Editorial

Citation

Werbel, J. (2007), "Editorial", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 22 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmp.2007.05022haa.001

Editorial

My three-year term as editor is expiring with this issue. The journey with the journal has been a worthwhile partnership. The journal has emerged over the past three years from a largely well-respected European management journal to a journal with a broad/wide global presence. Additionally, we have applied for inclusion into ISI. While the possible inclusion will make JMP even more visible in the field, we need to keep in mind that the journal is only as good as the people who make it so. I would like to take the liberty to comment on three points in my final issue as editor. I would like to thank key people for the success of the journal, offer my personal suggestions for publishing in JMP, and make some personal comments about being a journal editor.

There have been several reasons for the success of the journal. Foremost, submissions to JMP have increased significantly over the past three years. The reasons are many. First all journal submissions for most journals are up as publications are becoming more important globally. Second, in cooperation with reviewers we have pretty much reduced review times for most manuscripts to less than ten weeks. Yes, there is still the occasional situation that gets out of hand due to very late reviews, and I do apologize to those who experienced it. The total processing time for most accepted manuscripts from first submission to printing is usually less than nine months. Those that take longer are often due to longer revision time delays by the authors. While, I may get credit for these efforts (electronic submission has greatly helped), it is really the timeliness of the reviewers and the associate editors who make this possible.

Also, I have been delighted by the quality of the reviews. Submitters can expect to largely have positive and constructive reviews. The insightful comments made by our review team and associate editors have really helped to improve the quality of our published manuscripts. Even rejected manuscripts are given constructive comments that are useful to help publish the manuscript in some other journal. I have only received one formal major manuscript management complaint in over 400 manuscripts reviewed.

The other major success is the use of competitive special issues. While it was my idea to initiate this, Michael Morley and others have taken the lead on numerous special issues that have helped to increase journal visibility.

The support from Emerald has been excellent. Of course, I can not say enough positives about Kay Sutcliff who has learned to work with my personal quirks. I may not be the easiest journal editor to work with, but Kay, who manages the manuscript flow, has learned to manage me very effectively. The different managing editors, Paula Fernandez and Lucy Sootheran, have always supported me in any of my efforts to change the journal.

Frequently, academics ask for some words of wisdom about what does it take to publish in JMP. This is a very difficult question since each manuscript is unique. However, let me suggest two things are very important. Clarity of writing is very important. Reviewers will not normally take the effort to carefully read a poorly crafted manuscript. Nor should they! It is up to the author to express their ideas clearly and succinctly. It is easier to work with authors on a resubmission if one has confidence that they have the writing skills to manage the reviewer comments successfully. This perception seems to be shared by other journal editors.

The only other comment is that I seem to constantly refer to the value added qualities of a manuscript. Submitters need to clearly express the value added qualities of the paper early in the manuscript and in the discussion. It seems that too often submitters believe that since they have attained significant results, that the paper should be published. This is an incorrect perception. Submitters need to convince members of our review team that the significant results have significant implications for theory and/or practice. A somewhat methodologically flawed manuscript with clearly expressed significant implications is likely to be published in JMP. A methodologically well-crafted study with trivial implications is likely to be rejected.

From a personal perspective, I would like to say that I had some serious reservations about being a journal editor. Some of it was self-doubts about my effectiveness, and some of it was just the hassle of managing manuscripts when I could be doing other things. I believe I took the assignment because I am one of those people that use a career check-list of activities. Being a journal editor was one of those items on my check list.

I do believe in a sense-making approach to careers. Now that I have served as a journal editor, I am asking how does this significant event fit into my larger academic career self-image? At this time, I believe it fits in because I enjoy being a “mentor” to other academics. I have seen my job as constantly offering career advice to people who submit papers to JMP. I think this feeling in part stems from the editor of a different journal who worked with me to help with my first publication. Using her as a role model, I have tried to emulate that stance (sometimes more successfully than other times). While being a journal editor is not meant for everyone, I seemed to have mostly enjoyed the experience given my orientation to mentoring.

In summary, I would like thank Emerald for having enough confidence in me to appoint me journal editor for JMP. I have no regrets about the experience. It has only reinforced my belief in the necessity for the peer review process as a way to manage the advancement of academic theory and practice. And my thanks to all the associate editors, reviewers and the authors who showed confidence in JMP as a viable outlet for their research.

James Werbel