Andreas Georg Scherer, University of Zurich

Peter Bloom, University of Essex

Cristina Neesham, Newcastle University

Yuan Li, Saint Mary's College of California

The purpose of this Special Issue is to examine the ongoing transformations of democratic societies by analyzing the political and ideological projects that position themselves against liberal democracy—be they postliberalism, (techno-)feudalism, (tech-)fascism, and other variants of illiberalism. It investigates the evolving roles of the state, executive power, digital technologies, media industries, social movements, and other non-state actors, while questioning how the moral and political responsibilities of business must be redefined amid democratic backsliding. The emerging illiberal context is marked by exclusionary practices, the erosion of participatory and deliberative norms, the refusal to recognize legitimate actors and positions, assertions of absolute truths, the rise of transgressive publics and politics, and sustained attacks on democratic institutions. While preserving the appearance of democratic legitimacy, these practices in effect consolidate a more illiberal and authoritarian form of democratic order.

Business enterprises are not merely bystanders in this process of replacing liberal democracy; they are among its principal architects. The corporate consolidation of communication platforms, the privatization of data and public discourse, and the fusion of financial and technological authority have blurred the boundaries between market and state. Platform companies have become de facto sovereign actors, shaping the flow of information, public deliberation, and even electoral outcomes. Surveillance capitalism transforms human experience itself into a raw material for prediction and control. The result is a system in which democratic citizenship is gradually replaced by managed participation and algorithmic modulation of behavior. What emerges is not the totalitarianism of the past but an illiberal order in which formal democratic procedures coexist with substantive autocracy.

Business ethics, as a field, must respond to this epochal shift. For decades, business ethics and corporate responsibility research have operated within the horizon of liberal democracy, assuming markets as embedded in legal and moral frameworks that guarantee pluralism and deliberation. Yet this assumption no longer holds. The rise of far-right movements, illiberal governments, and corporate-state alliances challenges the moral premises upon which much of business ethics has been built. The discipline can no longer treat democracy as a stable background condition but must confront the ways in which business practices and technological infrastructures actively participate in the reconfiguration of power.

This Special Issue addresses the political foundations of business ethics. It calls for new theoretical and empirical research that examines how the moral assumptions of capitalism intersect with the dynamics of authoritarianism. The goal is not to conflate capitalism with fascism or illiberalism but to investigate how certain corporate and managerial logics—efficiency, obedience, unity, the valorization of strong leadership—can, under specific historical conditions, align with the political and affective structures of illiberal ideologies. The contemporary proliferation of conspiratorial thinking, anti-intellectualism, and technocratic fatalism is not external to business but often reproduced within its organizational culture and discourse. By bringing illiberal perspectives into analytical focus, the issue invites reflection on the dark side of corporate modernity and the complicity of economic institutions in the moral crises of democracy.

Business Ethics Quarterly has been a central venue for research on how corporations wield forms of authority with implications for democratic governance – be it political CSR, stakeholder engagement, or corporate citizenship. However, this research has largely assumed the persistence of broadly liberal-democratic institutional conditions in which dialogue, participation, and deliberation remain viable. The Special Issue addresses the reality that such assumptions can no longer be taken for granted and therefore focuses on postliberalism, technofeudalism, and resurgent authoritarianism to extend existing frameworks toward a more critical theory of the firm under conditions of eroding democracies. Recent scholarship on digital governance and organized immaturity provides a crucial foundation for rethinking corporate power in the contemporary political landscape, demonstrating how digital infrastructures generate new forms of dependency, opacity, and behavioral modulation that undermine the epistemic capacities required for democratic participation – not only in markets but in public life more generally.

The Special Issue brings together adjacent yet still separate bodies of literature—such as political CSR, legitimacy theory, digital ethics, and historical or comparative analyses of corporate-state entanglement—to examine the role of business and technology in the broader shift toward illiberal forms of governance. The aim is to engage scholars from business ethics, management, law, political theory, sociology, philosophy, and media studies, to examine the intersection of business, illiberalism, and erosion of democracy. The scope is deliberately broad, unified by a concern with the moral and institutional transformations of capitalism under illiberalism. Normative analyses should examine corporate legitimacy and political responsibility, asking how firms should act when democratic institutions weaken or when economic success depends on alignment with illiberal regimes. Conceptual and theoretical work may seek to reinterpret categories such as fascism, authoritarianism, technocracy, and postliberalism in ways that make them analytically relevant for business ethics. Empirical and organizational research may investigate policies and practices through which firms either resist or reproduce authoritarian tendencies, such as their use of surveillance and algorithmic management, their political lobbying and media influence, or their role in financing and normalizing illiberal movements. Comparative and historical studies can trace continuities between the corporate strategies of interwar fascism and the political economy of the present, while critical interpretive work can analyze ideological vocabularies—such as meritocracy, disruption, or technocracy—that lend moral credibility to authoritarian capitalism.

Potential topics

• Corporate–state alliances in illiberal or hybrid regimes
• Technological infrastructures of authoritarianism and/or technocratic power (surveillance, algorithmic governance, platform monopolies)
• Corporate influence on public spheres, media ecosystems, and democratic deliberation
• Historical lessons from business involvement in interwar fascism
• Postliberal and technocratic ideologies shaping contemporary corporate governance
• Political CSR under conditions of eroding/decaying democracy
• Organizational culture, leadership, and the normalization of authoritarian values
• Moral agency, dissent, and resistance inside firms against illiberal corporatism
• How do contemporary corporate policies and practices contribute to authoritarian consolidation, postliberal governance, and illiberal forms of democracy?
• In what ways do managerial logics (efficiency, obedience, strong leadership) intersect with authoritarian or proto-fascist political ideologies?
• How do digital platforms function as political actors shaping public discourse, identity formation, and democratic norms?
• What forms of corporate complicity or resistance emerge in contexts of rising identity politics, far-right populism, disinformation, and illiberal governance?
• How should business ethics reconceptualize corporate political responsibility when liberal-democratic assumptions no longer hold?
• How do illiberal ideologies such as postliberalism, technofeudalism, cyberlibertarianism, or nationalist capitalism reconfigure corporate legitimacy?
• How do autocratic leaders and change agents use rhetorical tropes, arguments, and symbols to make meaning and influence a reality, to enact crises or states of emergency, and to construct a boundary between 'us' and 'them'?
• What normative frameworks can guide responsible corporate behavior under conditions of weakened institutions, captured states, or authoritarian drift?

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Publication
• October 30, 2026: Pre-submission development online workshop application deadline
• November 26, 2026: Pre-submission development online workshop convenes
• April 30, 2027: Manuscripts submission deadline

Tina Dacin, Queen's University

Robin Holt, University of Bristol

Jean Clarke, Emlyon Business School

Jaco Lok, Macquarie University

Max Ganzin, Macquarie University

This Special Issue seeks to foreground the ethical dimensions of venture creation, opportunity recognition, and stakeholder engagement. It invites scholars to reimagine entrepreneurship as an inherently ethical practice, instead of viewing ethics as a constraint or an afterthought in the pursuit of economic gain. The intersection of ethics and entrepreneurship presents a unique opportunity to rethink and shape new ethical paradigms and foster innovative approaches to the persistent questions of responsibility, justice, and human flourishing. Entrepreneurship is often celebrated as a catalyst for creativity, imagination, and the capacity to disrupt, yet it has also drawn criticism for promoting ideals that valorize self-optimization and commodification. The foundational activities of entrepreneurship – venture creation, opportunity enactment, and creative destruction – are themselves inextricably bound to questions of ethics.

At the core of any entrepreneurial act is its willing encounter with, and encouragement of, 'the other' - whether this means novel products, new practices, uncertain futures, or transformed habits. From some philosophical perspectives, such as phenomenology, ethical experience also involves engagement with the 'other,' coupled with a refusal to confine or transform 'the other' to the norm. Yet this raises a critical question: if entrepreneurship courts 'the other,' does it then corrupt and empty this otherness in the calculated pursuit of economic returns? If ethics entails a life lived alongside difference, then how do entrepreneurial lives compare to those shaped and scripted by the certainty and commitment to principled forms of the good advocated by other philosophical positions, such as deontology? This SI is dedicated to papers investigating this uneasy yet intimate relationship between ethics and entrepreneurship.

Different philosophical perspectives can offer unique insights into the interplay between ethics and entrepreneurship, including virtue ethics, care ethics, pragmatism, capabilities approaches, as well as deontology and phenomenology. Similarly, different schools in entrepreneurship studies, from early traditions in evolutionary economics or trait theory, to more recent perspectives associated with alertness to opportunity, emergence and creativity, and actualization, provide different stimulus for ethicists. While entrepreneurship is often associated with opportunity-seeking and value creation, its concern with seeking support from others, and with growing an organizational form that sustains the livelihood of others, extends its operations beyond economic and industrial narratives of profit, and product- and service innovation.

Entrepreneurial ventures are embedded within complex networks of stakeholders, including employees, customers, investors, non-human systems, and communities. Navigating these relationships demands ethical judgment that balances competing interests, priorities, and values. Unlike managerial decision-making, which tends to rely on established protocols, systems, and formalized structures, entrepreneurial judgment occurs in a context of greater uncertainty and fluidity, where ethical considerations are threaded into the very fabric of entrepreneurial practice.

Entrepreneurs must establish trust, negotiate power dynamics, and create shared meaning among diverse stakeholders, all while remaining attuned to the broader societal and environmental implications of their actions. They continually navigate competing values, and face unpredictable consequences within 'spaces of ambiguity,' where loosened norms make ethical reasoning both precarious and generative. In such spaces, distinguishing a 'good reason' for action from simply 'a reason to act' carry significant personal, social and commercial resonance, raising fundamental questions about the nature of ethical responsibility in conditions of flux and uncertainty, about the requirement to follow rules or break them, about the intimacy between the social and ethical commitments inherent in entrepreneurship, and about the relationship between entrepreneurial flourishing and care.

If we can still speak of 'the entrepreneur,' it is as a figure that challenges the viability of the sovereign self, continually narrating identity through stories of venturing and novelty. The entrepreneurial self emerges through an ongoing process of becoming – an engagement with chance, contingency and creative responsiveness. The entrepreneur lives out an experimental existence, embracing uncertainty and 'becoming' through the act of venturing into the unknown, through proffering of alternatives, often oppositional ones. This insight invites deeper explorations of both how organizations are formed, and stakeholders are engaged in sustaining what we might call 'good shape' – a venture that remains dynamic yet coherent amidst uncertainty and change.

In bringing entrepreneurship and ethics into philosophical dialogue, each field can deepen its appreciation of itself and the other. Entrepreneurship studies can learn from how ethicists have conceptualized difference, authenticity, autonomy, duty, care and recognition. These ethical-philosophical concepts invite a deeper reflection on the responsibilities of entrepreneurs – not only towards stakeholders but towards the wider social and ecological systems in which they operate. In turn, ethical theorists can learn from entrepreneurship's philosophical examination of contingency, creativity, and emergent futures that foregrounds fluidity, moral luck, and improvisation.

Potential topics

• Philosophical Dimensions of Ethics: How do different philosophical traditions (e.g., virtue ethics, deontology, utilitarianism, phenomenology, hermeneutics) inform our understanding of entrepreneurship as an ethical practice? How are traditions confirmed or transformed when ethics is viewed through an entrepreneurial lens?
• Phenomenology of the Entrepreneurial Experience: In what sense are entrepreneurial experiences of uncertainty, autonomy, and decision-making ethical, and how does phenomenology illuminate Kierkegaard's 'finitude' of lived reality?
• The Entrepreneur and Ethical Subjectivity: How can ethical theories of 'subjecthood', agency, embodiment, and 'self' inform understandings of the entrepreneur, and how might post-human ethics further enrich the question 'Who is the entrepreneur'?
• Ethics and Rule-Breaking: Ethically, what is the connection between following and breaking rules, and how might entrepreneurial theory enrich understandings of this connection?
• Stakeholder Relations and Trust: How do entrepreneurs navigate stakeholder dynamics and trust-building while pursuing ethical objectives and are these forms of trust akin to those envisaged in current ethical theorising?
• Entrepreneurship as Inherently Ethical or Unethical: Is entrepreneurship inherently ethical or exploitative, and how can these views inform a more nuanced understanding of entrepreneurial ethics? How core are ethics to entrepreneurship?
• Entrepreneurship and Technological Mediation: In the digital age of machine protocols, does judgment still matter—and is entrepreneurship a break from, or reinvention of, the network, platform, and stack?
• Ethics, Value, and Entrepreneurial Goals: Can ethical theories of value and worth contribute to the framing of entrepreneurial goals and opportunity?
• Temporal Dimensions of Entrepreneurial Ethics: How do entrepreneurial decisions compare immediate gains with long-term ethical considerations? In what ways does the entrepreneurial relationship to time create unique ethical challenges and opportunities?

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Doris Schneeberger, Vienna University of Economics and Business

Linda Tallberg, University of Lapland

José-Carlos García-Rosell, University of Oulu

Astrid Huopalainen, Aalto University

Eline Jammaers, Hasselt University

Katherine Dashper, Leeds Beckett University

Helen Wadham, Manchester Metropolitan University

Whilst human treatment of animals has long been a subject of considerable debate within the ethics literature, it is only in more recent years that scholars in business have examined ethical issues around the tourism and food industries, innovation, business education, animal rights and business failure, posthumanism, art, work involving animals, multispecies space, animal protection work, and stakeholder theory. Such interest is to be welcomed. Nevertheless, the interest that business scholars have shown in animals remains piecemeal, and often seems unaware of non-Western or indigenous perspectives. Additionally, ongoing technological developments that have the potential to radically transform the moral demarcations we make between humans and animals have hitherto received limited attention. Such transformations could slow down, or potentially reverse, the exponential increase in human domination over animals that has been evidenced over the past two centuries, and could significantly impact producers who still depend on traditional ways of animal production.

In light of such considerations, this special issue seeks studies that critically examine human-animal relations in the workplace, industry, or other societally organized spaces. Contributions should take an ethical, political, and/or multispecies lens to bring animals from the margins to the center of focus and analysis. The editors are especially interested in scholarly work that builds on interdisciplinary insights from animal ethics in general.

Industrial animal agriculture not only causes enormous animal suffering but also has severe negative ramifications for our planetary ecosystem, biodiversity, climate change, and species extinction. Despite this, meat production is at its highest level ever, with an expanding animal industry. The world consumption per capita of poultry, for instance, went from 10 to 15 kg in the period 2000-2019. Given that these animals are commonly raised in inhumane and unnatural circumstances, further discussion on the ethical challenges of killing sentient animals for food, and of alternative ways of producing animal products such as slaughter-free meat technology, is required.

Corporate disclosure concerning animal welfare also awaits further discussion. Companies may be reluctant to include animals in their CSR reports and codes of ethics, fearing potential accountability issues from powerful activists and social movements. Only a few recent scholarly efforts have explored the question of CSR and animal welfare. Some scholars have chosen to be deliberately critical and provoke change by, for example, advocating for an accounting of animal welfare as a potential avenue forward.

Recent work on DEI has highlighted the overlapping inequalities animals and marginalised humans face, requiring equality policies that are both multispecies and intersectional. Others too have called for more research around intersecting issues of asymmetrical power and care, like the ecofeminist tradition, as well as interspecies solidarity and justice. Developing multispecies inclusivity based on illuminating the animal's standpoint moves the traditional organizational lens to a post-anthropocentric way of perceiving, fostering multispecies wellbeing. Scholars might also seek inspiration from Indigenous ontologies which perceive life as interconnected.

Potential topics

• Applying animal ethics theories to business ethics: Using specific animal ethics theories (e.g., rights-based, utilitarian, care ethics) to address business ethics issues
• Corporate disclosure, CSR, and accounting for animals: Examining how businesses disclose and account for their impact on animals
• Expanding business ethics frameworks to include animals: Discussing how stakeholder theory, corporate moral responsibility, or, for example, triple bottom line (TBL) approaches could incorporate animals
• Non-Western and Indigenous ethical perspectives on multispecies organizations: Exploring how Indigenous and non-Western philosophies can inform business-ethics approaches to animals
• Animals as workers: Investigating ethical concerns regarding animals used as workers in diverse settings, from agriculture to entertainment
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and the role of animals: Extending DEI discussions to consider nonhuman animals in business contexts
• Multispecies inclusivity: Analyzing how businesses can integrate multispecies perspectives into ethical and operational frameworks
• Animal tourism: Addressing ethical challenges and exploitation in wildlife tourism, zoos, and entertainment industries
• Technological innovations and their impact on animals: Examining cultivated animal products, alternative proteins, AI, and digitalization in relation to animals
• Farmed animals and emerging business models: Investigating ethical issues in new farming methods such as precision and regenerative agriculture
• Hard-to-access animal-use industries: Exploring ethical concerns in medical research, pharmaceuticals, and laboratory testing

Timeline

• August 31, 2026: Submission deadline

Stefan Gold, Technical University of Munich

Antoine Harfouche, Paris Nanterre University

Paul Jones, Swansea University

Maryam Lotfi, Cardiff University

Guoqing Zhao, Swansea University

Unethical labour practices represent a pressing global issue, with an estimated 50 million people currently living in such conditions worldwide. The prevalence of unethical labour practices is expected to increase due to ongoing regional conflicts, economic downturns, and restrictive migration policies in major Western countries. Digital technologies, such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing, promise significant benefits in addressing unethical labour practices and have consequently attracted increasing scholarly attention.

Modern slavery is one of the most serious forms of unethical labour practices, commonly conceptualized as the recruitment, movement, harbouring or receiving of children, women, or men through means such as coercion, deception, abuse of vulnerability, or the use of force, for the primary purpose of exploitation. It encompasses multiple practices, with prevalent forms including child slavery, human trafficking, forced labour, descent-based slavery, bonded labour, forced and early marriage, and domestic servitude. According to the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, an estimated 49.6 million people are living in conditions of modern slavery worldwide, including 22 million in forced marriage and 27.6 million in forced labour. Ongoing regional conflicts and expulsionist migration policies are expected to further exacerbate modern slavery by intensifying violence, displacing populations, and disrupting social and economic structures.

Digital technologies encompass a diverse range of tools, systems, and devices that leverage digital information and processes to enhance activities. These technologies include but are not limited to AI, blockchains, internet of things (IoT), big data analytics, cloud computing, and virtual and augmented reality. Big data and cloud computing are increasingly integrated into enterprise resource planning systems in manufacturing to support informed decision-making. Generative AI applications are being adopted in higher education to enable more efficient information access and content creation.

Digital technologies promise significant benefits for addressing unethical labour practices. Monitoring technologies such as remote sensors and worker voice technologies can enhance the identification of unethical labour practices within supply chains. Machine learning and AI can detect patterns of trafficking and slavery in large datasets, facilitating identification of at-risk areas or vulnerable individuals. Blockchain technology can be employed to track supply chain elements, helping to mitigate labour exploitation. Additionally, digital technologies have been proposed as effective tools to support the social inclusion of survivors of modern slavery.

The potential of digital technologies to address unethical labour practices has been consistently highlighted by various international organizations. The United Nations Human Rights Office has proposed that digital technologies are an effective means to prevent and address contemporary forms of slavery. Research conducted in partnership with the International Organization for Migration and other organizations has indicated that although digital technologies can support adults with lived experience of unethical labour practices in reintegrating into society, limited research constrains deeper understanding of these mechanisms.

Although existing studies have examined the role of digital technologies in addressing unethical labour practices, significant research gaps remain. Current literature has primarily examined technologies from the perspective of focal firms or single technology approaches, while other digital technologies such as biometrics recognition and satellite imagery employed by governments and non-governmental organizations also hold significant potential. Literature reviews indicate that while unethical labour practices remain pressing, there is limited research examining how digital technologies can be employed to monitor, detect, report, and address unethical labour practices, and there is a need for further empirical research to advance understanding in this area.

This special issue invites scholars and practitioners to examine the interplay between digital technologies and unethical labour practices, particularly the ways in which digital technologies can be employed to monitor, detect, report, and remediate unethical labour practices in pursuit of an ethical, responsible, and sustainable society. We welcome original, theory-driven research that makes significant contributions to advancing knowledge on this topic. Submissions may use various research methodologies, including theoretical and conceptual approaches, analytical and modelling, case studies and interviews, surveys, and literature reviews. All submissions must clearly identify the specific types of digital technologies being examined.

We particularly welcome studies that move beyond surface-level narratives and dominant discourse to provide nuanced and sophisticated insights into the nexus between digital technologies and unethical labour practices. Submissions that challenge existing paradigms, explore underexamined dimensions, or offer innovative perspectives and frameworks are especially encouraged. We seek contributions that extend theoretical boundaries and yield practical implications, thereby informing policymakers, business leaders, and wider society on how to leverage digital technologies to drive meaningful and lasting change in the fight against unethical labour practices.

Potential topics

• Role of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing in addressing unethical labour practices
• Monitoring and detection of modern slavery and human trafficking using digital technologies
• Machine learning and AI applications for identifying trafficking patterns and at-risk populations
• Blockchain technology for supply chain transparency and labour exploitation mitigation
• Remote sensors and worker voice technologies for identifying unethical practices in supply chains
• Digital technologies for supporting social inclusion and reintegration of modern slavery survivors
• Biometric recognition and satellite imagery applications by governments and NGOs
• Digital technology adoption mechanisms for mitigating unethical labour practices
• Theoretical and empirical frameworks for digital technology deployment in combating labour exploitation
• Policy implications and business leadership strategies for leveraging digital technologies against unethical labour practices

Timeline

• February 15, 2027: Submission deadline