A Message from the Incoming Editor Team

• Date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12101
• Published date: 01 September 2015

Editorial

A Message from the Incoming Editor Team

Thomas J. Goldsby and Walter Zinn

The Ohio State University

Atransition in editor teams will occur at the Journal of Business Logistics before the end of the year. This brief editorial addresses vital

facets of the transition. We emphasize the importance of maintaining the journal’s key traditions, namely publishing applied logistics and

supply chain research yielding meaningful managerial implications. We speak to remaining open to diverse research questions and assorted

research methods, while emphasizing the imperative for state-of-the-art application of methods. Next, we iterate important aspects of the jour-

nal’s review process. The provision of timely, knowledgeable, constructive, and detailed reviews is underscored as essential to assuring JBL’s

reputation as the “journal of choice”for leading-edge logistics and supply chain research.

Keywords: editorial; logistics; supply chain; research methods; review process

As we begin the transition to a new editorial team, it is important

to share the new team’s philosophy and plans for the journal, as

well as provide information about how the review process will

be conducted.

Overall, we believe that the journal is in great shape. Its repu-

tation is surging up, largely as the result of the work of previous

editors, associate editors, and reviewers. Under Jim Stock’s edi-

torship JBL was first included in the Thomson Reuter’s Web of

Science Index, then known as the ISI Web of Knowledge. The

current editors, Matt Waller and Stan Fawcett, moved JBL to a

higher plateau by publishing four issues a year, lowering the

acceptance rate, and building a partnership with Wiley that expo-

nentially increased its visibility and distribution, helping the jour-

nal to reach more than 40,000 libraries worldwide. As a result,

submissions to the journal nearly quadrupled in the first four

years of their five-year term.

The principal task of the new editorial team is to continue the

improvement in the reputation of JBL. Despite the progress that

has been made, JBL is today recognized in many colleges as an

“A”journal, but not all. To bring its reputation to the next level,

we will strive to strike a balance between what needs to change

and the traditions and identity of JBL that we must uphold. On the

latter, it is important to maintain and reinforce the tradition of pub-

lishing applied logistics and supply chain management (SCM)

research with strong emphasis on managerial implications, such

that we advance theory and practice. As Fawcett et al. (2011) point

out in an editorial piece appearing in JBL in 2011, our opportunity

is to:

1. Conduct research to articulate more clearly how logistics con-

tributes value both via day-to-day operations and in the bigger

picture; and

2. Conduct research to develop and clarify more fully SCM’s

influence on business model design as well as on strategy

development and execution.

We still see these avenues as critical to increasing the visibility

and stature of the logistics and SCM disciplines.

It is equally important to continue to encourage and accept

submissions employing any of a multitude of available research

methodologies. These include, but are not limited to, multivariate

statistics, optimization, simulations, experiments, and qualitative

methods. It is essential that methods match the research question

presented. To go further, we believe it is essential that all work

appearing in the journal employ methodological rigor. The appli-

cation of state-of-the-art methodology is the common denomina-

tor among all top journals and the main determinant of

reputation. Methods can differ from one discipline to another and

from one journal to another, but whatever method is employed

needs to be done very well to validate the quality and insights of

the research. Thus, the review process will add greater focus on

the rigor of the methodology employed. The editorial team is

currently working to recruit reviewers who can contribute expert

input on any methodology employed by authors. Methods

experts can come from our current pool of reviewers or from

experts in other business fields. Experts in the latter case will be

ineligible to serve as AEs, however.

The review process, itself, will closely follow the pattern of

expedient and fair reviews inherited from previous editors. The

goal of the process is to attract manuscripts that substantially

contribute to the academic literature and advance practice, while

also respecting the interests of authors in terms of the speed,

quality, and positive tone of the reviews. Similarly, expedient

and fair reviews will continue to help JBL attract and publish

quality research on pressing topics of contemporary interest.

Another key point regarding the reputation of the journal is

the quality of reviews provided by reviewers. As a scholarly

field, we must underscore that. The reputation of any journal is

limited by the quality of the review process. Reviews must be

timely, knowledgeable, constructive, and detailed. It is extremely

important that they are also telling. The editorial team is aware

Corresponding author:

Thomas J. Goldsby, Department of Marketing and Logistics, Fisher

College of Business, The Ohio State University, 500 Fisher Hall,

2100 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; E-mail: goldsby.

2@osu.edu

Journal of Business Logistics, 2015, 36(3): 240–241 doi: 10.1111/jbl.12101

© Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals