Tag Archives: Editor

Department of Management meets the editor: Dr Robert Wapshott

The Editor of International Small Business Journal shared insights into achieving publication success in this virtual event.

Birkbeck’s Department of Management was delighted to welcome Dr Robert Wapshott, Editor for International Small Business Journal (CABS 3*), to our latest Meet the Editor session. The event was chaired by Dr Muthu De Silva, Assistant Dean (Research) in Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics.

How to publish papers in International Small Business Journal

Dr Wapshott began the session with advice for researchers aspiring to publish in International Small Business Journal (ISBJ). The journal focuses on publishing high-quality, highly relevant research on small business and entrepreneurship and features a broad range of fields and approaches.

Dr Wapshott shared some key details about ISBJ emphasising that the team works hard to reach decisions quickly and the importance of reviewers’ valued contributions to the journal’s overall strength. Dr Wapshott also highlighted that a small percentage of the manuscripts submitted to the journal are finally published in the journal

When a paper is submitted to ISBJ, it undergoes an editorial review by one of the two editors or the Editor in Chief. This is to check that the submission is relevant in scope and fit for the journal. Papers are then peer-reviewed, hopefully ending in publication.

How can I tell if my paper is a good fit for International Small Business Journal?

Above all, Dr Wapshott advises reading the journal and allowing time for the style to “sink in” to get an idea of whether your work is a good fit. An exercise to support this process would be to select some papers from the journal and study each of them by section.

When submitting papers, it is important to show how the work is relevant to journal’s readership, for instance the kinds of debates that might be of interest. Finding the ‘right’ audience for a paper can help the spread of its author’s ideas because the readers will be engaged in pursuing similar questions and topics.

Dr Wapshott also advised asking for feedback from colleagues that have published in ISBJ before, or who know the field, on whether the paper is a good fit for the journal.

Finally, it is important to consider whether ISBJ publishes the kind of work that you would like to write in terms of length, style and topic and whether there is an engaged readership for the paper’s topic, as this is key to supporting engagement with the paper beyond publication.

Papers accepted for publication in ISBJ have several things in common:

  • Clearly articulated contributions to debates that are relevant to the ISBJ audience
  • A contribution that matters beyond simple novelty
  • Careful engagement with the reviewers’ comments

Advice on writing and submitting a research paper

Dr Wapshott shared some general advice on writing and submitting a research paper.

Firstly, carefully consider keywords and ensure they are not too specific; they should link to other work in the journal and not just the paper submitted. Papers should be written in plain language where possible, showing sophistication instead through the ideas and their development.

What are the reasons for rejecting papers from International Small Business Journal?

Dr Wapshott shared the main reasons why a paper may be desk rejected:

  • Vague aims
  • Dated literature
  • Little sign of claimed contribution
  • Poor fit with the journal

If a paper is rejected at the full review stage, it could be due to:

  • Questionable contribution (e.g. inadequate theory)
  • Argument does not ‘work’, perhaps due to gaps or leaps in reasoning
  • Limitations in the method (e.g. inappropriate data for the claims made in the paper)

Advice for responding to reviewers

Dr Wapshott stressed the importance of treating reviewers with respect, even when disagreeing with their comments, by engaging with any feedback given and taking the time to explain your position. A good check is to imagine the reviewer in the room, or that they are an immediate colleague, and consider how you would respond to them.

A question from the audience asked for advice on dealing with rejection. Dr Wapshott focused on this as an evaluation only of the work submitted rather than anything broader, such as the author’s ability or potential. In this context, Dr Wapshott reassured delegates that rejection is something that happens to all researchers.

He encouraged delegates to try and understand what the editors or reviewers see as the weakness of the paper and to recognise the reviewers’ expertise – if it feels like they have missed the point of a paper, how could this be possible? It can be helpful to return to a paper with a fresh view once the comments have settled to see what might need to be improved.

Dr Wapshott’s presentation was followed by a Q&A session with delegates. One attendee asked what makes an article more impactful? Dr Wapshott responded: “It’s all about the significance of the contribution. How does this change how I see the world, how I think about it or practice? The author’s role is to articulate why the contribution matters. Then people can cite the work because there is a really clear takeaway.”

We would like to thank Dr Wapshott for an insightful and productive session.

Join us for our next Meet the Editor Session

Our next Meet the Editor Session will welcome Professor Jonathan Doh, General Editor of Journal of Management Studies on February 14 2022. Find out more and book your place.

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Department of Management Meets the Editor with Professor Geoffrey Wood

The Editor of Academy of Management Perspectives and Human Resource Management Journal shared advice with researchers looking to publish in highly-ranked journals.

The Department of Management’s popular ‘Meet the Editor’ series has returned for the 2021/22 academic year, welcoming Professor Geoffrey Wood as its first guest.

Professor Wood is Editor in Chief of Academy of Management Perspectives (ABS 4*) and Human Resource Management Journal (ABS 4*, World Elite), Professor and DanCap Private Equity Chair of Innovation and Department Chair and DAN Management at Western University in Canada.

Opening the session, Chair Dr Muthu De Silva, Assistant Dean for Research in Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics said: “We are really grateful to Professor Geoff Wood for offering to speak to us. As you all know, our key aim is to bring all of you together to meet eminent editors which will help us to together thrive in our research journey. Geoff has published over 220 articles in peer-reviewed journals, so we are very much looking forward to hearing his advice today.”

Advice for researchers aspiring to publish in highly ranked journals

Professor Wood began his presentation with some key advice for researchers:

Editors love novelty, provided that it is within the scope of the journal.

For example, the Journal of Finance is more conservative in terms of theory and methods, but open in terms of choice of topic, while the Academy of Management Journal prefers novelty in terms of theorizing.

Highly ranked journals care about how you calibrate your data.

This includes the scale of the study, for example how in-depth a survey goes, the number of interviews conducted and the quality of data sets.

It pays to do your homework: a journal’s purpose may not be obvious from its title.

In a message echoed from previous Meet the Editor events, Professor Wood gave the example of the Journal of Human Resources, which takes economics papers, to illustrate that it is worth doing some research to ensure your study is right for a particular journal.

The chance of publishing in a four-star journal may be higher than you think.

It is often assumed that a highly ranked journal receives thousands of submissions each year, but the Academy of Management Review receives just 400. The chances of publishing a high-quality paper in this journal are therefore higher than you might expect, but at the same time, leading journals expect papers with scholarly depth, inttrenal rigour, and, when appropriate, a sufficient weight of empirical evidence.

First impressions matter

Professor Wood explained “Referees are like anybody – they’re trying to make sense of a complicated world, so they will look for shortcuts and for the initial impression a paper gives.” He advised making a good first impression by ensuring a strong introduction, conclusion and abstract, and ensuring that any formula and tables in the paper are easy to understand.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Out of date references

Professor Wood explained that this mistake is commonly made by PhD students, who begin gathering data well before writing up their findings. The out of date references make it look as though the paper has already been rejected elsewhere, and, potentially ‘zombie’ papers.

Ignoring referee comments

While it is accepted that researchers may wish to submit a rejected paper elsewhere, Professor Wood cautions against ignoring comments from previous reviewers. The comments are likely to give your paper a better chance of success, but even more so, you may come across the same reviewer at another journal who will be unimpressed if you have ignored their advice!

Failing to cite the target journal

Conduct a careful keyword search in your target journal to ensure you are citing the most relevant references. Not only is it insulting not to cite your target journal; the chances are that your reviewer will be somebody who has recently published in that journal too.

Academy of Management Perspectives Journal: Insight from the Editor

AMP’s Associate Editors have a lot of past editorial experience – typically 8-10,000 citations each – which represents “a lot of knowledge and wisdom coming into your paper.” Professor Wood noted the “career-transforming effect” for scholars whose work has been published in AMP.

He reassured attendees that the chances of getting published in AMP are fairly good, as the journal receives comparatively few high-quality submissions. From the end of the year, AMP will scrap the current system of submitting a proposal before the paper to ensure a more streamlined process for researchers.

It is also worth noting that the journal offers special issues, and would normally expect at least one person within a special issue team to be a very senior and well-established scholar.

Human Resource Management Journal

As a journal of political economy, HRMJ tends to take work that provides some reflections in the broader context of research. It also takes a lot of international work. The journal accepts empirical and conceptual papers, however it does not take organisational psychology papers that do not engage with HR issues. Researchers are not expected to be HR specialists, but they do need to engage with HR literature.

Professor Wood’s presentation was followed by a question and answer session, where researchers had an opportunity to ask more specific questions about the publication process, AMP and HRMJ. One researcher commented: “I think this kind of insight is very important – I don’t usually see editors to share these insights!”

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