation criteria to allow variety of scholarship flourish in management journals.”

Article: Responsible Research: Reflections of Two Business Scholars Doing Mental Health Research During COVID-19

“With more and more Chinese companies exploring business opportunities overseas, this article examined the first cross-border acquisition of Chinese multinationals and found that a rapid adoption of a focused strategy increases their expansion frequency, while the adoption of a conglomerate strategy decreases it.  Furthermore, they found that high comparative nationalism attenuated these relationships. More research on Chinese MNEs will be published in a special issue entitled “Understanding Contemporary Chinese MNES: Extending and Challenging International Business Theory” in 2025.”

Article: Do It Right the First Time? Exploring the First Cross-border Acquisition and Expansion Frequency of Emerging Market Multinationals

“This is an editorial for a special issue on the heterogeneity among Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). It discusses how Chinese SOEs become more heterogenous after four decades of reform, to bolster their efficiency and competitiveness while maintaining a balance between state oversight and market dynamics. The heterogeneity is manifested in their ownership and hierarchical governance structure, the level of hybridity in blending multiple logics, and the leadership characteristics and composition. The complexity involved in the various forms of SOEs provides fertile ground to explore the institutional, strategic and organizational influences on how SOEs manage the dual pressures of state and market logics, respond to policy adjustments, tackle leadership challenges, and navigate current global trends such as digital transformation and environmental sustainability.”

Article: Convolution of SOEs and the Chinese Economy: The Roles of SOE Heterogeneity from the Institutional, Strategic, and Organizational Perspectives

“Recognizing the significant role of Chinese governments in China’s rapid rise to the second-largest economy, the authors ask, “How can organization theories benefit from what we have learned from research on Chinese bureaucracy?” This perspective paper reviews and highlights major findings in three areas: agency problems and incentive provision, the use of social relations—guanxi—in policy implementation, and variable coupling among different parts of the bureaucracy. Viewing these three aspects as interrelated, the authors articulate their remarkable insights on the new research questions management scholars can explore to enrich organization theories.”

Article: What the Research on Chinese bureaucracy Can Do for Organization Theory?

Vanessa Ratten, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Management & Organization

“Increasingly more attention by organisations and individuals is being placed on work meaningfulness due to work/life concerns. This means that it is important for others to understand why work matters for some people and how it affects their other relationships. This topic is important in understanding what type of work matters and whether the duration or location is important.”

Article: Analyzing the impact of work meaningfulness on turnover intentions and job satisfaction: A self-determination theory perspective

“Authentic leadership is a hot topic as more attention is being placed on original and unique leadership skills that align with personal values. This means leaders act in a way that has relevance to them and is most appropriate given the situation. It is hot topic as it offers a different approach to traditional leadership theories that have tended to focus on tasks rather than the authenticity of the leader.”

Article: The use of experimental designs to examine causality in authentic leadership: A scoping review

“Neurodiversity is a hot topic as it offers a new way of understanding how individuals function in a work environment. This means focusing on the uniqueness of individuals and understanding the different ways people think and act in an organisational setting. As diversity management practices are well established in practice and in the literature neurodiversity is a new form of diversity practice that is rapidly gaining attention by management practitioners and scholars.”

Article: Neurodiversity and inclusive social value management practices

Mollie Painter, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Business Ethics Quarterly

“In a world where the exclusion of marginalised voices often becomes normalised, the need to resist the dignity and identity violations that emerge as a result, has become urgent. This article offers important perspectives on how to rethink both stakeholder theory and social entrepreneurship through a process of input actualisation of marginalised voices.”

Article: Toward a Theory of Marginalized Stakeholder-Centric Entrepreneurship

“How to respond with integrity when one’s role responsibility conflicts with one’s personal morals? Many professionals suffer from the moral disjunction caused by changes in policy or political pressure. In their paper, Mota and Morrison explore the limitations of typical coping mechanisms that are utilized, and offer an alternative which they call ‘role coadunation’ from the Latin verb coadunare, meaning “to join together” or “to make one”.”

Article: Moral Disjunction and Role Coadunation in Business and the Professions

“Guidance on what constitutes ethical and responsible leadership is very much needed in the world today. Drawing on Heidegger, the authors of this paper discuss the relational attunement that should remain key to authentic leadership.”

Article: Leader Authenticity and Ethics: A Heideggerian Perspective

David Shorten, Production Manager, Business History Review

Article: Why Do Unsuccessful Companies Survive? U.S. Airlines, Aircraft Leasing, and GE, 2000–2008

Article: British CEOs in the Twentieth Century: Aristocratic Amateurs to Fat Cats?

Article: Introduction: Capitalism and Global Governance in Business History

Article: Beyond Planetary Limits! The International Chamber of Commerce, the United Nations, and the Invention of Sustainable Development