Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, Volume 17, Issue 1

Seventeen years is quite some time. IJEBR has been contributing to knowledge about enterprise, entrepreneurship and small business for longer than my academic career! It is then, a considerable responsibility to become the new Editor-in-Chief. Professor Ossie Jones has moved on to other editorial duties, but 2011 and Volume 17 kicks off with an important article by Martinez and Aldrich, entitled “Networking strategies for entrepreneurs: balancing cohesion and diversity”. It is testament to Ossie’s work and stewardship over the last five years that the journal can draw on the research of such eminent social scientists as Editorial Board member Howard Aldrich. As new journals proliferate and the study of enterprise, small business, and entrepreneurship burgeons and fragments, IJEBR is taking its place on the high table of solid and established places to publish quality research. This is Ossie’s achievement and legacy to me and the new editorial team.

In addition to my new role as Editor, replacing me as Associate Editor is Dr Janine Swail a colleague at Newcastle University, who will work together with Dr Dilani Jayawarna at Manchester Metropolitan University who continues in her role as Associate Editor. Dr Claire Seaman of Queen Margaret University continues as Book Review Editor, and Professor Luke Pittaway of Georgia Southern University, continues as Regional Editor to develop the profile of the journal in North America. I also look forward to working closely with the Editorial Board in shaping the direction of the journal and its scholarly content over the coming volumes.

With that in mind, it is our desire that the journal remains generalist in its approach to entrepreneurship. There are many currents and eddies in the disciplinary field, with trends towards convergence in some ways, and fragmentation in others. Like many business studies sub-disciplines there are those who are working towards a strong paradigm à la Pfeffer (1993) and others that accept the inevitability and desirability of paradigmatic plurality, à la Van Maanen (1995). Energies expended in these intellectual, tactical and institutional strategies are probably a good thing for the discipline overall as they ask serious questions of one’s scholarship. Most entrepreneurship journals are now practically resolved to plurality, even where underlying attitudes remain wedded to a strong consensual paradigm view that centres on a positivistic, normal science theoretical and methodological approach. IJEBR is enthusiastic in its plurality, and I hope, willing to take some risks, especially with new, original contributions. The journal will continue then to publish a wide mix of articles. The touch stone for my tenure as Editor-in-Chief will be how authors in our field are addressing real problems. The quantification of research outputs has created a scramble for publication, and many careers now require individuals to “publish or perish”. The result, inevitably, is a long tail of mediocre or worse research which fails to address real problems. This can result in pseudo-science and scientism, inane scholasticism as well as banal description. As Editor-in-Chief, along with my editorial team, we will work hard to ensure the research reported in IJEBR connects to the personal troubles and public issues (to borrow from C. Wright Mills) that infuse the topic of enterprise and thus benchmark the journal as an effective conduit to advance informed theoretical and practical contributions in the field.

We will also be working to build on Ossie’s tenure and further improve the journal’s standing. It would be foolish not to acknowledge where IJEBR currently stands in relation to other more highly regarded entrepreneurship journals. It is therefore important as Editor-in-Chief to introduce innovations and strategies for improving the overall quality and impact of the research that is published. The Editorial team can only do so much in this regard and crucially relies on the academic community to think of IJEBR as a good place to publish their research. As Editor I am open to conversations about how to achieve this. So feel free to contact me about your ideas for paper submission, special issues and other contributions you might like to make. I look forward to working with you.

Dr Simon Down