Editorial: Introducing MSAR's new editorial team: perspectives and future directions

Management and sustainability research is increasingly called upon to address complex, context-specific challenges that cannot be fully understood through universal theoretical models alone. Against this backdrop, we are pleased to present the new issue of Management and Sustainability: An Arab Review (MSAR), which marks an important milestone in the journal's continued growth and consolidation. Over the past year, MSAR has witnessed a notable surge in scholarly engagement. Submissions rose from 239 in 2024 to 491 in 2025, more than doubling within a single year. This significant increase reflects not only heightened interest in the journal but also a broader shift toward sustainability research that is more regionally informed and contextually grounded.

This momentum has been matched by an expansion in published output, from 24 articles in 2024 to 36 in 2025, including the journal's first special issue, released in March 2025, which featured 14 papers (Kamel et al., 2026). Together, these developments reflect MSAR's evolving role as a forum for management and sustainability scholarship that is both internationally engaged and grounded in the realities of the Arab region.

Importantly, this expansion has been accompanied by a sustained focus on strengthening the journal's quality and impact. MSAR has recently been included in the draft list of the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), marking a notable milestone within four years of its launch. The journal's performance indicators reflect this progress: its Scopus CiteScore rose from 4.3 in 2025 to 7.6 in 2026, and its Scopus ranking improved from Q2 to Q1. We extend our sincere appreciation to our authors, reviewers and readers, whose continued engagement has been central to MSAR's development.

In light of the journal's substantial growth in both submissions and quality, it became essential to expand and strengthen the editorial structure. This transition represents not only an operational response to growth but also a strategic effort to enhance the journal's intellectual scope and editorial capacity. Over the past year, MSAR has transitioned from a model centered primarily on the Editor-in-Chief to a broader Editorial Leadership Team, including the appointment of six Associate Editors with expertise in sustainability research and a focus on the Arab region.

This editorial introduces the new members of MSAR's Editorial Leadership Team and outlines their perspectives on the journal's future direction, while also setting out key priorities for strengthening its academic positioning, methodological rigor and global relevance.

In this section, we welcome the new members of MSAR's Editorial Leadership Team. The Associate Editors bring complementary expertise across key areas of sustainability research, supported by strong academic and professional experience. Their perspectives reflect the journal's commitment to advancing rigorous, relevant and contextually grounded scholarship in the Arab region and beyond.

Tahniyath Fatima is an Assistant Editor of MSAR and is currently based at Qatar University, where she obtained her PhD in Management. Her research spans organizational behavior and theory, strategic management, sustainability and human resource management with an emphasis on policy and practice-relevant questions in Arab and emerging-market contexts. Her work has appeared in reputable international journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Management, The International Journal of Human Resource Management and International Journal of Hospitality Management. In her editorial role, she contributes to maintaining the quality and integrity of the journal's review process through manuscript screening and support for timely editorial decision-making, with an emphasis on maintaining rigor, clarity and constructive engagement in the review process.

Mohamed Elsharnouby serves as an Associate Professor of Marketing at Lusail University, Qatar, and holds a concurrent faculty appointment at Cairo University, Egypt. His research and teaching focus on relationship marketing, sustainable marketing and the adoption of new technologies in marketing, with particular interests in consumer engagement, brand relationships and tourism and services contexts. He has published in reputable international journals, including Journal of Business Research, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Journal of Marketing Analytics. As an Associate Editor, he is particularly interested in research that advances understanding of sustainable consumption, customer engagement and responsible marketing practices, with an emphasis on contributions that combine theoretical rigor with practical relevance.

Mohamed Eissa is an Associate Professor of Finance at Qatar University, Qatar. His research explores the intersection of finance, energy economics and sustainability, with a focus on climate policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk and financial market stability. His work has appeared in reputable international journals, including Applied Economics, Journal of Policy Modeling, Finance Research Letters, and Economic Modelling. His editorial vision encourages interdisciplinary research with clear theoretical contributions and practical implications for policymakers and organizations, particularly on sustainable finance, energy transition, green innovation and the evolving role of Arab economies in the global sustainability agenda.

Amr ElAlfy is based at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His research connects sustainability accounting, governance and public policy, with attention to organizational adaptation to net-zero commitments and digital transformation. He has published in reputable international journals, including Business Strategy and the Environment, Journal of Cleaner Production, Sustainable Development and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. His editorial perspective focuses on advancing research on net-zero transitions, stakeholder engagement and the digital infrastructures shaping sustainability governance. He underscores the role of rigorous, context-sensitive scholarship in expanding how management research conceptualizes value, accountability and long-term impact in the MENA region, and in redefining sustainability accounting as an integrative domain that aligns economic, social and environmental objectives within a coherent and future-oriented framework.

Shatha M. Obeidat is an Associate Professor of Management at Qatar University, Qatar. Her research focuses on human resource management and leadership in Arab and emerging-market contexts, including sustainability, workforce nationalization, gender and diversity and the evolving dynamics of work. She has published in reputable international journals, including Journal of Business Ethics, Human Resource Management, Employee Relations: The International Journal, and Personnel Review. Her work is grounded in contextualized theory building and policy-relevant research, with a focus on ethical, inclusive and sustainable management practices. Her editorial approach emphasizes rigor and developmental review, encouraging interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse studies that advance theory and practice while addressing regional priorities such as responsible leadership, human capital development, workforce transformation and inclusion.

Dina Abdelzaher is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Houston–Clear Lake, USA, where she teaches management, strategy and sustainability. Her research has been published in reputable international journals, including Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, International Business Review, Academy of Management Perspectives, and Journal of International Management. Prior to academia, she gained ten years of industry experience with organizations such as Procter & Gamble and TNS. Her editorial perspective emphasizes research that captures the intersection of strategy, entrepreneurship and sustainability within the institutional environments of Arab economies, including how firms respond to volatility, institutional pressures and societal expectations to build more sustainable and resilient approaches to value creation.

Heba Younis is an Assistant Professor of Management at SOAS University of London, UK. Her research has appeared in reputable international journals, including Journal of Business Research, International Business Review, Journal of International Management and Employee Relations. Before joining academia, she spent over a decade in investment banking with Morgan Stanley MENA, an experience that informs her research. Her editorial perspective centers on scholarship at the intersection of strategy, international entrepreneurship and sustainability in emerging and Middle Eastern economies, with particular emphasis on how SMEs navigate uncertainty, institutional complexity and resource constraints while pursuing responsible and sustainable growth.

Together, these areas of expertise enhance MSAR's capacity to publish interdisciplinary, regionally grounded research that advances theory and informs organizational practice and policy across the Arab region and beyond. This collective strength enables the journal to engage with diverse topics and methodological approaches, supporting its ambition to serve as a leading platform for impactful scholarship in management and sustainability.

Looking ahead, MSAR will build on the Editorial Leadership Team's commitment to rigorous, contextually grounded management and sustainability research in the Arab region. The journal will prioritize work that advances theoretical insight through deeper engagement with the region's institutional, cultural and socio-economic specificities. Key priorities include strengthening the journal's academic positioning, expanding the diversity of topics and methods and ensuring a timely, developmental review process for authors.

In support of these goals, MSAR has applied for inclusion in the British Academic Journal Guide (AJG) and plans to pursue indexing in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). These efforts are intended to enhance the journal's visibility and positioning within the global academic community, while reinforcing its commitment to high-quality scholarship. We also invite submissions to our upcoming special issue on “Sustainability Challenges of the Arab World: A Strategic Entrepreneurial Perspective,” which aims to advance research at the intersection of sustainability and entrepreneurship in the region.

We reaffirm the importance of research ethics and responsible conduct in studies involving primary data. Although MSAR requires an ethical statement at submission, such information is sometimes insufficient in manuscripts drawing on fieldwork, interviews, or surveys. Clear reporting of ethical approval (where applicable), informed consent and confidentiality safeguards strengthens the credibility of the evidence and demonstrates responsible research practice.

MSAR will continue to elevate expectations for methodological rigor, clarity and transparency across all research designs. For quantitative studies, authors are expected to justify measurement choices, report robustness and sensitivity analyses and address potential endogeneity and alternative explanations when applicable. For qualitative and mixed-methods research, we encourage transparent articulation of sampling logic, data collection procedures, coding strategies and evidentiary pathways that enable readers to trace how interpretations were developed. Across methodological traditions, we emphasize the importance of strong theorization, construct clarity and alignment between research questions, methodological choices and resulting claims. Alongside methodological transparency, we will place greater emphasis on clear and coherent structuring of hypotheses development and tighter theoretical argumentation as part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen the journal's rigor and impact.

In response to the region's evolving priorities, MSAR will create additional space through regular issues and dedicated special issues for research that advances understanding of pressing management and sustainability challenges in Arab contexts. Topics of interest include, among others, contemporary conflicts and their organizational and societal implications, climate change and environmental sustainability, energy transition, economic diversification and sustainable development, youth unemployment, workforce nationalization, social inequality and the institutional and governance challenges shaping sustainable development in the region (Abdelzaher and Abdelzaher, 2017; Alahdal et al., 2026; Elalfy et al., 2025; Elbanna et al., 2020; Elsharnouby et al., 2024; Hammedi et al., 2026; Fatima and Elbanna, 2025; Younis and Karmowska, 2025). We particularly welcome work that combines a strong theoretical contribution with careful contextualization and offers insights that can inform policy and organizational practice.

To support these ambitions, the journal will undertake a restructuring of its Editorial Advisory Board by the end of this year. The Board will be formed in close coordination with the Associate Editors, who will nominate scholars aligned with their respective areas of expertise. This restructuring will also clarify expectations for Advisory Board members' engagement, with an emphasis on timely, rigorous and constructive evaluations and on supporting a developmental review culture. This step will further strengthen MSAR's editorial capacity and help ensure that the continued growth is matched by consistent high standards across diverse areas of management and sustainability research.

We believe these initiatives will further position MSAR as a leading venue for impactful, policy-relevant scholarship on management and sustainability in the Arab world and beyond by supporting research that is analytically rigorous, contextually informed and meaningful to academics, practitioners and policymakers.

The authors acknowledge Vanesa Al Ismail for her efforts on earlier drafts of this editorial.