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Dear Colleagues of the BPS Division,
It was great seeing many of you at the Academy of Management (AOM)
meetings in Atlanta and having the opportunity to THANK YOU in person for
all the support that you are providing to Organizational Research Methods
(ORM) as authors, reviewers, and readers. Those of you who attended the
Research Methods Division business meeting were able to receive updated
information regarding ORM's operations and recent successes. Overall, ORM
was highly visible at the AOM meetings and the number of submissions,
prestige, and reputation of the journal are improving constantly. For
example, ORM was one of only six journals (AMJ, AMR, ASQ, JoM, OBHDP, &
ORM) represented at a panel of editors at the New Doctoral Student
Consortium including over 150 doctoral students from all AOM disciplines.
Also, ORM had a strong presence at the OB, HR, Strategy, and Gender and
Diversity in Organizations Divisions Consortia (junior faculty, doctoral
students).
Let me provide you with some specific information and updates regarding
ORM:
1. In calendar year 2005, we received about 120 new submissions. In
calendar year 2006, we already received more than 100 new submissions.
Please join me in thanking associate editors Mark Gavin, Dave Ketchen,
Chuck Lance, Karen Locke, and Bob Vandenberg, and editorial assistant Barb
Stephens for countless hours of conscientious and highly professional
work.
2. ORM has achieved great visibility as evidenced by its placement in the
top-10 list of most prestigious journals (Zickar & Highhouse, The
Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 2001). The July 2005 ISI Web of
Knowledge Journal Citation Report placed ORM 27th out of 71 Management
journals with an impact factor of 1.10. Several colleagues told me in
Atlanta that ORM is now being placed in the A-category for journals at
several research-oriented universities. The speed at which ORM has
positioned itself among the group of elite scholarly journals is an
achievement that few publications can claim.
3. In the past year, the number of institutional subscriptions to ORM has
increased from 521 to 836 (about 60% increase). This means that more
researchers are likely to find an ORM article when they conduct an
electronic search via their library's portals.
4. Since January 1, 2005, the average turnaround time from manuscript
submission to authors receiving a decision letter is approximately 50 days
(yes, you read this correctly, turnaround time is just over 6 weeks!).
The vast majority of authors submitting papers to ORM receive comments
from 3 reviewers. The acceptance rate is about 10-20%.
5. Starting with the 2007 volume, ORM will increase the number of pages
from the current 500 to about 800. This means ORM will increase the number
of articles published each year from about 20 to about 30. The increase in
page numbers is such that the time lag between acceptance and publication
can be about 1 year or less.
6. We have five special issues underway that are attracting substantial
attention: (a) Nonresponse to Organizational Surveys (guest editors:
Rogelberg & Stanton; to be published in thean, &
Ployhart; to be published in the October 2007 issue), (b) Mediational
Inferences (guest editors: Bergh, DeShon, & Mathieu; to be published in
2008), (c) Determining the Quality of Qualitative Research (guest editors:
Locke, Golden-Biddle, & Easterby-Smith; to be published in 2008), and (d)
Methodological Issues in Strategic Management Research (guest editors:
Ketchen, Boyd, & Bergh; to be published in 2008). These special issues
reflect the broad interests of ORMâs readership including qualitative and
quantitative approaches as well as micro- and macro-level issues.
7. You may have noticed that starting with the January 2006 issue, ORM has
had a new look. First, in order to increase the visibility of each
article published in ORM, the complete citation for each article appears
at the top of the first page. As we move into an electronic world, we
want to make sure that citation information is as visible as possible.
Second, as the future of publishing is in many ways electronic, we want to
increase ease of onscreen viewing. So, the new look includes a change of
font to Times, which is easiest to view onscreen as well as easy to
transfer to XML format online.
8. We have revamped ORM's web site (see
http://orm.sagepub.com). If your
library subscribes to ORM, you can download full-text articles (in pdf
format) and conduct searches using various parameters (keywords, author,
etc.). If your library does not subscribe to ORM, please forward the
following link to your librarian showing various subscription options:
http://www.sagepublications.com/2006subscriptioninfo.htm
9. You can receive ORM's table of contents via email about 1 month prior
to the publication of each issue FREE OF CHARGE. For information on how to
do this, please visit
https://online.sagepub.com/cgi/register
10. After a very careful process involving the entire ORM editorial board,
the 2005 Best Article of the Year Award went to Gilad Chen (U. of
Maryland), Paul D. Bliese (U.S. Army Medical Research Unit-Europe), and
John E. Mathieu (U. of Connecticut) for their article titled âConceptual
Framework and Statistical Procedures for Delineating and Testing
Multilevel Theories of Homologyâ (vol. 8, pp. 375-409). Also, after
careful deliberations with the associate editors, the Best Reviewer of the
Year Award went to Alex Stewart (Marquette U.) and Neal Schmitt (Michigan
State U.). Both decisions were extremely difficult given the very large
number of highly deserving nominees.
11. If you are not currently serving as a reviewer for ORM and would like
to serve in this capacity, please fill out the reviewer expertise and
contact form available at:
http://www.sagepub.com/orm_survey
In sum, ORM is doing very well. Please feel free to disseminate the
information included in this message to colleagues and doctoral students.
Also, I encourage you to submit their work to ORMâs regular and special
issues. Given our turnaround time of about 6 weeks and increasing
visibility, reputation, and impact, I hope prospective authors will find
it very appealing to continue to send their best methodological work to
ORM.
As always, do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions of
ideas on how to improve ORM. Thank you again for all your support.
All the best,
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Herman Aguinis, Ph.D.
Mehalchin Term Professor of Management
Editor, Organizational Research Methods
http://orm.sagepub.comThe Business School
University of Colorado at Denver and
Health Sciences Center
http://www.cudenver.edu/~haguinis******************************************
Lisa Schurer Lambert
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
Georgia State University
35 Broad Street, Room 1013
Atlanta GA 30303-4014
Phone: 404.463.9227
Email:
lisalambert@gsu.edu