Future‐proofing IJMR as a leading management journal: Reach, relevance and reputation

Emerging from a decade rocked by global warfare and a pandemic, the 1920s were an era of dramatic social, technological and economic change worldwide. Women enjoyed newfound freedoms (including the right for many to vote), the Jazz Age commenced, technology improved communication and transportation on a mass consumerist scale, and the economy boomed. It was a decade of breaks with tradition and modernity for the masses, in which no frills practicality, combined with the emergence of celebrity as an aspirational mirror on life, gave a sense of freedom and possibility. It also saw the advent of commercial aeroplane travel and a consequent broadening of cultural horizons. It is easy to make comparisons between the Roaring Twenties of the 20th century and today as the world looks to recover from decades of war in the Middle East and arguably one of the worst pandemics in modern history. Once again, technology—and particularly digital technology—has played a vital role in shaping new expectations and as societies seek to ‘build back better’ we are looking at significant breaks with tradition. Ironically, air travel may be an element of daily life that is slow to (re)emerge this time around as we continue to battle with the aftershocks of Covid-19. As with the 1920s, the nostalgic buzz and excitement associated with the emergent post-Covid era camouflages many of the accompanying challenges that we now face, both in society and in academia. IJMR, first launched in March 1999, is also entering its twenties. For most of us, this is a period in our lives of increasing maturity, a developing sense of who and what we are, with a growing confidence to pursue our goals with determination and purpose. As a new editorial team, we feel the same sense of maturity and purpose in our stewardship of this leading journal. Entering what is thus an important period both for the journal and for the management research community more widely, the Roaring Twenties of our own era, we are collectively facing a number of considerable challenges which have the potential to change the publishing landscape for some time to come. The first of these challenges relates to the changing work environment we find ourselves in as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This global crisis has impacted the way we do research, and with this, opportunities to publish in high-impact journals. On the back of this, and with virtual working likely to become a routine part of our lives even post-lockdown, the question arises as to what it means to be ‘global’ and how, as an international journal, we can ensure that our reach truly encompasses research and readers from around the world. The second challenge relates to the arrival of Open Access publishing, and the likely knock-on effect this will have on research processes, policies and practices within business and management. There are some genuine affordances of Open Access that the academic community should actively embrace, but there are also some challenges that we need to address. Finally, as we face the challenges of a changing work environment and the advent of Open Access, we need to ensure that past successes and an excellent track record as a leading management reviews journal are not only maintained, but also enhanced in the face of a changing environment. This editorial will explore these challenges and offer our strategy for finding opportunity for success. As Editors-in-Chief, our emphasis will be on expanding the reach of the journal to international audiences, enhancing the journal's relevance by staying on the cutting edge of management trends, and amplifying the journal's reputation by leveraging our metrics without losing sight of our focus on fundamentals. Focusing our efforts on reach, relevance and reputation, we look forward to the opportunities ahead in our own Roaring Twenties. We write this editorial as a new team of three Co-Editors-in-Chief. Jamie Callahan has recently joined the team, bringing with her rich experience as a former Editor of Human Resource Development Review, and with a publishing track record that spans journals such as Human Relations, Organization Studies, Violence Against Women, International Journal of Management Reviews, Human Resource Development Quarterly and Organization. Marian Iszatt-White has acted as Associate Editor for IJMR since 2018, giving her a thorough understanding of IJMR’s aims and aspirations, and was Guest Editor-in-Chief for a special issue on philanthropy published in the July issue this year. She has published in a range of journals central to the leadership discipline, including Leadership, Management Learning, Organization Studies and Journal of Business Ethics, as well as IJMR. Finally, Dermot Breslin continues as Co-Editor-in-Chief, having been in post since 2017. He has helped to steer the journal through a period of unprecedented progress and success, and continues to anchor the team in its strong roots of quality and impact. The staggering of editorial tenures at IJMR has ensured that we retain some continuity with past strategies and practices, whilst opening up opportunities for new editorial directions, making this a particularly exciting time in the life of the journal and one which lends itself to far-reaching reflections. Since its launch over 20 years ago, IJMR has become well established within the wider European research community. Since 2013, the journal's impact factor (IF) has seen a steady year-on-year increase, to reach 13.419 (2-year IF) in 2020. Globally, this puts IJMR 2/153 and 3/226 for the Business and Management research categories, respectively, in an environment where the number of journals in both categories has again increased. This is also the highest IF for a Business and Management journal outside the USA. During the same period, downloads have increased from 270 000 to over 550 000, and the readership of the journal has become global in its reach. It is a measure of the ongoing success of the journal that the decision has been taken to move from two to three Co-Editors-in-Chief to keep pace with the advances in both quality and quantity that have been made in recent years. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has turned the academic world on its head. Whilst we all hope for a day when our lives will return to normal, the pandemic may have a longer-lasting impact on the way we work, with less overseas travel, fewer face-to-face meetings and the possible continuation of blended forms of teaching. First, the cancellation of face-to-face teaching and consequent move to online learning has increased workloads for many academics. These rapid changes have particularly hit those at the early stages of their career, as junior colleagues tend to carry the heaviest teaching loads. Second, the closure of schools and social support facilities has impacted the working lives of academics who have caring responsibilities. For parents of primary or secondary school children, home schooling made it difficult to find the time and space for research and writing. Those who have caring responsibilities for older or disabled family members found that the day care and home support services were no longer available; as a result, they encountered an increased burden of caring. This shift has disproportionately affected women (Deryugina et al., 2021). Third, the shift to working from home has changed the way we work and the richness of our interactions with colleagues. Whilst home working may have removed the burden of the commute for many, it limits opportunities to discuss our research through ad hoc meetings and conversations with others. As a result of these factors, different groups of academics have been impacted in different ways, with early career researchers and carers feeling the brunt of the crisis. At IJMR, we have seen the immediate impact of the Covid-19 crisis on both journal submissions and reviewer activity. To begin with, we witnessed a dramatic increase in journal submissions in 2020, up over 50% on pre-Covid rates (see Figure 1). This change shows that some groups of scholars are clearly using the opportunity of home working to write and submit papers. Looking at the monthly submission rates in 2020, the majority of these additional submissions coincided with the first wave of national lockdown periods in the UK and Europe, from March to July 2020 (see Figure 2). The fall in submissions in October indicates a shift in priorities towards teaching, with the arrival of the autumn term. Such dramatic changes in monthly submission rates are new developments not seen in previous years. Looking at a breakdown of submissions across geographic regions, submissions from North America, Europe and Africa all increased by different amounts (28%, 9% and 39%, respectively). 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