Editorial: RAUSP Management Journal: past, present, and future challenges

Citation

Hourneaux Junior, F., Hamza, K. and Santos Jhunior, R.O. (2023), "Editorial: RAUSP Management Journal: past, present, and future challenges", RAUSP Management Journal, Vol. 58 No. 1, pp. 2-4. https://doi.org/10.1108/RAUSP-02-2023-271

Despite being the oldest Brazilian journal in Management, RAUSP Management Journal has undergone several changes in the past few years. Since 2016, we have increasingly developed our internationalisation process (Saes & Hourneaux Junior, 2019) by publishing articles in the English language and being more present in an international context, as acknowledged by both authors and institutions (Hourneaux Junior & Hamza, 2022).

These changes have brought positive and rewarding consequences to our journal, as described in the next section. Nevertheless, despite the good results we have achieved so far, there are still several critical challenges to be faced, which will be addressed in the final section.

About RAUSP Management Journal’s performance

We have seen an evolution in all the indexes and impact factor calculations in which our journal is included. Table 1 presents a summary of these figures in recent years. In all those indexes, our performance has expressively improved.

In the past few years, besides the evident progress in the aspects mentioned above, RAUSP Management Journal has been included in both Scopus (Elsevier) and Emerging Sources Citation Index (Clarivate Analytics) databases, essential references for a journal’s acknowledgement in the academic community. Another relevant achievement was the inclusion of our journal in the Chartered Association of Business Schools by the Academic Journal Guide 2021.

Since 2019, the number of article submissions from overseas authors has been increasing. As a result, the rate of international versus Brazilian authors is getting more balanced. While in 2019, 70% of the overall submissions to RAUSP Management Journal were from Brazilian authors, in 2022, this number declined to 52%. Figure 1 shows the countries of submitting papers’ authors in 2022.

We have also expanded the boundaries of our editorial team. As for our Associate Editors, in addition to Brazilian ones from various institutions of national prestige, we currently have editors from relevant research centres in Canada, China, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Portugal and the UK. Soon, colleagues from other countries will join our team following our internationalisation plans. We can notice that the same is happening regarding our reviewers. Overall, in 2022, 177 reviewers worked for our journal. Besides Brazil, they were also from Argentina, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, the UK and the USA. Of course, there is a correlation between the increase in the number of foreign Associate Editors and the number of foreign reviewers.

RAUSP Management Journal’s future challenges

Despite the results we have gotten so far, we foresee several challenges to be faced in the (not so far) future.

First, we have seen a yearly decline in the number of submissions, as shown in Figure 2. We understand that this happens not only to our journal. There are some potential identifiable causes for this decline. Firstly, a particular aspect. We entirely shifted to English for all submissions, which may have left behind Brazilian authors who still had their papers in Portuguese. Secondly, a general aspect, this decline could be a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic when some researchers had to adapt to a new scenario and therefore reduced their academic output. If this trend continues, our journal and others may face a shortage of papers.

Despite this negative trend, it is essential to emphasise that the articles’ level of quality has increased over the years, which is obviously a positive aspect, and we are still holding a high standard bar of accepted papers (in 2022, only 9.3% of the submissions were approved).

Second, we intend to reduce the time between paper submission and publication. To do so, we are working more closely with reviewers and Associate Editors to identify the main difficulties they face throughout the reviewing process. Of course, at the same time, this goal must not impact the reviews’ quality.

Third, we must not only keep but enhance our status on all the indexes and impact factor lists deemed as benchmarking in the management field. As previously shown in Table 1, our performance has only improved. Nevertheless, our goals still include being approved to have a JCR impact factor and getting better and better on all others.

The fourth challenge we should face in 2023 and the following years is improving our communication with an international audience, allowing authors to learn more about our journal. This could be done through our editorial board, Associate Editors and international conferences. Moreover, as our indexes improve, we expect more academics to get to know our journal, which can lead us to a new positioning among international publications.

Finally, besides the academy, we must reinforce the search for a broader impact of our articles. During the submission process, aside from the traditional research implications and findings, our authors must indicate both the article’s practical and social implications. Such clauses guarantee that the articles have an actual impact over and above the academy. We ourselves have published several editorials covering and fostering themes related to non-academic impact.

Again, we acknowledge that all our accomplishments so far are to be shared with our authors, Associate Editors, editorial team members and reviewers. We still count on everyone to face the challenges ahead to keep publishing good management literature.

Figures

Figure 1.

Countries of 2022 submitting papers’ authors

Figure 2.

Submissions over time

Table 1.

RAUSP Management Journal’s indexes

Index	2020	2021	2022
Scopus CiteScore	0.4	1.2	2.5*/3.9**
Clarivatés Journal Citation Indicator (JCI)	0.25	0.36	0.37
Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR)	Q4/0.137	Q3/0.235	Q2/0.442
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)	0.079	0.695	0.921

Notes:

*Annual CiteScore 2022;

**CiteScore Tracker in December 2022