Editorial
Welcome to Volume 3 of
Our second year
We founded
We were on
track then, and believe we are still on track now.
Although the
extent to which SO! is fostering a reintegration of strategy and organization
and cultivating a new field of study is not easy to assess, the papers
published in volume 2 are very encouraging.
Articles appear to be cohering clearly around topics bridging strategy
and organization. The role of social
networks and interfirm alliances for managing
information, uncertainty, and knowledge are central to a number of papers
(e.g., Jensen; Pollock; Seidel and Westphal; Zhao, Anand and Mitchell). The development and impact of institutions in
the context of firms’ strategic moves is the focus of another group of papers
(e.g., Deeds, Mang and Frandsen;
Henisz and Delios; Lounsbury and Leblebici). A third set emphasizes entrepreneurial and
managerial processes of innovation and change (e.g., Augier and Sarasvathy; Dougherty; Mitsuhashi and Greve; Xu and Reuf). The emergence and pursuit of such integrative
strategic organization themes is exciting for us to see. And, we hope you’ll agree, has made for some
stimulating reading!
Our aim to
provide an international forum is reflected in both the regional diversity of
our contributors (three continents are represented in this issue alone!) and
the geographic reach of our Editorial Board.
Roughly one-third of the articles and essays published in volume 2 had
one or more authors working outside of
Our emphasis on promoting different
research traditions, disciplines and methodologies is clearly reflected in
volume 2. Richly-grounded
theory-building papers appear alongside rigorous survey research, quantitative
analyses of detailed archival databases, and carefully conducted field
studies. Economics-based studies appear
alongside papers grounded in disciplines including cognitive psychology,
sociology and political science; and more often than not, the papers are
interdisciplinary in their orientation.
The common feature of all the papers published in SO! is that each is conducted soundly and
rigorously within its genre and discipline.
The result is a collection of exemplary research from a diversity of
research traditions and disciplines – all of which contribute importantly and
uniquely to our field.
While these editorial policies contribute
to cultivating the strategic organization research agenda, the So!apbox editorial essays that
appear in each issue may be having the greatest impact on achieving our
ambitions for SO! In these essays, which remain highly popular
with our readers, researchers attempt to move the field forward directly by
tackling issues central to the field head on.
Several recent essays offer provocative reflections on how the field has
gone wrong or been led astray.
Delacroix, for example, challenges what he sees as myths about the recency of globalization; Mintzberg
and Martin de Holan reflect on the nature of managerial work and education at
the turn of the new century. Others have
made impassioned pleas for us to change the way we do and think about our work
and field. Hambrick laments the irony
that our field has lost any sense of a ‘dominant logic,’ arguing it is
imperative for us to reverse the disintegration of what we know about strategy
and organization. Fearing our
irrelevance, Hoffman makes a heartfelt appeal for the field to become more
grounded in managerial and marketplace practice and common knowledge. In this issue, Heugens and Mol report the
results of a unique survey examining current views on different research
traditions in strategic organization.
How views vary in
Timely and
constructive feedback from informed reviewers is the norm at SO!
When we founded the journal, we set the following targets for ourselves:
·
Authors whose work is not sent out for editorial review, either
because it does not fit the journal’s aims and scope or because it is not
sufficiently well developed for our one-revision editorial policy, receive a
letter within 7-10 days explaining our editorial decision and where appropriate
encouraging resubmission after further work identified by the coeditors is
undertaken.
·
Authors whose manuscripts accepted for editorial review are sent
(double-blind) to three editorial board members and receive reviewer feedback
and a letter detailing our editorial decision within 60-90 days.
We continue
to meet these standards. Between October
2003 and October 2004, the journal received approximately 90 article
submissions (a 30 percent increase year-over-year); all but one was handled
within our stated targets. Our average
turnaround time for articles accepted for editorial review remains roughly 65
days. We accomplish this by having an
Editorial Board of outstanding scholars sufficiently great in number, scope and
breadth to complete reviews all our submissions. Our current 100-member Editorial Board
enables us to provide the highest possible quality review process, while
accommodating the continued grow in submission rates.
We
remain strongly committed to a one-revision policy to ensure a prompt review
process. All publication decisions are
made after one revision. For this
reason, all submissions are carefully screened before being sent out for
editorial review, and editorial board members focus on the significance and
rigor of the research, providing discipline and method neutral feedback that
challenges authors to strengthen their work.
The review process is aimed at strengthening the author’s voice. During the last year, it has been
gratifying to receive so many positive reactions to the quality and timeliness
of SO!’s
review process. Some of these include:
“I want to say thanks for the great experience I've had seeing
this paper through the process. When I asked [a SO! contributor] about
submitting to SO!, he said ‘‘Think of all your
experiences with [_________ Journal].’ It will be the exact
opposite. He was right.”
“I'm very pleased to be an author in SO! The whole editorial process was efficient and
friendly. No other journal that I've published in works
this well.”
“Thank
you [for the reviewer feedback and your editorial decision]. Although this is a rejection, the quality of
reviews is outstanding. I think the
rejection was justified.”
“Thanks
so much for your sharp [editorial] comments!
I am surprised and impressed to receive such quick and extensive
feedback. I will get back to you soon
with a [more well-developed paper].”
Our debt to our Editorial Board is clearly
considerable; our deepest thanks to each of you.
Between
October 2003 and October 2004, the outcomes of the submission and review
process were as follows:
·
35 percent were returned to their authors without editorial
review;
·
26 percent were rejected after editorial review;
·
26 percent were invited to revise and resubmit their work for
further consideration after review;
·
13 percent were accepted for publication.
SO! welcomes articles that have a strong interdisciplinary base and reflect a
clear understanding of the related strategic and organizational
literatures. Empirical and theoretical
articles published in SO! are soundly designed and systematically executed. SO! is method neutral and does not attach greater credence to
one or another methodological style.
Preferred submissions identify a compelling strategic organization topic
and a strong conceptual framework for tackling it.
In addition to regular refereed
articles, each issue of SO! includes one or more So!apbox editorial essays. A soapbox is a platform used by a
self-appointed, spontaneous, or informal orator, or, more broadly an outlet for
delivering opinions. These editorial
essays provide a forum for the expression of informed opinion and thoughtful
reflection in which interdisciplinary bridges can be forged, research
directions and methodological traditions discussed, and the field of strategic
organization staked out.
Submission and review processes
for articles and editorial essays are described on the inside-back cover of
journal, and in more detail on the Editor’s journal website at www.rotman.utoronto.ca/~baum/so.html,
or at SAGE Journals Online at http://soq.sagepub.com.
The year ahead …
As our aspirations for SO! appear
increasingly within our reach, our optimism grows. In the coming year, we aim to keep SO! on its
current track by continuing to emphasize the themes and editorial policies that
have guided us thus far.
Strategically, our main goal will be to work with our editors at SAGE to
ensure SO!’s inclusion in the ISI Web
of Knowledge’s Social Science Citation Index at the earliest opportunity, which
will occur at the end of this year when we have completed the publication of
our third volume.
We look forward to your continued
support – and submissions – as we continue to build a great journal and a great
field.
Joel A. C. Baum, Royston
Greenwood, and P. Devereaux Jennings