Leadership and Followership: Ethical Challenges in a Globalized World
Volume Editors: Frankie Weinberg, Ph.D. and Crystal J. Davis, DM
Series Editors of Handbook of Business Ethics and Values in a Globalized World: Payal Kumar, ISH, India and Peter Bamberger, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Executive Editor: Gideon Markman, Colorado State University, USA; Past Editor-in-Chief Academy of Management Perspectives
Publisher: World Scientific Publishers
In a world marked by geopolitical tension, digital disruption, and generational shifts in work values, questions of ethical leadership and followership have never been more urgent-or more complex. This volume invites bold, original, and globally attuned contributions that reimagine the ethics of leading and following in 21st-century organizations.
We aim to bring together a diverse and international group of scholars and practitioners who can move beyond conventional narratives. This is not merely a handbook of best practices-it is a forum for fresh thinking, hard questions, and rigorous inquiry. How do leaders navigate power responsibly when hierarchies stretch across cultures and time zones? What ethical obligations do followers have when systems fail them? Can followership itself be a form of resistance or restoration?
We welcome chapters that confront these and other pressing questions by offering theoretical insights, empirical studies, case narratives, or methodological innovations. Your work may align with one of the following themes, or forge a new path entirely:
1. Rethinking Ethical Leadership Across Cultures
We seek contributions that challenge traditional leadership models or reinterpret them through a cross-cultural, global lens. Possible questions include:
- What does ethical leadership look like in non-Western contexts?
- Can humility, servant leadership, or collectivist values reshape organizational power?
- How do crisis, conflict, or institutional fragility reshape ethical decision-making?
2. The Evolving Ethics of Followership
Followership is often overlooked-but in a globalized world, followers shape ethical cultures as much as leaders. We invite works that:
- Illuminate the moral agency of followers
- Examine dissent, silence, or complicity
- Explore how power is followed, resisted, or co-constructed
3. Ethical Tensions in Real-World Organizations
We welcome grounded research or cases that explore ethical ambiguity in practice:
- Navigating ethics in multinational corporations
- Ethical challenges in start-ups, NGOs, or informal economies
- The "gray zones" of influence, coercion, or complicity
4. Toxicity, Resistance, and Recovery
Not all leadership or followership is virtuous. We encourage contributions that interrogate the darker sides:
- Psychological and cultural consequences of toxic leadership
- How organizations resist or enable ethical decay
- Redemption, reform, and resilience after ethical failure
5. Learning and Teaching Ethical Practice
How do we prepare the next generation to lead and follow ethically? We welcome chapters that:
- Innovate in pedagogy, curriculum, or leadership development
- Explore cross-cultural ethics education
- Examine the gap between ethical theory and lived experience
We encourage contributors to stretch these themes-or transcend them. If your work unsettles old assumptions or offers a fresh frame for thinking about ethics in a globalized workplace, we want to hear from you.
Submission Timeline:
We are accepting chapter proposals on a rolling basis until all slots in the volume are filled. Early submissions are encouraged, as we will begin reviewing proposals immediately and offering feedback and invitations to submit full chapters on a first-come, first-reviewed basis.
We recommend submitting your proposal by May 1, 2025 for priority consideration.
Final manuscripts will be scheduled individually, with a target submission window of May 1, 2026 for most accepted chapters (with the possibility of extending through to November 15, 2026).
Please submit your proposal (1–2 pages describing your topic, relevance, and contribution) to Dr. Crystal J. Davis at Crystal.Davis@cloud.edu