Editorial

Citation

Amorós, J.E. (2020), "Editorial", Management Research, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRJIAM-04-2020-957

A new era for management research

In the first 2015 issue (Vol. 13) of Management Research, Martin Larraza-Kintana communicated the changes in the editorial team of the journal. Now, it is my opportunity to announce that the Board of The Iberoamerican Academy of Management, IAM, decided to renew the editorial team of Management Research, the official journal of IAM. Fernanda Wagstaff was selected to serve as a new Associate Editor, Ronaldo Parente continue in his same role as Associate Editor, and myself, as Editor-in-Chief.

In his editorial “A future to be created,” Larraza-Kintana (2015) expressed, on behalf of editorial team, about the challenge that represent conduct the future of the journal. Martin and the editorial team made a fantastic work. Now our responsibility is to continue with Larraza-Kintana’s legacy and move the journal to a new era. I will take the license to paraphrase his 2015 editorial and highlight achievements of the journal under his period and state our vision for the future.

We, the new editorial team, have a profound commitment with IAM objectives. For this reason and building upon the outstanding work done by all the predecessors, we want to continue increasing the impact of Management Research, a referent outlet not only for Iberoamerican scholars but also for management scholars across the world.

Our voyage started in 2003, with the first volume of Management Research. 18 years after our inception, we want to continue as a referent for management-related knowledge in relation to private and public organizations with an Iberoamerican focus. Although Management Research considers itself a supranational journal and publishes articles from different countries and from all the major disciplines in management and organization studies, one of our main objectives is to provide an outlet for international dialogues between researchers interested in Iberoamerican issues. We want to continue this trend: Management Research wants to incorporate the work of top Iberoamerican scholars to the global conversation in management in an attempt to contribute to the advancement of management research in Iberoamerica. For example, in a recent editorial Aguinis et al. (2020) highlight the relevance of conducting research in Latin America: “The region offers unique opportunities for management researchers to build and test theories with implications for important societal challenges” (p. 2). In a similar way, Spain and Portugal continue improving their academic production in management not only in quantity but also in quality. These facts open the opportunity to continue working with Iberoamerican countries but also with the Latino communities across the world.

Considering the increase in research productivity, the top five countries with the highest number of authors in 2019 in Management Research were as follows: Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Spain and United States. It is important to note that because of our international focus, Management Research will continue publishing high-quality research articles from authors based on universities and research centers located in different parts of the world. In addition, our prestige is also increasing precisely because of the incorporation of the journal in different indexes and rankings including Scopus and Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science, Clarivate Analytics). Without any doubt, these indexations help a lot to increase the visibility of the journal. Like a relatively young journal, we are eager to increasing the number of submissions. In 2019, we had 139 original submissions and published 26 articles. This is a very positive achievement, but certainly we can perform much better. We are committed to continuing publishing high-standard scholarly articles and increasing our presence in international rankings and journal lists. In terms of articles downloaded, it is interesting to note that in 2019 our main readers came from Asian countries. This metric suggests that the scope of Management Research contributes to shaping the global academic debate in management.

Although our journal has an international scope, Aguinis et al. (2020) remarked that one of the main limitations of our authors relates to the development of English skills needed to write and publish in international journals. Recognizing that English is the standard language in scholarly outlets and to help a more extended number of members in our community, we will continue receiving and conducting the whole review process in any of the three main Iberoamerican languages: Portuguese, Spanish and English. After the paper is accepted for publication, the authors will have the obligation to translate their manuscripts into English and develop a structured abstract in Spanish and Portuguese. The journal editorial services help in this process, orienting and editing the abstracts. Additionally, our editorial house Emerald has been, and will continue giving support in the editorial process providing to our authors several resources to enhance their manuscripts that includes translation and proof editing services. In terms of our review process, the authors who submit their articles to Management Research have the opportunity to interact with a prominent group of management scholars that conforms our editorial advisory board. Our reviewers are committed to providing developmental feedback while striving for high academic standards that guarantee that our journal publishes high-quality research papers with significant impact on our field. In addition and as a very important point: we are reducing the time to respond to our authors and maintaining a positive dynamic in the peer-review process. Currently, we have on average a one-month timeframe from submission to first decision, and will continue improving all the editorial processes.

The previous points closely relates to the future of our journal, which is embedded under the scope of general business-management research. In our pursuit for knowledge, we actively look for more impact beyond citations and impact factor. Following the call for a more pluralist conceptualization of impact (Aguinis et al., 2014), we want Management Research to turn into a pluralistic forum that helps to disseminate relevant and actionable knowledge. We fully support Emerald’s (our editorial house’s) initiative about “Real Impact.” With this initiative, we are committed to connecting and supporting the community of practice with our research, to overcome barriers to impact, creating strong connections between research and society; shifting beyond traditional metrics and celebrating impact of all shapes and sizes; and developing new tools and innovative approaches to disseminate our research that not necessary includes only the traditional scholarly manuscripts. We made important steps in this way, but certainly we can be more innovative to create more impact for different relevant stakeholders. We strongly believe that with different types of submissions we 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 IAM community. We will announce the next steps of these initiatives, but obviously we are completely open to suggestions from any relevant actor in ways in which our research could create real impact.

Because of the remarkable job made by the previous editorial teams, we will do our best to move the Journal to a new era. In particular, I want to highlight the work of Martin Larraza-Kintana, our previous Editor of the Journal. Without his leadership, the Journal could enjoy neither its current position nor its visibility among several regional journals. Thank you Martin for your commitment and extraordinary guidance! I also extend my gratitude to the outgoing Associate Editor, Miguel (Mickey) Quiñones and give a warm welcome to Fernanda Wagstaff as a new Associate Editor. Thanks also to Ronaldo Parente, another Associate Editor, for continuing in this crucial position. Thank you also to our editorial assistant Fabiola Zambom Ferraresi, from Public University of Navarra, Spain, who helps us a lot in the management of the editorial process. I also extend a warm thank you to the IAM Board that trusted in me to conduct the future of Management Research. Special thanks to our past Presidents Carolina Gómez and Herman Aguinis; in their terms, the Journal grew and obtained greater visibility, and our current President Len Treviño for fully supporting the activities of the Journal. My gratitude also extends to the Emerald Team, specially our Publisher Hayley Coulson and our Content Editor Emma Willingham.

To conclude, after 18-years, the Journal is the result of a joint effort of its editorial team, editorial board members, reviewers, readers and, most importantly, all the authors who believe in us and choose Management Research as the outlet to spread the results of their research efforts. Please feel free to contact me or any member of the editorial team at any time to discuss your thoughts and ideas, or to ask any question related to the fit of your work with the Journal. Welcome to a new era of Management Research, The Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management.