By: Christine Moorman, Harald van Heerde, C. Page Moreau, and Robert W. Palmatier
Our editorial philosophy builds on the Journal of Marketing’s distinguished legacy while seeking to foster the next generation of marketing thought. We view ourselves as stewards of JM and will follow eight guiding principles during our tenure as editors.
Principle 1: JM is the discipline’s premier journal focused on substantive marketing questions. This substantive focus means that research published in JM offers theoretical and empirical insights into real-world marketing questions that are informative to or actionable by firms, policy makers, and other societal stakeholders engaged with marketing. This orientation also means that while methods and models should be rigorous, they should be deployed in the service of a marketing question (see Lehmann, McAlister, and Staelin 2011) and should be accessible to readers. It also means that theories should be developed and leveraged for insight into marketing problems.
Principle 2: JM values the contribution to the marketing discipline ahead of other disciplines. This focus means that articles have freedom to develop what previous editors have called “indigenous,” “home-grown” (Rust 2006), or “organic” (Kohli 2009) theories and concepts about marketing. We do not believe in a “formula” or generic template for research. Instead, authors should select methods and ideas that match the paper’s objectives to provide the greatest marketing insight.
Principle 3: Our team of editors, associate editors (AEs), and editorial review board (ERB) members is committed to a big-tent position. We have intentionally increased the diversity of these groups in terms of international representation, demographics, and methodological orientations. We welcome research originating from all over the world using any approach.
Our Commitment: The Journal of Marketing is committed to a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming publishing environment that includes editorial teams and scholars of all races, genders, sexual orientations, and religious affiliations around the world. JM’s marketplace of ideas thrives when diverse people and perspectives come together to tackle important marketing questions and problems facing our world. (added 6/12/2020)
Principle 4: We will take measured risks on potentially high-impact papers. The most novel ideas often struggle in the review process because they introduce new ways of thinking about and measuring important marketing phenomena. We will support the development of big new idea papers if they offer theoretical and empirical insights into real-world marketing problems.
Principle 5: We want to challenge the boundaries of the marketing discipline by publishing articles that advance new research questions designed to disrupt traditional marketing doctrine and to open up new areas of the discipline. Such papers challenge our natural tendencies to examine topics that were part of our training, build upon familiar theories, and/or use established methods.
Principle 6: We are committed to a fair, thorough, and constructive review process and are taking steps to foster this environment. In addition to recruiting a diverse team, our AE and ERB onboarding activities have included one-on-one meetings with AEs, webinars for ERB, and detailed written documents about these guidelines. We have counseled AEs not to count votes and to take risks on papers with potential. We have also worked to improve the match between papers and their review teams by updating topic/method codes and asking AEs for input on reviewers. Finally, we have created a new review form and will provide annual feedback to review team members on review constructiveness, thoroughness, and timeliness.
Principle 7: We seek a better balance between rigor and relevance. Many papers are dominated by methods and technicalities, leaving too little space for new marketing insights. While rigor is important, we believe that it sometimes comes at the expense of relevance. We encourage open and honest reporting of results, even if results are not robust 100% of the time.
Principle 8: JM should matter to more people. Our principles focus on ensuring JM content is relevant to the widest possible academic and non-academic target audiences. We plan to publish more articles, up to 60 articles per volume, while maintaining quality standards. We will work to improve the visibility of these articles by employing additional strategies that publicize JM articles in different types of media and formats for both academic and practitioner marketers.
As editors, we commit to working with JM authors, reviewers, and associate editors to uphold these principles. We believe this approach is good for JM and good for marketing!
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