It Takes a Village: Ethical Publishing of Family Business Research

This editorial explores key issues regarding ethics in family business research – particularly that surrounding the evaluation and publication process – and advocates creating a stronger and more knowledgeable community of scholars to overcome the many challenges facing responsible research. Rather than only discussing the various types of ethical problems in research such as plagiarism, unprincipled data manipulation, and falsification of data, we expand the conversation to include the role the scholarly community – including researchers, reviewers, editors, and institutional leaders – plays in dealing with ongoing ethical concerns in scholarly publishing. We offer a few pragmatic suggestions for improving some processes, but primarily make a broad call for building a stronger (global) community of family business researchers that supports and promotes ethical conduct in publishing research through increased dialogue and interaction.