Editorial

Citation

Matlay, H. (2011), "Editorial", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jsbed.2011.27118aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Volume 18, Issue 1

The current volume of the Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development (JSBED) is the tenth year under my Editorialship. When I set out to write an Editorial for the first issue of a volume, I like to pause briefly and reflect upon both the challenges and successes encountered over the years, as the Editor of a dynamic and progressive journal. Since becoming Editor, in 2001, I have dedicated a substantial proportion of my time to developing JSBED from its humble beginnings into a premier journal in small business and entrepreneurship. I feel that our initial decision to focus upon publishing quality articles as well as on diversity and research rigour has been successful: JSBED is increasingly recognised as a high quality journal that publishes empirically rigorous articles on a wide range of aspects relating to small business and entrepreneurship. There were no special issues printed in this journal prior to me taking over as Editor. Previous general issues tended to be narrow in their focus and mostly originated from a small annual conference held in the UK. Supported by a committed and knowledgeable team of advisors, referees and Emerald employees, we set out to redesign the format of the journal and enlarge both the content and focus of its coverage. Our innovative special issues deliver “cutting edge” collections of topical, emergent and controversial topics in our field of academic endeavour. Notable amongst the many topical collections that were commissioned and published under my Editorialship were innovative and “first of its kind” special issues in the field of small business and entrepreneurship, such “small e-Businesses”, “entrepreneurship in Nordic countries”, “entrepreneurship in China”, “entrepreneurship education and training” and “entrepreneurship in the twenty first century”. Similarly, the content of our general issues mirrors emergent aspects of small business and enterprise development, published in advance of other, more traditional and less dynamic, journals in our field of research.

Every year, the Emerald Publishing Group makes available to their Editors a set of audited statistics relating to their journals. I am pleased to inform our readers that we have grown considerably over the years and will continue to build upon our success in publishing high quality and empirically rigorous articles submitted by academic, researchers and practitioners from across industrially developed and developing countries. In recent years, access and downloads numbers for JSBED have increased considerable from 49,000 in 2005 to 111,000 in 2009. For the 10 months available in 2010, a total of 108,000 articles have already been downloaded from the JSBED site. I can therefore confidently predict that in 2010 we will supersede the 2009 figures. Top countries by number of download include: UK, USA, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, China and Iran. As most submissions originate from outside the UK, the international nature and reputation of this journal is likely to grow further in the future. The large volume of feedback that we receive from our readership seems to indicate that both general and special issues continue to be valued by policy makers, educators, researchers and practitioners. Special issues in particular are considered a source of specialist, up-to-date and empirically rigorous knowledge. We are keenly aware, however, that ours is a fast moving and rapidly maturing field of research and much remains to be done in order to achieve and maintain competitive advantage within the highly competitive journal publishing market. In this context, we will direct our efforts towards consolidating and enhancing our position on the premier list of quality journals in small business and entrepreneurship.

Harry MatlayBirmingham City Business School, Birmingham, UK