The start and the end

Citation

Hayes, S. (2011), "The start and the end", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jfmm.2011.28415aaa.002

The start and the end

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Volume 15, Issue 1

I start to write the editorial for the first issue of each volume in the December of the preceding year of its publication – which always leaves me in a quandary; putting the finishing touches to one period and laying the foundations for the next over a cup of coffee, a SAD lamp and a never decreasing Christmas list. Which leads me to think once again of my own wish list for the journal. We have, together, ticked off so many of the intended developments but as would be expected the list keeps evolving. At a recent meeting between several members of the editorial team we were pleased to hear reports that the publication we all invest so much time in has a good, and growing, reputation in regions such as North America and the Asia-Pacific – thanks to the efforts of our regional editors in particular, but as a direct result of the increasingly managed quality of the research published in the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management.

In these heightened times of league tables, rankings and the general misuse of poorly devised (biblio)metrics I am constantly being asked about the impact rating of the journal, the rejection rate (at the same time as being asked “when will my paper be accepted” and the citation index. Matters of great importance to many of you around which I would like to stimulate some debate. The current situation has the journal without a place in the Thompson Scientific ISI ratings, comparing favourably with our peers in the Elsevier Scopus system and positioned highly by many of the other numerous evaluation methods available at the click of a mouse button. In line with many other marketing journals we are constantly placed a letter below our true value in most university or subject interest groups’ “private” lists and prejudiced against further because of our fashion niche – our authorship frequently cite from the larger pool of business and marketing literature but in return they rarely have recourse to cite from our smaller embedded sample – can we do anything to redress this imbalance? We currently have an acceptance to rejection ratio of around 3:2, something we want to reverse to be in-line with other journals and the expectations of faculty selectors, which brings in dimensions of selectivity with which I am not wholly comfortable (Editorial 14.2).

It is also worth bringing to the forefront of our minds some of the mechanics of publishing in the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management. I have mentioned the topic of open access publishing and institutional repositories in my previous editorials and wish to re-iterate Emeralds’ policy: the original author’s article (not formatted by Emerald) may be used in your chosen online repository, a most accommodating arrangement. For further information see Emerald’s Author’s Charter www.emeraldinsight.com/authors/writing/charter.htm One important aspect which accompanies the increasingly easy access to published information is the need to have evidenced consent from the original publisher when reproducing (in their entirety and as a replica) tables and diagrams which go beyond “common knowledge”. The sooner this is acquired and passed on in the submission process the less likely there are to be delays in publication – it is the responsibility of the author(s) to do this.

To draw an end to this piece I would like to devote Twenty Eleven to concentrate the journal’s efforts on developing the contribution from the geographic regions of India, China and Brazil. I look to you all as EAB members, reviewers and authors for support in this endeavour and I hope we all had a great Christmas!

Steve Hayes