Sub-Plenary 2-6

The Tensions and Challenges of Editorship in Evolving Contexts: Enabling Creativity and Enacting Control

 

Friday, July 4, 2025, 16:00–17:30 EEST

Room:  Pierce-PC 908–909


Organizers:
Daniel Muzio, University of York, United Kingdom
Paolo Quattrone, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Chair:
Christine Beckman, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
 
Speakers:
Matthew A. Cronin, George Mason University, USA
Tine Köhler, University of Melbourne, Australia
Shuang Ren, Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom
Kevin Rockmann, George Mason University, USA
 

Management scholarship and research and the institutions that produce these have been under-attack for a while. Our publication process is viewed as too demanding, lengthy and costly as well as generating research which is often lacking in novelty and relevance. For some at least, the norms of our publication process have stifled our ability to engage with practice and to help address key societal challenges. Others have criticised biases in current editorial and peer review practices, which have privileged certain voices over others and generally sanctioned the hegemony of North American approaches. Relations between different stakeholders in the publication processes are increasingly strained and there are serious concerns with regards to the sustainability of the current system.

Furthermore, we are on the cusp of epochal change as a number of wide ranging changes are in train. Whilst some of these may be intended to address some of the issues mentioned above, they are generating high levels of uncertainty. As we migrate to an ‘article based economy’ where the revenues of journals and their publishers will be tied to the number of articles they publish (via the article process charges that each article generates) there will be significant unintended consequences. Editors will be under increasing contractual pressures to publish more. Publishers will become more involved in the daily activities of their journals. Peer review will become ‘lighter’ or even be deferred post publication, raising concerns for quality control. Predatory journals and paper mills will become more common. At the same time article processing fees will be prohibitive to many scholars across the world, limiting their ability to publish. Furthermore, AI is raising all sorts of ethical dilemmas and redefining the very notion of authorship.
 
Against this backdrop, we have created the Organization and Management Editor Network (OMEN) which brings together editors of management journals (broadly defined) to discuss areas of common concern and to respond and ideally influence developments in our field. This event is part of this project. Our speakers, who are drawn from the OMEN network, will explore, reflect on, and discuss the current status of the academic publishing field and of its core institutions whilst seeking to suggest some creative ways in which editors can add value to both the authors and the users of academic knowledge. The main argument developed in this sub-plenary is that more creativity is needed to refashion the institutions of academic publishing to make sure that we overcome the limitations of the past and to resist some of the unintended consequences arising from current changes. As such, this sub-plenary (1) provides an important opportunity to discuss the role of peer reviewed journals and their editors in a rapidly changing publication landscape, 2) to think of ways in which we can enhance creativity in the editorial process, and 3) to introduce OMEN, its objectives and activities to the broader EGOS community.
 
As clear from the text above, our proposal is explicitly focused on the conference’s main theme of creativity as it tries to inject more of this within the peer review system and in the academic publishing field. This theme is critical to the EGOS community given the centrality that publishing in peer reviewed journals has for the production of knowledge and the development of academic careers. This is all the more important in the current context where peer reviewed journals and their editorial practices have been subjected both to extensive criticism and to radical changes.
 
The format of the sub-plenary includes an introduction by the organizers (5 minutes); presentations (10 minutes each) by the four speakers; responses by speakers to statements in other presentations + questions from organizers (15 minutes); Q&A and open discussion (30 minutes).
 

Biographies

Christine Beckman is a Professor in the Technology Management Program at University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. She is the outgoing Editor-in-Chief at Administrative Science Quarterly. Christine has published over 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is known for her research on entrepreneurship, organizational learning and networks, and gender inequality and technology.
 
Matthew A. Cronin is a Professor of Management at George Mason University, USA. He studies how to make collaboration more creative and how organizational science can create more useful and usable knowledge. His work has appeared in top-tier publications such as PANAS, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Annals, among others. Matthew was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Academy of Management Annals and Organizational Psychology Review. He co-authored “The Craft of Creativity”, which was a finalist for AOM’s 2019 George R. Terry Book Award.
 
Tine Köhler is a Professor of International Management at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests include cross-cultural management, cross-cultural communication and coordination, group processes, qualitative research methods, research design, and regression. Her work has been published in Organizational Research Methods, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, Human Resource Management, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, amongst others. Tine is currently Co-Editor-in Chief at Organizational Research Methods and previously held Associate Editor roles at Organizational Research Methods and Academy of Management Learning and Education.
 
Daniel Muzio is a Professor of Management at the School for Business and Society, University of York, United Kingdom. He has over ten years’ experience in editorial roles (Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief) across a range of journals, including the Journal of Management Studies and Journal of Professions and Organization. Daniel is also the Chair of the Organization and Management Editors Network (OMEN), which seeks to support, represent and develop editors, and editorial practice.
 
Paolo Quattrone is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the EGOS journal Organization Studies. He is Professor of Accounting, Governance and Society at the Alliance Manchester Business School, United Kingdom, where he also leads the Centre for the Analysis of Investment Risk, Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and MISUM Visiting Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. Paolo is the 5th recipient of the EIASM Interdisciplinary Leader Award. He is interested in how the visible and the invisible, absences, no-things, ambiguity, mystery and the unknowable affect decision making, organizing, data visualizations, governance, and the persistence of institutions.
 
Shuang Ren is Professor of Organisation, Work and Leadership, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at Queen’s Business School, Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom. Her research is at the intersection of sustainability, human resource management, and leadership. Shuang is Co-Editor-in-Chief of British Journal of Management. Prior to this, she served as Associate Editor of British Journal of Management and Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.
 
Kevin Rockmann is a Professor of Management at George Mason University’s Costello College of Business, USA. He researches working relationships in organizations, including how these are generated, maintained, and dissolved. Kevin has published in various outlets including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Discoveries, Journal of Applied Physics, Journal of Management, and Organizational Research Methods, amongst others. He is the immediate past Editor-in-Chief of Academy of Management Discoveries, where he worked on promoting both exploratory research and creative forms of academic writing.