Abstract
Contemplation of the task of editing a journal is a humbling experience. Editors exercise far less influence on the content and quality of a journal than is commonly assumed. All of the articles that will be published in my first issue were submitted long before I assumed the role of editor, and most of the papers that I will receive during my first year as editor have already been written, at least in draft form. This means that most of the articles that will appear in JM during the first half of my three-year term were already in progress before I became editor. Nevertheless, I do believe that new editors have a unique opportunity to influence discourse in a discipline. Each new editor has the opportunity to offer a perspective, a point of view, and a philosophy. Whether scholars agree or disagree with the views offered by a new editor, the point of transition between editors provides an important and necessary opportunity for dialogue and renewal within a discipline. Although changes in the content of journals appear to be slow, changes do occur, and they occur with greater speed than might be obvious upon casual observation. Examination of the content of JM over time reveals rather remarkable change; this change means that the field is vital.
Placed in large perspective, a journal is the tangible manifestation of an intellectual community. This community includes authors, members of the editorial board, ad hoc reviewers, readers, and the people who are influenced directly or indirectly by the journal. All members of this community play an important role in its definition and well-being, though some members of this community, the authors and editor, may be momentarily more visible than others. Nevertheless, the community would be different and less vital without the participation of all its members. Authors of articles published in the journal contribute the visible substance of the community, but the authors of papers that are submitted and not published help establish the context and quality of the journal. Papers that are not accepted for publication establish a baseline of quality; they raise the hurdle for acceptance and, in doing so, raise the overall quality of articles published in the journal. As Bob Lusch notes in this issue, some of the most difficult decisions editors face involve the rejection of papers that are quite good, but not quite good enough for publication in JM. Most of these papers will find publication outlets elsewhere; the welfare of the community requires that these papers be better for having been submitted to JM.
Regardless of their quality, the articles published in a journal are of little value without readers. The reputation of a journal rests on the frequency with which it is read and its content used and cited by others. Readers multiply the influence of a journal when they use its content. This use may take many forms: Articles published in the journal may be cited by readers in their own scholarship; readers may use the content of the journal in practice; and the ideas in the journal may be communicated to others in the classroom, consulting practices, and informal discussion. Reviewers’ primary role in this community is the improvement of the papers submitted to the journal, whether those papers are accepted for publication or not. The substance of the articles published in the journal usually reflects some of the thinking of reviewers. The encouragement and ideas offered by reviewers contribute to the energy of the community, motivate authors, improve the quality of what the readers see, and ultimately increase the influence of the journal.
I very much appreciate the opportunity to serve the larger community in the role of editor of JM. Although I recognize my own responsibility as the facilitator of communication within the larger community, I also have a keen appreciation for the community itself and its individual members. As editor I can do nothing of significance without the cooperation of the many constituencies that compose our community; I must rely on the work of many others—authors, reviewers, and readers—for success. I am grateful to the editors of JM who have preceded me and to the past reviewers, authors, and readers of JM for providing me with an exceptionally strong publication as I begin my term.
The Journal of Marketing
With a circulation of more than 10,000, JM is the American Marketing Association's most widely circulated journal or magazine. It is the recognized leader in its field, and its readers and subscribers include a diverse group that encompasses marketing academicians, executives in a wide variety of marketing settings, consultants, students, and respected academic institutions and libraries. As editor of JM I hope to build on its rich legacy and broaden the influence of an already highly successful publication. I also hope that I can communicate to all members of our community the value that they add to our intellectual enterprise. This will be an easy task with reviewers and authors of articles published in JM; it will be a more challenging one with readers and authors of papers that are not published. Nevertheless, each member of the community plays an important role, and I hope I can communicate the importance of this role even when I must do so very indirectly or I must deliver unwelcome news.
Change is important and necessary, but without some modest structure, there is anarchy. As with any well-managed enterprise, JM operates within a broad and flexible mandate. The stated editorial goals of JM are (1) the advancement of the science and practice of marketing (to make a difference by adding to what we know about marketing phenomena and changing how we study and practice marketing) and (2) to serve as a bridge between the scholarly and the practical, each of which has a vital stake in what is happening on the other side (JM Editorial Statement). The positioning of JM is as a broad-based journal that can serve as a vehicle for the publication of papers that have the potential to make a significant contribution to knowledge in any area of marketing. It is positioned as the premier broad-based, scholarly journal of the marketing discipline focusing on substantive issues in marketing and marketing management (JM Editorial Statement).
Clearly, JM has achieved its goal of being the premier, scholarly journal in marketing, and it is also one of the most influential journals in business literature. As Bob Lusch notes in his editorial, a recent analysis estimated the citation impact of JM to be third among the 343 journals examined. This ranking for JM represents a substantial improvement over its ranking as recently as a decade ago. An analysis of the subjective reputation of JM (Hult, Neese, and Bashaw 1997) also found that it was the most highly regarded journal in marketing by a large margin and across a variety of constituencies. Again, this represents a significant change in the reputation of JM relative to only a few years ago. I believe the increased impact and reputation of JM illustrates the growing importance of the marketing discipline in business and society. Not only is JM the most influential publication in marketing, it is also highly influential within the business literature at large, and this influence appears to have been increasing over time.
The goal of being a broad-based journal also appears to have been achieved by JM in recent years. A content analysis of the past three volumes reveals a diversity of content. Topics represented in JM during the past three years include advertising and promotion (16 articles), market orientation and organizational design (8 articles), personal selling and sales management (8 articles), product development and management (7 articles), channels of distribution (5 articles), marketing strategy (5 articles), customer satisfaction (4 articles), pricing (4 articles), relationship marketing (4 articles), services marketing (4 articles), history and philosophy of marketing (3 articles), knowledge management and decision support systems (3 articles), public policy and regulation (3 articles), social influence (3 articles), Internet marketing and interactive shopping (2 articles), marketing research and demand forecasting (2 articles), retailing (2 articles), buyer behavior (1 article), and packaging (1 article). This content analysis clearly demonstrates the breadth of JM, though some areas are far better represented than are others.
Thus, as the new editor of JM I will inherit a strong legacy. The journal is strong and has a powerful upward trajectory in influence and prestige. The special issue, “Fundamental Issues and Directions for Marketing” (1999), should stimulate further research and will be frequently cited. I believe that I and the intellectual community that JM represents face the pleasant challenge of maintaining the positive momentum of JM. There are always opportunities for improvement, however, and I have three broad goals for my tenure as editor.
Objectives for the Journal
As the next editor of JM, I will focus on three primary objectives: (1) increasing journal content related to important but underrepresented areas of work in the marketing discipline, (2) improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the review process, and (3) enhancing the accessibility of journal content.
Objectives Related to Journal Content
The content analysis described previously indicates that JM offers a remarkable breadth of content. It also suggests that certain important areas of scholarship are underrepresented. Such underrepresentation is not a great problem when other well-regarded publication outlets exist, as is the case for marketing research (Journal of Marketing Research) and consumer research (Journal of Consumer Psychology and Journal of Consumer Research). However, there are areas of import that are growing in significance that have no obvious, high-profile outlet for dissemination, at least within the marketing discipline. Many of these areas represent extensions of domains that are already represented in JM's content. Among the underrepresented areas are the contribution of marketing to and the impact of marketing on society. For example, recent research in macroeconomics suggests that business cycles have been moderated in recent years by the presence of better inventory management systems and procedures (cf. Zarnowitz 1998). These results are the direct consequence, at least in part, of closer monitoring of markets and greater integration of information systems and information exchange among suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. Discussions of such results, and the contributions of the marketing discipline to these positive macro-economic outcomes, are appropriate content for JM.
Marketing appears to have ceded large portions of its domain to other disciplines, such as quality, supply-chain management, and international business. The journal is a natural outlet for work in these areas. This suggests that JM might increase its content related to the management of value delivery systems (supply chain management, enterprise and cross-enterprise requirements planning, and governance systems), customer satisfaction (increasingly the domain of quality professionals rather than marketers), and interactive marketing through information exchange media, such as the Internet (rapidly being claimed by management information systems professionals).
Aside from reclaiming the long-standing “turf” of marketing by encouraging JM as an outlet for work in these areas, there are other areas of work that should be encouraged: the appropriate role of transaction marketing (governed by price) as compared with the role of relationship-based marketing (governed by social covenant), the integration of the marketing mix (perhaps best captured by work on efficient consumer response), and work on database marketing/interactive marketing (in which some of the most interesting and challenging applications of artificial intelligence and neural networks are occurring).
The decline of communism has produced an interesting recognition of the differences in market economies around the globe (cf. Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars 1993). This has raised a variety of issues that might be examined within the context of comparative marketing systems. The Journal of Marketing is an especially appropriate outlet for such work. Finally, although there are many outlets for rigorous work on individual consumer behavior and for popular business forecasts, there are few serious outlets for work on aggregate markets and societal trends that influence markets. Serious work on the forecasting of aggregate market behavior (e.g., applications of techniques such as influence diagrams) would have a place in JM.
Ultimately, every journal editor can only publish the best of the papers that are submitted. I do not expect to be able to make extraordinary changes in the content of JM, nor do I believe radical change is needed. I do hope to make some impact on the direction of research in the field by means of moral suasion and use of the “bully pulpit.”
Objectives Related to the Manuscript Review Process
Bob Lusch, the current editor of JM, has done an extraordinary job of integrating information technologies into the review process. His development of a Web-based review system has been an important innovation. The next stage in the innovation process is to change the behavior of reviewers by speeding their response. Ideally, the entire review process would occur within the context of electronic transmission (submission, review, and feedback). It is probably still unrealistic at this point in time to expect all authors and reviewers to respond electronically, though we must and should move in this direction.
The benefits of electronic response do not yet correspond to its promise. Time to market has become an increasingly important competitive advantage, and academic literature is especially time dependent with respect to certain topics and areas of inquiry. As editor of JM I will promote faster response from reviewers by electronic media. Members of the editorial review board who are habitually slow in providing reviews will be asked to resign. Deadlines for the return of reviews represent the maximum time for return of a review, not the point at which reminders begin without consequence. Members of the editorial review board already have been asked whether they would be willing to receive papers by electronic transmission, and more than two-thirds of the board have responded in the affirmative. There remain some technical problems to work through, such as compatibility of word processing systems and the transmission of graphics, but we will begin the transition to electronic submission and review, at least on a limited scale.
The speed of the review process is important, but the quality of the review is even more important. The current system of blind review provides especially useful information to authors, but little constructive (as opposed to descriptive) information to reviewers. As editor I will provide feedback to reviewers about how useful and constructive their reviews have been. I will also continue Bob Lusch's practice of asking authors to provide feedback about the review process, and I will share this information with reviewers.
The new editorial review board is already in place. A part of the renewal process for a journal is matching the expertise of the editorial review board more closely with the content of the manuscripts that are submitted. This matching process should produce better reviews and higher quality papers. I have asked about a third of the previous editorial review board to “retire” and added a small number of members with expertise in areas in which JM is experiencing a significant increase in submissions. The net effect of these changes has been to reduce the size of the editorial review board, but I expect to add more members to the board as time passes. The smaller board provides the flexibility to develop ad hoc reviewers and ultimately move the best of these reviewers on to the board. I very much appreciate the graciousness and responsiveness of past and present board members to this renewal.
Objectives Related to Enhancing the Accessibility of Journal Content
More marketing professionals read JM than any other marketing-oriented journal or magazine. As editor of JM I will continue the practice of asking the authors of published papers to write executive summaries that provide simple descriptions of their papers. These summaries will be disseminated in a variety of media. By doing so, we should increase the reach and influence of JM, enhance the reputations of authors, and enlarge our community.
Differences from Present Editorial Direction
Change is often frightening, so in closing I want to be clear about the future of JM. Renewal is necessary and important, but it should not sacrifice the foundations of prior success. I expect only modest changes in the current editorial, direction of JM. As I observed previously, I believe JM is currently strong and on a very positive trajectory. I look forward to three years of intense interaction with the exciting, stimulating, and creative intellectual community that JM represents. I hope the rest of the community has as much fun as I have. And, if you are not having fun, please let me know.