Submissions

Author Guidelines

Journal Scope

At the African Journal of Business Ethics we accept manuscripts which consider business ethics issues (defined as broadly as possible) in the context of the African continent and the African diaspora. 

Articles might include speculative philosophy papers, opinion papers, theoretical papers, or empirical research (quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods)

Article Type

We accept three main types of submission:

General papers - Up to 10 000 words (although exceptions may be considered)

Short communications - Up to 2500 words

Rejoinders - as per general papers

In addition, we will on occasion accept relevant book or conference reviews which should not exceed 1200 words. 

Typing

Please use Arial 12 font in double spacing and leave generous margins. All pages must be numbered, and headings/sub-headings must be consistent. Unusual or handwritten symbols must be clearly identified. For general papers we ask that you try to limit your papers to 10 000 words. We will consider longer submissions only under very exceptional circumstances. Short communications are less than 3 000 words strictly. Please refrain from using two spaces after the full stop of a sentence – use one space only after the full stop, i.e. before the next sentence.

Title and running head

Provide the title in full (sentence case). If the title is longer than 70 characters including spaces, provide a brief title for use as a running head.

Author’s details

Please provide all authors’ full names, their affiliations, and email addresses in a separate file. Do not include these in your manuscript.

Abstract

Please include an abstract of 150 words maximum.

Keywords

Add a list of 4-10 keywords.

Headings

Main section headings (e.g. method, findings, conclusion) are indicated in bold, uppercase font, e.g. CONCLUSION. Leave a line space after a main heading. Sub-headings are indicated in bold and in sentence case (e.g. The business case for ethics). No line spaces are used after sub-headings. Should further sub-headings be required, these are to be indicated in italic font (e.g. Investor confidence).

Acknowledgements

Should you wish to express your gratitude to non-authors for significant contributions they may have made to the research/manuscript, include these at the end of the manuscript before the References section. Please ensure that these do not contain any information that can potentially lead to the identification of any of the authors.

Tables

Number all tables (e.g. 1, 2, 3) and include a short title. Vertical lines between columns are to be avoided where possible. Please insert the tables in the text approximately where you would like them to appear in the final paper.

Figures

All figures must be suitable for reproduction without being retouched or redrawn. Check that all lettering will still be legible after the figure is reduced to fit the page. Wherever possible please use black and white or grey-scales for figures. Colour figures will only be accepted under exceptional circumstances. Please avoid 3D renderings of graphs. Please insert figures in the text approximately where you would like them to appear in the final paper.

Formulas

Subscripts and superscripts should be set off clearly. Use a full stop for decimals, and reserve crosses for multiplication. The sign for ‘about equal to’ is =; ‘of the order of’ is indicated by ~.

References

References should be given at the end of the paper in alphabetical order. In the case where two publications of an author have been cited, include the references in chronological order (the earliest first). Please indent the second and subsequent lines of the reference.

Examples

Crane, A., Matten, D. and Spence, L. 2008. Corporate social responsibility: Readings and cases in a global context. London: Routledge.

de Maria, W. 2008. Why is the president of Malawi angry? Business hegemony and the politics of corruption. Paper presented at the Fourth ISBEE World Congress. 15–18 July 2008. Cape Town: South Africa.

Fairtrade Foundation. 2009. Available online: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/what_is_fairtrade/fairtrade_foundation.aspx [Accessed on 29 May 2009].

Kimberley, N. and Härtel, C.E.J. 2007. Building a climate of trust during organizational change: The mediating role of justice perceptions and emotion (pp. 237–264). In Härtel, C.E.J., Ashkanasy, N.M. & Zerbe, W.J. (Eds.) Research on emotion in organizations: functionality, intentionality and morality, Vol. 3. Oxford, UK: Elsevier/JAI Press.

Painter-Morland, M. 2008. Systemic leadership and the emergence of ethical responsiveness. Journal of Business Ethics, 82: 509–524.

In the text the literature is referred to by the name of the author and the year of publication, e.g. Mwangi (2010), when forming a part of a sentence, or (Mwangi, 2010), when forming an addition to a sentence, between parentheses. If a reference has three or more authors, it is referred to by the name of the first author, then follows the expression ‘et al.’ and the year of publication. Page references are to be provided for direct quotations only.

Proofreading

Once the manuscript has been accepted and the page proofs designed, the author receives a set of first page proofs together with the manuscript. The page proofs with corrections together with the manuscript must be returned to the publisher without delay to avoid any delay in the production schedule. The following house style rules need to be applied:

• Use UK English spelling, i.e. soft ‘s’ and not ‘z’ for words like recognise, analyse, organise, etc. Use ‘centre’ and not ‘center’ unless in a direct quotation.
• For writing numbers: one to ten are written in WORDS, e.g. four, six, nine. Numbers from 11 onwards are written in numerals: 11, 13, 247, etc
• ‘business ethics’, or ANY subject (e.g. philosophy, economics, etc) for that matter is always written in lowercase: business ethics (not Business Ethics). Unless of course ‘Business ethics’ are the first two words in a sentence or a pronoun, e.g. The Centre for Business Ethics at the University of Hyderabad.
• Nouns are generally written in lowercase, e.g doctoral degrees, master’s degrees, and not Doctoral degrees ... Note the apostrophe ‘s’ in master’s
• ‘ethics’ is always singular, i.e. ‘ethics is’, not ‘ethics are’
• In addition, please see these handy guides for writing academic style: https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/4_WritingSkills/03academicstyle.htm

All accepted manuscripts are professionally proof read by the publisher prior to publication. However, we strongly recommend that all authors make use of a professional proof-reader prior to submission. A grammatically well-crafted article is much more likely to receive a favourable review than one with many errors.