Back to All Posts

Letter from the Executive Director

Letter from the Executive Director: August 2022

Published on

It is an honor and privilege to get to serve all of you as the executive director for these next 5 years. SBE has always been important to me, and it is very rewarding to get to give back. I want to especially thank Jason Stansbury and Tim Mazur personally for the many ways they provide wise counsel and thoughtful advice as I come into this role. We have a great SBE board, and I am looking forward to working alongside them as we help the SBE continue to move forward. I am also very happy that I’ll be working alongside my good friend Kendy Hess, our new treasurer (who is fantastic).

We had our first in-person conference in 3 years in Seattle, and it was so good to be together with each other live. Many thanks to the reviewers and session organizers, emerging scholars mentors, awards committee members, and presenters, as well as Alejo Sison, the conference program organizer. We had a super group of Emerging Scholars, with Florian Krause and Joé Martineau organizing that group. Many junior scholars joined us as well this year. It is great to see so many new and upcoming voices presenting at the conference, and to hear developing work of established colleagues as well!

The SBE Board is going to start meeting quarterly, starting in September. One priority for next year’s conference is to consider some sort of hybrid option especially for those who are unable to attend in person due to financial, medical, or international issues, in order to help include more members at the conference. The Board is also considering the possibility of some limited corporate or organizational sponsorship as well, to help support some of our emerging initiatives. If you have thoughts on this, feel free to forward those to me.

Nominations are now being accepted for the upcoming election of the next member of the SBE Board of Directors. The elected candidate will serve as an at-large Board member from August 2023 to 2024, the Secretary from 2024 to 2025, the Program Chair from 2025 to 2026 (i.e., for the 2026 Annual Conference), the President from 2026 to 2027, and the Immediate Past President from 2027 to 2028. Details of the Board’s responsibilities are established in Articles III and IV of the Society’s bylaws. Current SBE members are invited to submit nominations (including self-nominations) via email to the Executive Director of the Society (me), at executivedirector@sbeonline.org. Nominations will be accepted through October 15.

Many thanks to those volunteers who agreed to organize SBE sessions for the Eastern, Central, and Pacific division meetings of the American Philosophical Society for the upcoming 3 years. We have some excellent younger members guiding those events, and we are excited to have representation at those events. (see more on those below)

Our DEI initiative is in good hands with a very capable group who compose the DEI committee, and we are grateful for their work in helping to make SBE as inclusive and welcoming as possible. (see more on that below)

The 2023 conference will be in Boston August 3-6, and we are again staying at the Colonnade, which is a fantastic hotel in an excellent location. The call for papers, and the conference and hotel reservation page can be found here, so be watching for those (and please do stay at our conference hotel if you would, as it helps the Society). Christopher Michaelson will be our conference organizer for the conference, and we hope to see you all there!

We are putting plans in place for the 2025 conference in Copenhagen, which is just after the 2024 conference in Chicago, and right before the 2026 conference when we will return to the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia.

Finally, SBE wants to amplify your media mentions! Please forward any such mentions to media@sbeonline.org, and / or tag SBE in your LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook posts, and we will consider amplifying them over SBE media. Matt Caulfield is doing a truly outstanding job being our media guru and go-to person. (Thanks Matt!)

Every time I go to the SBE conference and get to engage with our members, I am so grateful to know such an interesting and genuinely great group of colleagues. I am thankful to be a part of it, and I will do what I can to serve you well. Please reach out to me with thoughts, ideas, or concerns.

Thank you,
Andy Gustafson

 

Andrew Gustafson, Ph.D. (phil.)
Professor of Business Ethics and Society & Executive Director of the Society of Business Ethics
Heider College of Business, Creighton University