Editorial 25/4: Electronic Markets on reviewing

Abstract

Dear readers of Electronic Markets, The last two editorials reported that Electronic Markets managed to improve its standing in two important rankings: the step from C to B in Jourqual3 (Alt et al. 2015a) and the increase of EM’s impact factor from 0.769 to 0.935 (Alt & Zimmermann 2015). Although many influences are relevant for this development, the processes within the journal are certainly one important variable. As known from the literature on process management, processes link activities performed by multiple actors in a specified sequence to attain an output that creates value for the customers of the process (Osterle 1995, 62). From the perspective of an academic journal, multiple actors are involved in the submission, review and publishing process. The ultimate goal is to create value for the academic community, which refers to the advancement of the entire field of digital or electronic business (processes) with meaningful and high-quality contributions (Alt and Osterle 2014a). As in a networked world, the value system of an academic journal is complex and dynamic. Isolating a single variable is difficult and very often one outcome is not only determined by many input factors, but also by itself. For example, highquality contributions are influenced by good submissions and review processes, but also by the journal’s ranking, which in turn has been calculated by the impact of prior – presumably also high-quality – published articles. Thus, a high impact factor and above-average rankings also attract highquality research in the future. Not all Bdesign variables^ of the journal system are amenable to direct action by the journal itself. At Electronic Markets, this is a big and continuous team effort between the editorial team, the senior, associate and guest editors as well as the editorial board andmany additional reviewers. The current organization structure has evolved over the last 25 years: as described in a chronological overview (Alt et al. 2015b, 2) the double-blind review process and the international editorial board was introduced in 1999. In 2008, the role of associate editors and in 2012, the role of senior editors was created to secure quality in view of rising submission volumes. Since special issues have been a key characteristic of Electronic Markets almost from the beginning, the guest editor’s role has also had a longer tradition. However, with a growing number of submissions and participants the challenge of managing the entire system also increased. Everyone, who is familiar with the academic world, has probably experienced the deficits of long response and/or cycle times as an author, the disappointment about brief and/or unenlightened reviews as an author or editor as well as the problem of meeting the expectations of providing substantial feedback in time as a reviewer or editor. Very often, academics act in many roles for multiple journals as well as conferences at the same time. Although reviewing is at the heart of the academic system, it generates a heavy workload. At present, a total of 3’217 journals are listed only in the SSCI index and if each journal includes four issues per year the number of issues accounts for 12’868 issues per year. Assuming that each issue includes a collection of five articles on average, the number of articles raises to 64’340 and if each article receives an average of two reviews, 128’680 reviews alone are produced for accepted articles. Suppose that only 50 % of all * Rainer Alt rainer.alt@uni-leipzig.de