Welcome to Organization Science in 2023
It is my great pleasure to be entrusted with the editorship of Organization Science and to have the opportunity to work with a fantastic team of authors, reviewers, and editors. I am grateful for the leadership of the editors before me and hope to build on their tremendous efforts during arguably the most difficult period we’ve ever seen. Organization Science has always been an important part of our research community, and I hope to advance the journal in ways that continue to expand and refine our knowledge on theory, phenomena, and policy. I wanted to (sort of) briefly provide everyone with an update on our vision and goals for the coming years, as well as guidance on some of the changes that we have underway.
But first, let me direct you to our first two issues of 2023, which present collection of outstanding papers (for which I can take zero credit!). I love how the papers in the issue. tackle important organizational and social problems across the globe from a diverse set of theoretical perspectives, disciplines, methods, and authors. We’ll begin to feature these papers in the coming weeks, but hope you will take the time to browse them in the meantime.
Issue 1 is here: https://pubsonline.informs.org/toc/orsc/34/1
Issue 2 is here: https://pubsonline.informs.org/toc/orsc/current.
Now let me address what we’re trying to do at Organization Science. My overarching goal as EIC is to make Org Science a journal that publishes the best work on organizations, across a broad range of disciplines, fields, settings, and methodologies. A key principle for me will be the idea of advancing and refining theory through a portfolio of research. This idea hits at the core of what should be meant by “theory-building,” and what should be expected of any given paper. Papers can be great in many different ways, with a diverse set of research approaches collectively helping us better understand, explain, and predict important phenomena involving organizations. Some papers are purely theoretical, using formal notation or logic. Some papers combine theory and empirics to extend what we believe we already know. Where perhaps I differ from some (but certainly not all) editors in our field, however, is my belief that theory is also built and refined through papers that are purely empirical, which can both provide the groundwork for new theory or even cast doubt on what is commonly believed to be true. Theory needs pruning as well. I also want a journal that cares about the social impact of research and I particularly want more work with an emphasis on understudied or underrepresented populations.
Given these principles, I will continuously work to provide and support an editorial team that represents diversity not only across the type of research, but also across authors, the geography of their work, and the topics they study. I want nearly any author who studies organizations to see multiple editors there that they would be excited to have handle their paper. I am extremely excited about the group of editors that we have in place now, as well as the Editorial Review Board we’ve built to support them. In both cases, I’ve focused on providing opportunities for new generations of scholars who will take the journal and broader field into the future. As some of you have already noticed, past publication in the journal was not a prerequisite. I wanted to introduce new ideas and opportunities. Check out these awesome groups here: https://pubsonline.informs.org/page/orsc/editorial-board
Okay. . . enough pontificating (as a friend of mine might say)! What are some of the practical implications? One key change is that senior editors will now directly issue decisions without the paper returning to my desk for approval. The editors will be making decisions under the input and advisement of reviewers, but ultimately it is the editor’s decision of whether to invite a revision or not, and when to accept a paper. Dissenting reviewers play a crucial role in improving the paper, but are not gatekeepers to publication. Great scholars can disagree on specific papers.
One of our most important initiatives is to build an efficient and equitable process that returns papers quickly and provides clear guidance on the path to publication for revision requests. We recognize this has been a challenge for Organization Science in the past. We are dedicated to substantially reducing average time under review, but even more importantly to eliminating extreme cases. Operational changes are already helping with this, but this will be a team effort for editors and reviewers alike. I’m confident we can achieve it. We are also focused on reducing the number of rounds a paper goes out for review to at most two or occasionally three times, with any additional revision handled directly between the editor and authors. Time is precious, particularly for junior scholars, and there are few things as costly as late round rejections, which we hope to nearly eliminate. I hope these changes will reduce burden on both authors and reviewers, and improve the total time under review.
Our new editorial statement is here: https://pubsonline.informs.org/page/orsc/editorial-statement. I hope you will look to the editorial team as a strong signal of what we value, and strongly consider us as an outlet for your best work. I also hope that you will be willing to serve as timely reviewers with the expectation that your own submissions will receive efficient and fair treatment, even if the editorial decisions are not always what you hoped for.
Sincerely,
Lamar Pierce
Organization Science Editor-in-Chief
oseic@wustl.edu