As Group Decision and Negotiation enters its 26th year of publication, an opportunity arises to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of our Journal over the years. I would like to offer word of gratitude to our readers, our contributors, and our Editorial Board for their support of the Journal and its mission. I would also like to express my appreciation to the editorial team at Springer: Stefan Einarson (Publishing Editor), Christopher Wilby (Assistant Editor), Ambiga Selvaraj (Production Editor), and Abdul Hakkim (Journal Editorial Office Assistant); they have all helped me learn about the Journal’s operations and have been instrumental in making 2016 another successful year.

In the first six months of my tenure, as I reviewed submissions and worked with the Departmental Editors, Associate Editors, authors and reviewers, an emerging function of the GDN journal has become clearer to me. Group Decision and Negotiation has an important role to play in scholarly discourse. The Journal provides insights and tools into practice related to managing and resolving conflicts. It proposes theories grounded in empirical studies as well as models and procedures of decision-making by individuals and groups. Decisions are made in social-psychological settings within economic-technical systems and they affect decision-makers, stakeholders, and our environment. Articles published in the journal describe and analyze processes in which human and/or artificial agents participate, cooperate, and compete. Our interdisciplinary Journal publishes impactful papers that contribute to our understanding and improvement of organizational, social and political factors affecting group decisions and negotiation processes—this is exemplified by the first issue of 2017, which includes the Special Issue on Justice and Fairness in Negotiation, as well as the accompanying research articles.

1 Editorial Board

Group Decision and Negotiation is poised to become an even stronger and more widely recognized contributor to the broader group decision and negotiation discourse. Steps taken toward achieving this include broadening the Editorial Board. In 2016, the following eminent scholars committed to our Journal, joined the Editorial Board:

Fuad Aleskerov, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia

Francisco Chiclana, De Montfort University, UK

William Donohue, Michigan State University, USA

L. Alberto Franco, Loughborough University, UK

Josep Freixas, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain

Takayuki Ito, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan

Mark Klein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Kevin Li, University of Windsor, Canada

Danielle Costa Morais, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil

Jennifer Overbeck, University of Melbourne, Australia

Ewa Roszkowska, University of Bialystok, Poland

Etiënne Rouwette, Radboud University, The Netherlands

Andrzej Skowron, University of Warsaw, Poland

Over the last months, I have had the pleasure in working with the new Associate Editors and am grateful for their support and cooperation. Their willingness to serve and to commit their time and effort to the Journal are greatly appreciated.

We would not be here if not for the hard work of the past Editor-in-Chief and the past Associate Editors. In the previous editorial (Kersten 2016a), I thanked them. At this time, I would like to recognize Akira Ishikawa from the Aoyama Gakuin University who recently passed away and whose contributions are acknowledged in Kersten (2016b, p. 1319). I also want to thank C. Michael Lewis from the University of Pittsburgh who recently retired from the Board. Over the years, Michael has generously offered his time and expertise as an author, reviewer and Associate Editor.

2 Recent and Future Changes

The year of 2017 is special for our Journal as we are entering the second quarter of the century of publication. While the Journal has accomplished a lot to date, we can and must do more for its future growth and exposure to international scholars. To this end, we intend to create a special anniversary virtual issue comprising selected papers published over the last 25 years, each of which demonstrates the range of developments within the field. Springer will provide free online access to the entire issue. I invite readers, reviewers, authors, and the members of the Editorial Board to send their recommendations to gdn_editor@concordia.ca by March 1. The final selection of articles will be done jointly by the Editor-in-Chief and the Departmental Editors.

We are also planning to publish a series of “review and reflection articles,” in which prominent contributors to Journal are asked to provide their perspective on significant changes in their fields of research over the past 25 years, discuss the current state-of-the-art, and offer a glimpse to the possible futures. The articles will set the stage for future research. They will be reviewed but an effort will be made to streamline the review process so that the first articles can appear within 2017 issues of the Journal. The articles are by invitation and they will be showcased and promoted.

There are also a few more mundane yet important projects for the Journal’s operations. One such project is an update of the reviewer database so that searching by keywords and areas of interest yield relevant results. This will make the Associate Editors’ work easier and it will help to ensure that manuscripts are reviewed by peers with substantive expertise who are well equipped to give authors and editors the best possible advice.

A recently completed activity, allows authors to suggest one or more Associate Editors to coordinate the reviewing process of their submission. This is thanks to the keywords that describe the Associate Editors’ expertise and which are posted online.

We will, of course, also continue to search for high-quality manuscript submissions across topical areas and work with authors to ensure that their manuscripts maintain a sharp focus and clear implications for the field.

The submission turnaround has been shortened and efforts will be made to reduce it further. Almost all submissions that clearly do not fit the Journal’s scope are returned within 10 days along with the rationale behind the rejection. In some cases, the authors of these papers are encouraged to use the Transfer Desk service provided by Springer to help them in resubmitting their manuscript to another suitable journal.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to invite our readers, contributing authors, and reviewers to provide me with any comments or suggestions for ways to further improve our Journal. I am open to ideas that would increase the quality and reach of the Journal, and will make every effort to work with the Board and the Publisher to implement those suggestions.

3 Appreciation to Reviewers

The success of the Journal is due in a very large part to the many members of the scholarly community who act as reviewers. Every editor who is involved with the reviewing process is grateful and appreciative of the reviewers’ hard work and contribution. Many thanks go to all the reviewers who generously provided time, expert counsel and guidance on a voluntary basis. Without their outstanding work in submitting timely, unbiased, and thoughtful reviews, the journal could not function.

The editors were asked to nominate the best reviewers using such criteria as timeliness, critical suggestions for revision, thoroughness, willingness to contribute, and enthusiasm in supporting the Journal. Based on the editors’ recommendation, the ten recipients of the “Best 2016 Reviewer Award” are:

Hannu Autto, University of Turku, Finland

Suzana Dahler, Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil

Johannes Gettinger, Hohenheim University, Germany

Miłosz Kadzinski, Poznań University of Technology, Poland

Alexander Karpov, HSE, Russia

Steffen Keck, University of Vienna, Austria

Pasi Luukka, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland

Jing Ma, University of Manitoba, Canada

Alexander Mayer, University of Bayreuth, Germany

Per van der Wijst, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Finally, the members of the Editorial Board and I wish to gratefully acknowledge all those who have generously given their time to review papers submitted to Group Decision and Negotiation in 2016. You helped the authors to improve their work and the editors to make informed decisions.

Hillie Aaldering, Universiteit van Amsterdam

James Alexander, Curtin University

Yasir Aljefri, University of Waterloo

Pavel Anselmo Álvarez-Carrillo, Universidad de Occidente

Mikel Alvarez-Mozos, Universitat de Barcelona

R. K. Amit, IIT Madras

Silvia Angilella, University of Catania

Marcin Anholcer, Pozna? University of Economics

Michal Araszkiewicz, Jagiellonian University

Poonam Arora, Manhattan College

Hannu Autto, University of Turku

Bruce Barry, Vanderbilt University

Nicola Bellantuono, Politecnico di Bari

Emilia Bellucci, Deakin University

Sarah BenAmor, University of Ottawa

Martin Bichler, Technische Universitat Munchen

William Bottom, Washington University

S. J. Brams, New York University

Judee Burgoon, The University of Arizona

Francisco Javier Cabrerizo, Universidad de Granada

Christopher Califf, Western Washington University

Rachel Campagna, University of New Hampshire

Xiongfei Cao, University of Science and Technology

Real Carbonneau, Concordia University

Maria Marco-Gil, Polytechnic University of Cartagena

Maria Cerreta, University of Naples

Sara Cobb, Geroge Mason University

Danilo Coelho, IPEA

Grazia Concilio, Politecnico di Milano

Donald Conlon, Michigan State University

Matt Cronin, George Mason University

Keith Culver, University of British Columbia

Suzana Daher, Federal University of Pernambuco

Katherine Daniell, Australian National University

Fatima Dargam, SimTech Simulation Technology

Luciano De Bonis, Università del Molise

Fiorella De Cindio, University of Milan

Anna De Liddo, Open University

G. J. de Vreede, University of South Florida

Viktor Dörfler, Strathclyde Business School

Lorna Doucet, Fudan University

Michael Doumpos, Technical University of Crete

Maria Teresa Escobar, University of Zaragoza

Michael Filzmoser, Technical University Wien

Alberto Franco, Loughborough University

Josep Freixas, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya

Ray Friedman, Vanderbilt University

Katsuhide Fujita, Nagoya Institute of Technology

Robert Fuller, Óbuda University

Amanda Garcia, University of Waterloo

Joseph Gaspar, Quinnipiac University

Bingfeng Ge, National University of Defense Technology

Johannes Gettinger, Hohenheim University

Raffaele Giordano, National Research Council

Pedro Godinho, Universidade de Coimbra

Michel Grabisch, Université Paris 1

Katrina Graham, Suffolk University

Ben Greiner, UNSW Australia Business School

Michele Griessmair, University of Vienna

Marco Haan, University of Groningen

Robin Hanson, George Mason University

Martina Hartner-Tiefenthaler, Technical University Wien

Luciana Hazin, Federal University of Pernambuco

Shawei He, Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics

Paul Hempel, City University of Hong Kong

Jean-Jacques Herings, Maastricht University

Enrique Herrera Viedma, University of Granada

Toru Hokari, Keio University

Manfred Holler, University of Hamburg

Jacky Hong, University of Macau

Liisa Horelli, Aalto University

Sean Humpherys, West Texas A&M University

Randall W. Jackson, West Virginia University

Bernardo Moreno Jiménez, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Hans Jørgen Henriksen, Technical University of Denmark

Miłosz Kadziński, Poznan University of Technology

Arpan Kumar Kar, IIT Delhi

Alexander Karpov, National Research University HSE

Steffen Keck, University of Vienna

Gregory Kersten, Concordia University

D. Marc Kilgour, Wilfrid Laurier University

Timothy Killingback, University of Massachusetts Boston

Mark Klein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sabine Koeszegi, TU Wien

Dejun Tony Kong, University of Houston

Robert Krimmer, Tallinn University of Technology

Sascha Kurz, Universität Bayreuth

Sebastien Lahaie, Université d’Angers

Ilkka Leppanen, Loughborough University

Kevin Li, University of Windsor

Leigh Anne Liu, Georgia State University

Bingsheng Liu, Tianjin University

Pasi Luukka, Lappeenranta University of Technology

Jing Ma, University of Manitoba

Ronald Maier, Universität Innsbruck

Marcin Malawski, Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego

Bilyana Martinovski, Stockholm University

Manuel Matos, Universidade do Porto

Nikolaos Matsatsinis, Technical University of Crete

Alexander Mayer, Universität Bayreuth

Roger McCain, Drexel University

Tommi Meskanen, University of Turku

Lidia Angulo Meza, Universidade Federal Fluminense

Caroline Miranda Mota, Federal University of Pernambuco

Danielle Morais, Federal University of Pernambuco

Pavlos Moraitis, LIPADE, Paris Descartes University

Issofa Moyouwou, University of Yaounde I

Stefan Napel, University of Bayreuth

Maciej Nowak, Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Katowicach

Jennifer Overbeck, Melbourne Business School

Jason Papathanasiou, University of Macedonia

Jennifer Parlamis, University of San Francisco

Mahmut Parlar, McMaster University

Joaquin Perez, Universidad de Alcala

Sobah Petersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Richard Potthoff, Duke University

Nadav Prawer, Victoria University

Bruce Reinig, San Diego State University

Peter Rittgen, University of Borås

Cheryl Rivers, Victoria University of Wellington

Ewa Roszkowska, Uniwersytet w Bialymstoku

Hiroyuki Sakakibara, Yamaguchi University

Annibal Sant’Anna, Universidade Federal Fluminense

M. Remzi Sanver, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Paula Sarabando, ESTGV

Douglas Schuler, Public Sphere Project

Isabella Seeber, University of Innsbruck

Zhaleh Semnani-Azad, Clarkson University School of Business

Mohsen Shariari, RWTH Aachen University

Sudeep Sharma, University of Illinois at Springfield

Hsu-Shih Shih, Tamkang University

Marwan Sinaceur, ESSEC Business School

Andrzej Skowron, University of Warsaw

Tony So, University of Auckland

João Carlos Soares de Mello, Universidade Federal Fluminense

Jack Soll, Duke University Fuqua School of Business

Jan Stoklasa, Lappeenranta University of Technology

Andrey Subochev, Higher School of Economics

Chunqiao Tan, Central South University

Yuqing Tang, Carnegie Mellon University

Alexey Tarasov, IBM Research

Elena Tavella, University of Copenhagen

Tommi Tervonen, Erasmus University

Lino Tralhão, University of Coimbra

Zenonas Turskis, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University

Marcella Urtiga, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

Rustam Vahidov, Concordia University

Per van der Wijst, Tilburg University

Dirk van Dierendonck, Erasmus University

Yulia Veselova, National Research University HSE

Rudolf Vetschera, University of Vienna

Eeva Vilkkumaa, Aalto University

Roger Volkema, American University

Tomasz Wachowicz, University of Economics in Katowice

Alessandro Waerzner, Vienna University of Technology

Stefan Waldherr, Technical University of Munich

Lizhong Wang, Northeastern University

Huimin Wang, Hohai University

Barbara Weber, University of British Columbia

Hans-Peter Weikard, Wageningen Universiteit

Leroy White, University of Bristol

Andy Williamson, Democratise

Yi Xiao, University of Waterloo

Yinping Yang, Institute of High Performance Computing

John Zeleznikow, Victoria University

Ronghuo Zheng, Carnegie Mellon University