A future to be created

Citation

Larraza-Kintana, M. (2015), "A future to be created", Management Research, Vol. 13 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRJIAM-03-2015-0579

A future to be created

Article Type: Editorial From: Management Research: The Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management, Volume 13, Issue 1

Beginning the 1st of January of 2015, The Iberoamerican Academy of Management and Emerald decided to renew the editorial team of Management Research, the official journal of The Iberoamerican Academy of Management. Miguel (Mickey) Quiñones and Ronaldo Parente were selected to serve as Associate Editors and myself, Martin Larraza-Kintana, as Editor-in-Chief. We felt proud to take on this challenge and contribute to the development of an already vibrant and active international community of management scholars. The three of us have extensive research and editorial expertise and have been involved at different levels and moments of time with the activities of The Iberoamerican Academy of Management. We have enthusiastically taken over the task to guide the Journal in the years to come, and are delighted to continue and build upon the excellent work done by our predecessors. It is our mission and personal commitment to move Management Research forward to become a referent outlet for relevant scholarly research in management.

The first volume of Management Research was published 12 years ago, in 2003. Since its inception, the Journal aimed, in line with the goals of the association that created it, to become a referent journal dedicated to the advancement of management in private and public sector organizations with an Iberoamerican focus. It has been its aim to improve the understanding of the nature of management and what this means across different contexts, countries and cultures with the overall objective of providing an international dialogue between researchers. Although Management Research considers itself a supranational journal, and publishes articles from all countries and from all the major disciplines in management and organization studies, it is especially dedicated to fostering the general advancement of management scholarship among Iberoamerican scholars and academics interested in Iberoamerican issues. Since the very beginning, Management Research has worked to incorporate the work of top Iberoamerican scholars to the global conversation in management in an attempt to contribute to the advancement of the research in management in Iberoamerica.

The Journal has also tried to address the limitations that differences in languages bring, and making the process easier in terms of language for the submitters. One of the defining features of our review process is the possibility to submit articles, and conduct the whole review process, in any of the three languages which our community members use: Portuguese, Spanish and English. Only once the paper has been accepted, the authors have the obligation to translate their piece into English, the standard language in scholarly outlets and the one in which the articles in Management Research are published. As it could be inferred from the preceding lines, the review process of Management Research has a clear developmental approach. Experienced colleagues provide comments and suggestions aimed at developing the work submitted by the authors, in a double-blind review process. Authors who submit their articles to Management Research will enjoy the opportunity to benefit from the comments of some of the most relevant management scholars in the world. Our Editorial Advisory Board is composed of prominent management scholars representing the breadth of the field of management. Their commitment to the highest academic standards as well as to providing authors with timely and developmental feedback, guarantees that the Journal publishes quality research papers that may have a significant impact in the field.

As a reflection of its international character, during the past 12 years, Management Research has published very interesting, high-quality research articles from authors based in universities and research centers located in different parts of the world. Obviously, given the characteristics and geographical scope of the association that created the Journal, the majority of authors have a direct connection with Iberoamerica. But in addition to research articles, the Journal also publishes special sections in which prominent or young, but commended, management scholars provide interesting hints and ideas for those who want to learn how to improve their contribution to global academic debate in management.

But despite of the above considerations, the path ahead is certainly challenging. While the Journal has enjoyed an excellent standing among scholars in Iberoamerican countries, it has always faced the challenge of many young journals: a low number of submissions. This is, at least in part, due to the absence of the Journal from the major rankings and journal list that are taken into account in many countries and institutions to support career-related decisions. It takes time and a continuous commitment to high-standards scholarly work to reach the most praised international rankings and journal list. It also requires an unceasing promotional effort and a lot of administrative work. Fortunately, Emerald has been, and will continue, on our side to help us get the best from our growing community.

Thanks to the work of previous editorial teams and particularly to the work of Rita Campos e Cunha, the previous Editor of the Journal, we have guaranteed a constant publication rate of good-quality papers. Because of the terrific job made by the previous editorial teams, we felt the obligation to continue evolving the Journal. We aim to consolidate and improve the position of the Journal in the current competitive landscape of academic journals in management. And we want to do so by strengthening the defining features of the Journal: rigor, integration, multi-language developmental review process, internationalization and high scholarly standards.

To achieve those goals, we believe that the time has come to take a step forward and jump to the rankings that will assure us the necessary visibility. The experience of other journals shows us that if Management Research is included in highly visible international journal rakings, the number of submission will increase significantly. This is the desire and the goal for our editorial term. A signal of the growth aspirations of this new period in the life of Management Research is that for the first time in its history, the Editor-in-Chief will have the support and the advice of two Associate Editors. We will work our best to witness the steady growth of article submissions to Management Research. Only increasing our submissions base will be able to continue increasing the quality and visibility of the Journal and, as a result, the visibility of our contributors and of the whole community of international researchers that makes The Iberoamerican Academy of Management.

To close, a journal is the result of a joint effort of its editorial team, editorial board members, reviewers, readers and, most importantly, of the authors who choose us as the outlet to spread the results of their research efforts. None of the above challenging goals will be achieved without the collaboration of all these actors, and particularly without the effort of the researchers and their resulting articles. Beyond being on lists or journal rankings, the international nature of Management Research, further supported by the international base of The Iberoamerican Academy of Management and a leading international publisher such as Emerald, guarantees that if published in Management Research, your work will reach a broad international audience and will allow you to make a broader impact. Hence, we want to encourage you to submit your articles to Management Research. It is our challenge to reach you researcher and to provide you the necessary resources and visibility to help you in your attempts to contribute to the advance of knowledge in management. We want you to trust us and to help us in building an even more solid and relevant journal. Let’s strengthen our ties and keep developing our community to transform the dream of a great future together in a solid reality.

There are many ways in which you can collaborate with Management Research. You can volunteer to serve as ad hoc reviewer, propose topics for special issues and, most importantly, submit your manuscripts for consideration to publication in Management Research. Feel free to contact me at any time to discuss your thoughts and ideas, or to solve any question related with the fit of your work in Management Research. Come, join us and be an active part of the future of Management Research.

Larraza-Kintana Martin, Editor in Chief – Management Research