The Distinctive Identity of the Journal of Management Studies

• Author: Dries Faems,Don Siegel,Igor Filatotchev,Bill Harley
• Date: 01 November 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12212
• Published date: 01 November 2016

The Distinctive Identity of the Journal of Management

Studies

The Editors

Dries Faems, Igor Filatotchev, Bill Harley and Don Siegel

University of Groningen, The Netherlands; City University London, UK; University of Melbourne,

Australia; University at Albany, USA

Just as all parents think their children are special, editors like to think that their journals are

special. The editors of JMS are no exception. There are, of course, intrinsic reasons to seek

to establish a distinctive identity for a journal. Most editors invest a huge amount of time and

energy in their work, and to an extent their intrinsic satisfaction reflects their belief that they

are producing an outlet that has unique value. There are, however, other important reasons.

Perhaps most importantly, in the current crowded and competitive world of publishing, there

is very real competition between journals to attract and publish work which will have rele-

vance and wider impact. To do so requires being able to convince potential authors, and

readers, that one’s journal is different from any other potential publishing outfit.

The editors at JMS spend a good deal of time thinking about how best to position our

journal relative to other journals in the field of general management. Recently, with one

of us stepping down after a six year stint, and one of us moving from Associate to Gen-

eral Editor, we have been giving particular attention to the question of what is distinc-

tive about JMS. This editorial is intended as a brief statement about the distinctive

identity of the journal.

What we publish

All top journals seek to publish high-quality and high-impact papers. Some focus on very

specific areas, while others – JMS included – position themselves as general management

journals. Some might see this as a challenge, in the sense that a general management orien-

tation might imply a generic flavour which undermines distinctiveness. Our way of dealing

with this has been to make our breadth and inclusiveness a strength, not a weakness.

JMS has a long history of publishing a very wide range of papers – in terms of topic,

theory and method – and we explicitly do not favour any particular approach. Indeed,

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C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

Journal of Management Studies 53:7 November 2016

doi: 10.1111/joms.12212