MARRII Journal Assessment Procedural Standards and Selection Criteria

The goal of this initial stage of the assessment process is two fold: (a) to unequivocally establish the identity, legitimacy and principal officials responsible for a candidate journal and (b) to establish the scientific quality of the journal. Thus to do this, we assess descriptive and scientific quality using the criteria described below:

STAGE I(a) Descriptive Quality Criteria

Upon receiving a request for evaluation from a candidate management journal, the journal will first of all undergo a descriptive quality assessment that entails assessing the identification and establishment details of the journal, its policies, its format, and accessibility to the journal's content. Detailed explanation of what these four-item criteria measures is presented below.

Journal Identification

Journal ISSN:

Candidate journals must demonstrate legitimacy by providing a registered ISSN (print, online or both). The journal's ISSN must be verifiable through the web portal of the official ISSN database and must be conspicuously displayed on all of the journal's portals, platforms and communication materials.

Journal Title:

Candidate journals must have a unique title that is persistently displayed on its content, web presence, platforms and communication outlets. Most importantly, the journal's title and its conceptualization must be consistent with its registered ISSN, stated management domain, aims and scope, published content, editorial board domain expertise and author expertise.

Journal Publisher:

To further fulfill the requirement for legitimacy, the candidate journal must unambiguously identify its publisher by name as well as the publisher's official physical address(es). Candidate journals that are affiliated/owned/domiciled in universities, research institutes or disciplinary associations must provide verifiable identification and contact details of the relevant institution.

Journal Website Address:

Candidate journals must present a verifiable and active website url. In rare cases where the journal maintains a print-only model, access details must be provided to the MARRII team.

Contact Details of Journal:

During the assessment process, the MARRII team may occasionally need to maintain direct communication channels with principal officers steering editorial and production processes within candidate journals. Therefore, the contact details of these principal officers must be provided.

Journal Policies

Stated Peer Review Policy:

Candidate journals are required to provide evidence of and access to an unambiguous peer review policy demonstrating its commitment to rigorous and transparent external peer review processes for all of its published research articles (irrespective of whether the journal uses a pre- or post-publication peer-review model). It must also provide for sufficient editorial scrutiny of other output types such as commentaries and opinion pieces.

Stated Ethics Policy:

Candidate journals are also required to provide evidence and access to a clear and transparent ethics policy and guidelines for authors as well as for published manuscripts. Where a journal adopts well known ethics principles such as COPE or WAME, access to the full document must be provided to authors in a transparent manner either through a downloadable format present on the journal's website or via a hyperlink to the full text of the document on the standard organization's website.

Publication Policy (frequency, volume, coverage):

Candidate journals must make available a clear indication of the regularity of publications by indicating if issues and volumes (where applicable) are published annually, bi-annually, quarterly, monthly, etc. Journals must also unambiguously describe the coverage scope and demonstrate an ability to attract sufficient volume of publications within its stated scope.

Journal Format

Scholarly Content

Candidate journals must primarily publish scholarly content that are original and appropriate to an audience of both management scholars and management practitioners.

Article Titles/Abstracts:

With the exception of commentaries, letters to the editors and other similar communications, all scholarly content published by candidate journals must contain a clear title and an abstract section. Both of these must be in the English language. Where articles are written in a language other than English, English language translations of the title and abstract must be provided.

Persistent Links to Articles (DOI):

All published articles must have a link to a persistent and permanent version of the article. They typically should be assigned a DOI, details of which must be clearly provided on the webpage of the article as well as in print versions (where applicable). Where a candidate journal deploys post-publications peer review and publishes multiple versions of the same manuscript, access to all versions must be clearly and persistently made available to the public.

Bibliographic Data:

To enable an accurate, quick and smooth indexation process, candidate journals must demonstrate that bibliographic information such as author names and affiliations as well as all reference materials cited within a publication are in Roman script.

Author Affiliation/Contact Details:

Information regarding the name(s) of all contributing author(s) as well as the institutions to which they are affiliated must be clearly provided and appropriately displayed on the web, .pdf or print versions of articles where applicable. Contact details of at least a corresponding author must similarly be provided.

Editorial Board/Team Affiliation

Sufficient identification, professional and contact details of members of the editorial board/team must be provided and clearly stated in all key journal level communications. Should the need arise to contact members of the editorial members/team, they must be readily available.

Contact Details:

Candidate journals must provide the contact details of the key corresponding editor and primary production team-lead to establish a direct and seamless channel of communication between the candidate journal and the MARRII team.

Access to Journal Content

Website Functionality & Information structure:

Candidate journals must have fully functioning websites displaying accurate information regarding the aim, scope, regularity, ISSN, published articles, and archiving system of the journal, as well as those of its principal officers including its Editor-in-Chief where applicable, editorial board members, author guidelines, commitment to rigor and relevance, type of access (open/closed) etc. This information must be conspicuously displayed so that visitors can easily find and access them.

Content Access by the MARRII Team:

Candidate journals must provide the MARRII team with full access to all of its published content without any viewing restrictions. This may involve the provision of long-term access via a username and password by the candidate journal, or the use of MARRII's IP ranges for access to subscription-only content.

STAGE I(b) Scientific Quality Criteria

After a candidate journal has successfully scaled through the descriptive quality assessment sub-stage 1(a), next, it moves to sub-stage I(b) where it is evaluated for its scientific quality using an 8-item scientific quality assessment criteria. Detailed explanation of what these 8-item criteria measures is presented below.

Content Coherence

Candidate journals must demonstrate coherence and consistency among its title, stated aims, scope, and statement of purpose. This is equally applicable to regular and special issues alike.

Theoretical Grounding

Articles published in candidate journals must be grounded in theory and must appropriately and adequately cite and acknowledge the extant body of literature to which the publication is contributing as well as cross-disciplinary but relevant bodies of literature where necessary.

Adherence to Policies

Candidate journals must demonstrate adherence to their stated policy statements. As stated elsewhere, information found on the candidate journal's website must not only be current, but must also be accurate as false marketing or contentious content of any sort will be thoroughly scrutinized during the assessment process.

Adherence to Scientific/Domain Standards

The policy statements of candidate journals must conform to widely held scientific standards, best practices and principles as recognized by general scientific standards organizations such as COPE, WAME, as well as domain/discipline-specific scholarly standards stipulated or recognized by national, regional or international scholarly organizations/associations such as the Academy of Management (AOM), Strategic Management Society (SMS), American Marketing Association (AMA) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) among others, where necessary.

Structure of the Editorial Board/Team

Editorial board/team members, whether external or internal to the candidate journal, must be identifiable, diverse and must have a proven publication history that largely reflects scholarly expertise in the journal's core scholarly discipline and scope. Members representing practice, must have had an extensive career and expertise within the journal's core domain/discipline. The size of a candidate journal's editorial team must be commensurate with the size and reach of the journal.

Peer Review Rigor

A candidate journal must demonstrate the rigor of its peer-review process. Its published content must not exhibit any of the myriad manifestations of a poor peer review process, such as articles with inadequate/inappropriate methodological or theoretical sections, absence of analytical (qualitative, quantitative or mixed) rigor, poor/unethical use of citations and a considerable amount of publications outside the aims and scope of the candidate journal, among others.

Diversity of Authors

Articles published in candidate journals must be by authors whose professional affiliations, geographic diversity, publication history and primary scholarly/disciplinary community reflects the aims and scope of the journal.

Funding Disclosure

Candidate journals must require and have a mechanism for disclosing the presence/absence and sources of funding within each published article.

Having successfully passed the assessment of quality in stage I, the candidate journal enters stage II of the process. The goal of this second stage of the assessment process is two fold: (a) to establish the candidate journal's commitment to, integration of, and prioritization of management-practitioner relevance at the journal level, with regard to its operations and processes, and (b) to systematically establish the relevance of the content of its published articles to management practitioner audiences. Thus to do this, we assess relevance in operations and article content relevance using the criteria described below:

STAGE II(a): Relevance in Operations

In sub-stage II(a) the candidate journal is assessed for its commitment to, integration of and prioritization of management practitioner relevance with regard to its operations and processes using an 8-item relevance in operations assessment criteria. Detailed explanation of what these 8-item criteria measures is presented below.

Commitment to Relevance

At MARRII, our position is that rigor is crucial in management research, but rigor by itself is not enough. At the minimum, equal prioritization of rigor and relevance must be demonstrated by candidate journals. In other words, candidate journals containing rigorous management research that is not relevant to practitioners will not be considered for indexation or coverage. Therefore, candidate journals must explicitly express their commitment to management research relevance. Either as part of its publication policy or as a stand-alone policy, candidate journals must provide a clear and transparent statement regarding their commitment to management research relevance, and must provide relevance-integration guidelines to authors, editorial team members and reviewers.

Relevance in Manuscript Development

Candidate journals must demonstrate that beyond an ‘implications for practice’ section, published papers explicitly consider relevance to practitioners while determining the management research problem, in designing the research methodology, data collection, and in the discussion and recommendation sections of their research. This can be demonstrated either by academia-practitioner co-authorship of papers or authorship by academic(s) in clearly documented consultation with related practitioner(s). In both cases, the research problem studied must originate from practice (in the case of timely research) or originate from extant scholarly research (in the case of timeless research). In other words, irrespective of the temporal nature of the research problem (timely or timeless), manuscript development must have verifiable practitioner input.

Relevance in Peer Reviews

A commitment to relevance also entails that the review process be infused with practitioner insight/input. Therefore, candidate journals are required to present a peer review process and criteria that reflects the equal importance accorded to both rigor and relevance. In other words, expert practitioners from the corresponding management domain must be present on the candidate journal's peer review team alongside scholars, for each publication.

Relevance in Editorial Operations

The candidate journal's editorial board or internal editorial team must be composed of both management scholars and practitioners preferably in equal proportion. Editorial activities and processes must demonstrate equal consideration for the maximization of relevance just as they traditionally do for rigor.

Relevance in Output Format

Candidate journals must demonstrate a prioritization of practitioners' interest with regard to the output format of their publications. Traditional journal formats have historically made management research contents intellectually difficult for practitioners to access through jargon-filled, uninspiring and dense article format designs. Candidate journals must demonstrate a commitment to relevance in output format by having a practitioner-friendly article format that is jargon-free and easily accessible to practitioners intellectually.

Timeliness of Publication

One of the pillars of relevance is the prompt availability of research to practitioners. In order for management research to be found useful among practitioners, it must be made available on time to be applied to the resolution of the management problem it seeks to address or to be used in managerial decision making in a timely fashion. This is particularly important given the fast-paced change that happens in the real world of management practice. As such, long periods of convergence of traditional management publications is detrimental to the larger need of management practitioners. Therefore, candidate journals must demonstrate turnaround times that are reflective of the needs of management practitioners. MARRII prefers turnaround periods that are a third of the average traditional management publications turnaround period.

Accessibility of Output to Practitioners

While candidate journals operating open or closed access models are eligible to be covered in the MARRII Full Collection™, in line with both the ideal future of scientific publication models and management practitioners’ need for easy access to scholarly insights, MARRII recommends the use of access models that allow for easy access, especially those that deploy an open access model.

Reach Within Practice

Candidate journals must demonstrate considerable reach and dissemination efforts targeted at management practitioner communities. Evidence of this includes reach within profession-specific associations, profession-specific consulting communities, domain-specific industry associations and representation in practitioner-oriented media outlets.

STAGE II(b): Article Content Relevance

Upon successfully passing the assessment of relevance at the journal operations level in sub-stage II(a), the candidate journal is assessed for the relevance of the content of its published articles to management practitioners using a 7-item article content relevance assessment criteria. Detailed explanation of what these 7-item criteria measures is presented below.

Descriptive Relevance

Traditional management research has been accused of “armchair theorizing”- a phenomenon in which there is a disconnect between the presentation of management problems derived from scholarly theory and real world manifestations of such problems. Articles published by candidate journals must accurately present and describe problems in a manner that is representative of real life management situations; and convincingly demonstrate that research questions are relevant to practice.

Currency Relevance

At MARRII, we recognize two categories of management research under the problem currency relevance category. They are timely and timeless management research. Timely management research are those whose topic/problem are current or trending in practitioner spheres, and for which derived insights are readily implementable/deployable by management practitioners. Timeless management research are those management research whose research questions seek to synthesize extant management research for summary insights of general and non-temporal benefit to practitioners; those which seek to merely stimulate critical thinking among management practitioners and scholars; those which seek to review, initiate or advance management research methodologies or instruments; and those which seek to direct future research. To be considered for MARRII Full Collection™ coverage, the research problem of all timely research published in candidate journals must originate from practice; while the research problem of all timeless research published can originate from management theory/literature, but must be grounded in management practice.

Goal Relevance

To be covered in the MARRII Full Collection™, articles published in candidate journals must demonstrate that they contain focal topics, main or dependent variable(s) that are verifiably relevant to outcome(s) of interest to practitioners. This is irrespective of whether such articles represent timely or timeless research.

Operational Validity

To be covered in the MARRII Full Collection™, articles published in candidate journals must demonstrate where applicable, that a proper set of independent/predictor variables was used, and that these variables can be manipulated in real world management and organization settings. This is irrespective of whether such articles represent timely or timeless research.

Non-Obviousness

Articles published in candidate journals must present insights, results or information that are not only useful to management practitioners, but transcend common-sense in the sense that to management practitioners, they are non-obvious, novel or both.

Actionable Advice for Practitioners

Beyond traditional ‘implications for practice’ sections, articles published in candidate journals must contain a section that explicitly offers actionable and deployable advice to management practitioners. Preferably, ones that are similar to management consulting advice (where possible).

Article Readability

To be covered in the MARRII Full Collection™, articles published in candidate journals must be jargon-free and presented in a language level that is practitioner friendly. Preferably, language levels that conform to grade 8 levels.

Finally, after successfully scaling through the assessment of practitioner relevance in stage II, the candidate journal enters stage III of the process. The goal of this third stage of the assessment process is to evaluate the individual and collective impact of articles published in the candidate journal, on management practitioners. To this, we assess impact on management practitioners using the two criteria described below:

Actual Use

To be indexed in the MARRII Prime Collection™ , candidate journals must demonstrate sufficient impact on management practitioners by containing sufficient management research articles that have been actually used by management practitioners in any of the following four categories: (a) direct implementation to resolve management issues, (b) insight input to design or create new management processes, (c) insight input to stimulate critical thinking or (d) synthesized summary insight to aid decision making. Actual use data is collected through bi-annual company surveys of management practitioners.

Mentions in Practitioner Targeted Outlets

To be indexed in the MARRII Prime Collection™, candidate journals must demonstrate sufficient mentions within practitioner-targeted media outlets such as HBR, MIT SLOAN, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Forbes, The Economist, Wall Street Journal etc.; as well as in major consulting firm publications, reports and blogs such as the McKinsey Quarterly or BCG Insights.

Upon evaluation, candidate journals that fully and successfully meet both the descriptive and scientific quality criteria in stage I, move to stage II of the assessment process. However, journals that fail to fully meet the descriptive or scientific quality criteria for the first time, can resubmit for re-assessment without any time or material restrictions. Failure to fully meet the descriptive or scientific quality criteria after subsequent assessments attracts a minimum 1 year resubmission wait period.

If a candidate journal scales through quality assessment in stage I it moves to stage II. If after evaluating it for its relevance to management practitioners in stage II, it is found to meet the relevance in operations and article content relevance sets of criteria, the candidate journal will move to stage III. If however, the candidate journal fails to fully meet any of the relevance in operations or article content relevance criteria, the candidate journal will be rejected and will only be allowed to re-submit for re-evaluation, after a 2 year re-submission wait period.

If a candidate journal successful at stage II moves to stage III and upon assessing it for impact on management practitioners, it is found to have fully met the criteria and the impact threshold, it will be indexed in the main Management Research Relevance and Impact Index™ [MARRII] and the relevant sub-index such as S-MARRII™, M-MARRII™, H-MARRII™, etc. If however, the candidate journal is judged to be unsuccessful at this stage (stage III), it will be indexed in the Emerging Management Research Relevance and Impact Index™ [EMARRII] and will be continuously re-evaluated in house and automatically elevated into the main MARRII index once it meets the impact criteria.

Journals indexed in MARRII™ and any of its sub indices or in EMARII™ will be removed from the full collection if after re-assessments such journals are found to have lost quality, relevance or both.