LETTER AND ANNOUNCEMENT FROM ROBERT VANDENBERG, INCOMING EDITOR,
ORGANIZATOINAL RESEARCH METHODS (ORM)
APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR CROSS-POSTINGS
It was a great honor to have been selected by Sage Publications, Inc. to be
the next Editor-in-Chief of Organizational Research Methods from 2008-2010.
I have tough acts to follow in that the past editors, Larry Williams and
Herman Aguinis, started and took ORM to unprecedented levels. My role
starting July 1, 2007 is as Incoming Editor and will overlap with Herman
Aguinis term until January 1, 2008. During this overlap, Herman remains
ORM Editor-In-Chief but is only processing manuscripts that entered his
queue on or before June 30, 2007 (including all outstanding revise and
resubmits and the like). As Incoming Editor, I am processing all new
submissions starting on July 1, 2007. I officially become Editor-In-Chief on
January 1, 2008.
The new Editorial Review Board for ORM is listed at the end of this
announcement. In summary, the Associate Editors are Donald Bergh
(University of Denver), Robert Gephart (University of Alberta), Timothy
Hinkin (Cornell University), Charles Lance (University of Georgia), and
Terri Scandura (University of Miami). Terri is the Associate Editor for
methodological resources (i.e., coordinates reviews of books, software,
etc.), and the other Associate Editors and I will be the action editors on
regular submissions. I would like to thank them and the 42 members of the
Editorial Board reviewers in advance for their willingness to join me in
this venture.
We are also very excited to announce that ORM is now on Manuscript Central
and may be found at
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/orm. Please enter this
link into your Favorites folder. I would like to publicly thank Sage
Publications, Inc. for all of the hard work they undertook to make this
happen by July 1st. The new ORM submission guidelines appear at the end of
this announcement but contact me if you would like me to send you a PDF
version. The guidelines will also appear in the October 2008 issue of ORM,
and will eventually appear at the Sage Website (http://orm.sagepub.com).
PLEASE NOTE these guidelines pertain only to new submissions after July 1,
2007. Authors returning manuscripts to Herman Aguinis and his editorial team
should follow the previous guidelines which are posted in all issues of ORM.
ORM, like all journals, also relies heavily on ad hoc reviewers. If you
have methodological (qualitative or quantitative) and/or statistical
interests and skills and would like to be considered as a reviewer, please
send me a note to that effect at
orm@terry.uga.edu. I will instruct you as
to what the next steps are to get you into our database.
With respect to manuscript processing, my goal as editor is to maintain and
hopefully improve upon the 60-day average time from submission to first
decision that Herman Aguinis was able to achieve during his tenure. We
fully realize the importance of timely and thoughtful feedback. The
double-blind review process remains in place. In general, as manuscripts
arrive, I will assign it to 3 reviewers and an Associate Editor. I will be
the action editor on some of the manuscripts myself.
With respect to ORM itself, my vision for the journal involves the
broadening of its content and the development of mechanisms that ensure that
papers published in the journal receive the credit that they deserve. I
have been affiliated both as a reviewer and Associate Editor with ORM since
its founding year in 1998. In those roles, my most common criticism is that
a given submission doesnt pass the So What test in terms of making a
novel and substantive contribution to the methods field. It doesnt matter
how well-planned and well-executed the study may be. If in the end it tells
us something that we didnt really need to know or repeats something we knew
already, then it fails the so what test. My purpose, therefore, is to
accept papers that address issues on which even the well-trained and
well-intentioned are likely to go wrong, and that have immediate
applicability to researchers both methodologically and empirically. My
point is that submissions should deal with larger questions that in the end
present advanced information that is of broad appeal not only to
methodological experts, but also researchers who are facing increasingly
complex study design and data analytic issues.
I seek to increase breadth of appeal in several ways. First is simply
communicating this vision; that is, urging you - ORMs potential pool of
authors and reviewers to place increased emphasis on the usefulness of the
paper. Second, I am in the process of designing 3 to 4 special feature
topic issues whereby proposals are solicited focusing, for example, on
reviewing and illustrating the use of a category of procedures or methods,
or as another example, that translate a certain methodological or analytical
approach into common analytic terms. I have already announced one such
feature topic titled, RESEARCH METHODS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP: OPPORTUNITIES
AND CHALLENGES. The Guest Editors for that feature topic are Jeremy Short
(Texas Tech University), Duane Ireland (Texas A&M University), and Dave
Ketchen (Auburn University). Third, I plan to solicit proposals for special
issues/sections that contain papers that tackle all sides of an emerging
issue. That is, it would be a point/counterpoint series of articles. This
would be a new feature of ORM but one that has been quite successful in
other journals.
Sage Publications, Inc. maintains a site listing the top most cited
(http://orm.sagepub.com/reports/mfc1.dtl) and most read
(http://orm.sagepub.com/reports/mfr1.dtl) ORM articles to date. While the
statistics at these sites pertain to only journals within Sage and thus, are
somewhat inaccurate, they still represent good examples of the types of
articles that meet the broad appeal goal that I seek from this journal. Due
to these articles as well as all of the publications appearing in ORM, the
Thomson Scientific (ISI) Journal Citation Reports for 2006 assigned ORM an
overall impact factor of 1.53, and ranked ORM in the top 21 out of 78
management journals (73rd percentile) in the Management category and the top
15 out of 54 journals (72nd percentile) for the first time in the Applied
Psychology category. In contrast, the 2005 impact factor was 1.10 with a
ranking in the top 27 out of 71 management journals (62nd percentile). In
short, since ORMs first appearance in the 2004 Journal Citation Reports,
ORM has experienced an ever increasing reputation among researchers both as
a place to publish and as a place to seek out leading edge knowledge on
organizational research methods. Larry Williams (ORM founding editor from
1998 to 2004) and Herman Aguinis (Editor-In-Chief, 2005-2007) deserve a
heart felt congratulations on steering ORM on this unprecedented path of
growth. Thank you, you two!!!
I would like to close this as well by thanking the members of both Larry
Williams and Herman Aguinis Editorial Review Boards, the cadre of ad hoc
reviewers upon whom they relied, and all authors and contributors to ORM.
Editing a major journal is a daunting task and would be impossible to do
without an excellent board, and ad hoc reviewers. Further, it is their
input that ultimately shapes the articles appearing in the journal.
However, even their task would be impossible to do if the submitted product
was not a strong one. Thus, the authors have contributed as well to ORMs
growth by recognizing it as an outlet for their best and strongest
methodological research. I hope all of you will continue to view ORM as a
strong outlet, and will continue to submit your work to me and my Editorial
Review Board team.
Sincerely,
Robert J. Vandenberg
Incoming Editor, Organizational Research Methods
Sage Publications, Inc. (http://orm.sagepub.com/)
Sponsored by the Research Methods Division, Academy of Management
(http://division.aomonline.org/rm/)
Housed at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia
(http://www.terry.uga.edu)
Phone 706-542-6876
Fax 706-542-3743
Email:
orm@terry.uga.edu
Associate Editors
Donald D. Bergh, University of Denver
Robert P. Gephart, Jr., University of Alberta, Canada
Timothy Hinkin, Cornell University
Charles E. Lance, University of Georgia
Terri A. Scandura, University of Miami
Founding Editor
Larry J. Williams, Virginia Commonwealth University (1998-2004)
Past Editor
Herman Aguinis, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center
(2005-2007)
Editorial Board
Herman Aguinis, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center
Mats Alvesson, University of Lund, Sweden
Daniel J. Beal, Rice University
Arthur G. Bedeian, Louisiana State University
Mark N. Bing, University of Mississippi
Paul D. Bliese, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
Philip Bobko, Gettysburg College
Brian K. Boyd, Arizona State University
Stephanie L. Castro, Florida Atlantic University
David Chan, Singapore Management University
Gilad Chen, University of Maryland
Gordon W. Cheung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Scott R. Colwell, University of Guelph
José M. Cortina, George Mason University
Jeremy F. Dawson, Aston University
Mark Easterby-Smith, Lancaster University
Jeffrey R. Edwards, University of North Carolina
Mark B. Gavin, Oklahoma State University
Lawrence R. James, Georgia Institute of Technology
Theresa J.B. Kline, University of Calgary
Ronald S. Landis, University of Memphis
James M. LeBreton, Purdue University
Kwok Leung, City University of Hong Kong
John E. Mathieu, University of Connecticut
Adam W. Meade, North Carolina State University
Kevin Mossholder, Louisiana State University
Daniel A. Newman, Texas A&M University
Fred Oswald, Michigan State University
Charles A. Pierce, University of Memphis
Robert E. Ployhart, University of South Carolina
Hannah R. Rothstein, Baruch College, City University of New York
Neal Schmitt, Michigan State University
Jeremy C. Short, Texas Tech University
Zeki Simsek, University of Connecticut
Anne D. Smith, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Paul E. Spector, University of South Florida
Christiane Spitzmüller, University of Houston
Jeffrey M. Stanton, Syracuse University
Eugene F. Stone-Romero, University of Texas at San Antonio
Michael C. Sturman, Cornell University
David J. Woehr, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Francis J. Yammarino, State University of New York at Binghamton
Manuscript Submission Guidelines:
Organizational Research Methods (ORM) was established to bring relevant
methodological developments to the attention of a broad range of researchers
working in areas represented within the domains of the organizational
sciences. An important goal of ORM is to promote an effective understanding
of current and new methodologies as applied in organizational research.
Thus, articles should be understandable to a general audience and should
assume background knowledge consistent with methodological and statistical
training provided in contemporary organizational sciences doctoral programs.
Authors should use the latter statement as a primary consideration when
deciding whether to submit to ORM. This does not mean that new
methodological and statistical procedures and concepts cannot be introduced.
Indeed, this is highly encouraged and welcomed.
Several types of articles are appropriate for ORM. One type addresses
questions about existing quantitative and qualitative methods and research
designs currently used by organizational researchers and may involve a
comparison of alternative available methods. Articles of this nature should
focus on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the analytical
technique(s) presented. A second type of article demonstrates new
applications of existing quantitative or qualitative methods to substantive
questions in organizational research. These articles should address the
manner in which the new applications advance understanding of organizational
research. A third type of article introduces methodological developments or
techniques from other disciplines to organizational researchers. For these
articles, the relative advantages of the new techniques should be clearly
discussed. ORM also includes several reoccurring features including essays
on methods, point/counterpoint debates, methods reviews, book reviews, and
computer software reviews. Articles that do not fit these categories may be
submitted to ORM, as long as they are written in a manner consistent with
the objectives stated above. Finally, scale or measurement development
manuscripts that are applications of standard and established measurement
development procedures are not encouraged. Manuscripts, however, that
challenge and/or advance standard and established measurement development
procedures and present something new with respect to those procedures are
encouraged.
Prospective authors must specify that their manuscript is not under
consideration at another journal and that it has not been published
elsewhere in substantially similar form or with substantially similar
content. Further, if the manuscript represents a substantial revision of a
previously rejected manuscript from ORM, it must be identified as such with
the previous manuscript number and a letter outlining why you feel it should
be considered in its new form.
Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/orm. Authors will be required to set up an
online account on the SAGETRACK system powered by ScholarOne. After logging
in, submissions are completed through your Author Center. Your title should
be no more than 20 words, and your abstract no more than 180 words.
Corresponding authors need to completely enter all co-author information as
well. The manuscript to be uploaded should be completely devoid of any
author identification, and be prepared using Microsoft Word. It should be
ONE file starting with the abstract on page 1 and with the text starting on
page 2. Following the text, arrange endnotes, references, appendices,
tables, and figures, in this order. Manuscripts should generally not
exceed 30 pages inclusive, and should follow the style guidelines of the
American Psychological Association (current edition).