Dear readers of Electronic Markets, The world of academic publishing has profoundly changed in the last decade. A first transformational element is rooted in the ever-increasing importance of journal publications in academic qualification and assessment processes. Junior researchers already strive for journal publications in their dissertation work and tenure without a solid publication record is hardly conceivable. With journal articles becoming a key currency within academia, many journals have emerged and the vast number of possible outlets also features important differences regarding the quality of the published research. Institutions, such as the index systems (e.g. the “Social Science Citation Index”, SSCI by Thomson Reuters) or shortlists (e.g. the “Basket of Eight” by the Association for Information Systems, AIS), aim to provide orientation regarding quality measures, such as double-blind review processes and the availability of English articles and abstracts. For example, the total number of journals covered in the SSCI grew from 1, 697 in 1998 to 2, 697 in 2009 (Larsen and von Ins 2010, p. 591) and to 3, 131 in 2014 (Thomson 2014). The number of journals is expected to rise even further in the future, especially if conference proceedings, open archives and document servers are additionally taken into account (Larsen and von Ins 2010, p. 600). However, many authors are inclined to submit their work to journals with a high reputation in these rankings. Journals with high impact factors (IF) typically also receive more submissions than journals with a lower IF or without an IF. Consequently, journals will aim at attaining higher scores in these rankings and journals need to position themselves in this increasingly competitive marketplace. A second transformational element is the digitization of the entire media value chain. In particular, the role of physical copies accessed either in a library or ordered on a subscription basis has diminished. This has changed the consumption pattern: first, most articles are nowadays accessed from electronic sources and are often printed for final reading; second, the amount of papers faculty members use in average has increased and a higher number of older publications from a broader spectrum of journal titles are cited; third, the average time for reading a single paper has decreased (Tenopir et al. 2009). Publishing companies have responded by offering electronic content, aggregators such as Ebsco, Emerald or ProQuest have entered the market and open access journals have emerged. It is the nature of these databases that articles are usually retrieved by keywords or other search criteria, but the traditional issue which has until now been available in (physical) libraries is about to disappear. Following the first transformational element authors are motivated to have their research accepted in a specific journal, but the publication in the physical issue is not key as long as the article is available online. In the first place, the transformation presents a challenge for publishing companies which need to adapt their business model. It also means that the content of a specific article – being a function of factors, such as review processes, quality of submitted material and a journal’s IF – is even more critical. Content-wise, the responsibility is not with the publishing company, but with editors from academic institutions and a board of peers. From the Electronic Markets’ perspective, it has been emphasized that the technical soundness of a submitted article is only a prerequisite. More important is that the content reveals some novel finding that impacts developing, using or R. Alt (*) University of Leipzig, Grimmaische Str. 12, 04109 Leipzig, Germany e-mail: rainer.alt@uni-leipzig.de