Abstract
These days, major journals in business and management studies increasingly draw our attention to “grand challenges” (Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman, 2015; George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016) defined as “specific critical barrier(s) that, if removed, would help solve an important societal problem with a high likelihood of global impact through widespread implementation” (George et al., 2016, p. 1881). Often these challenges stretch beyond what was traditionally seen as the domain of business and management studies, incorporating attention for interactions between business and society on issues such as climate change (Ansari, Wijen, & Gray, 2013; Backman, Verbeke, & Schulz, 2017; Howard-Grenville, Buckle, Hoskins, & George, 2014), societal resilience (van der Vegt, Essens, Wahlstrom and George, 2015) and social innovation (van Wijk, Zietsma, Dorado, de Bakker, & Martí, in press), or forced labor and modern slavery (Crane, 2013; Dahan & Gittens, 2010). Such challenges are characterized by their uncertain, complex, and evaluative nature (Ferraro et al., 2015), posing new questions to business and management studies that have so far been receiving less attention in this field. So, with the increasing attention to these challenges, the societal impact of business also has gained a more prominent position in the mainstream business and management literature, trying to see how these challenges affect our understanding of management, organizations, and individuals. Or, as posed in an editorial in the Academy of Management Journal: “How can changes of such magnitude not be important for a wide range of organizations in the private, public and non-profit sectors?” (Howard-Grenville et al., 2014, p. 615). Special issues in a variety of business and management journals underline this shifting focus, as do regular editorials and the themes selected for major annual conferences in the field.
We welcome this development, even if it is long overdue. Business & Society was founded in 1960 as the first journal exclusively dedicated to publishing research in the field of business and society. As stated somewhat ambitiously, “We aim to be the leading, top-ranked outlet for scholarly work dealing specifically with the intersection of business and society” (Crane, Henriques, Husted, & Matten, 2015, p. 5). The journal publishes research that develops, tests, and refines theory, and that enhances our understanding of important societal issues and their relation to business. Over the past few years, the journal has developed steadily in terms of issues per year, in terms of impact factor (which rose to 3.298 in 2016), and hence in overall visibility in scholarly debates.
So, we have a domain that is attracting more and more attention and a journal that is well-positioned to play a leading role in these important debates, situated somewhat in between journals that focus more on business ethics (such as Journal of Business Ethics and Business Ethics Quarterly) and more general business and management journals (such as the journals of the Academy of Management, Journal of Management, or Journal of Management Studies), as well as reaching out to a broader inter-disciplinary audience. Following the developments noted above, we see more and more authors finding their way to Business & Society: last year we received some 500 manuscripts. Working with highly knowledgeable guest editors, we have published special issues that speak to the aforementioned grand challenges, for instance, on bottom of the pyramid strategies (Dentchev et al., 2018), or on business, society, and economic inequality (Bapuji, Husted, Lu, & Mir, 2018), with many new issues planned on themes such as social innovation and institutional theory (van Wijk et al., in press) or stakeholder theory at the crossroads (forthcoming in Business & Society).
Meanwhile, over the years pressure on academics to publish in high-ranking journals has increased—the adage “publish or perish” is increasingly guiding scholars’ career options (cf. de Rond & Miller, 2005; Macdonald & Kam, 2007) as scholarly impact data become more available, in part because journals and institutions are increasingly being asked to demonstrate their impact 1 or contribution. As Judge, Cable, Colbert, and Rynes (2007) indicate, building on Monastersky (2005), pressure to publish in the highest-impact journals has led to more competition and this has impacted the specialty journals that used to serve specific disciplines. What are considered to be quality journals also tends to change over time, with the more general journals tending “to be more stable than those with a narrower focus” (Clark & Wright, 2007, p. 614).
Furthermore, there is a steep increase in the number of scholarly publications and publication outlets, partly driven by the rise of online publications and the push toward alternative (open access) models for publication. This puts pressure on the entire publication system, from journal editors having to handle more papers, to reviewers receiving more requests to review, and to authors increasingly struggling to find a fitting home for their work. In response, a growing market of open access and “predatory journals” has emerged (Xia et al., 2015).
All these developments underline the importance of having a clear profile for a specialty journal whereby the journal communicates consistently the scope of a journal (Crane et al., 2015) or what constitutes a contribution to a particular field (Crane, Henriques, Husted, & Matten, 2016). Next to offering prospective authors and readers an idea on what the scope of a journal is, it also underlines the added value of a specialty journal relative to more general management journals. This raises the question of course although of what types of research, specifically, a journal such as ours is seeking and what indeed makes for an exemplary contribution. To date, we have not sought to prioritize particular types of articles or recognize any particular articles over others. However, with the need to crystallize the unique positioning of Business & Society, and to highlight both the excellent quality of the work we publish and to provide some broad indication of the type of work that we feel is particularly worthy of recognition, we believe the time is right to introduce a Best Article Award for Business & Society. The inaugural award will go to the best article published in print in volume 56 of Business & Society in 2017.
So what should a best article in Business & Society look like? The answer to this question goes to the heart of the procedure in determining our selection of finalists. In the following, we elaborate on what marks out, for us, an exemplary article—what makes it popular to read, what makes it likely to be highly cited, and whether this would say anything about its potential impact on the field. After all, if we want to conduct and publish meaningful research that can contribute to dealing with the grand challenges surrounding us, having an idea on these criteria is important.
How to Find a Best Article?
Over the past few years, we have spent considerable attention within the context of the Editors’ Insights to provide guidance as to what constitutes a good article. Our twelve tips to publishing in Business & Society provide an excellent place to begin (Crane, Henriques, Husted, & Matten, 2017b). Within those tips, there are two points that are especially salient in terms of the very best articles. First, the select groups of best articles make substantial contributions to theory in the field (Crane et al., 2016). Theoretical contributions may involve testing and refining theory, applying theory to new and unusual contexts, and generating new theory. It is this last kind of contribution, when it is achieved successfully, that often characterizes the best articles. Although writing new theory can be risky, it very often has the biggest payoff in terms of impact on future research.
Second, data collection and analysis are impeccable. Although we now have the luxury of large data sets with corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings of different sorts, such data can become a bit monotonous as it limits the kinds of questions that can be asked using the indicators in the data set. The most exciting articles often involve working with new data, either qualitative or quantitative, that provide new methods to measure social impact (Crane, Henriques, Husted, & Matten, 2017a) or unusual insights into the conversations in which the business and society field is engaged. So, although the large, publicly available data sets are safer in terms of the assured quality of the data, new data, often gathered with painstaking effort, can often provide the greatest impact.
Third, next to these recommendations offered in earlier Editorial Insights we also think that a “best article” has to be a good article, probably a well-cited article and hopefully an impactful article. “Best articles” need to be good articles, that is, they need to contain rigorous work, attract attention of the readership, offer surprising perspectives, and potentially look beyond a narrow scope. A good article would have the ability to be noted within a specialty domain, and probably also beyond that it might connect different domains. Obviously, what is seen as “good” is quite normative and could be a matter of taste, but given our domain, articles making a meaningful contribution to understanding and addressing society’s complex and critical “grand challenges” can be regarded as a key differentiator of the very best work we publish.
Another criterion to select a best article might be by looking at its citations, assuming that good articles might attract more readers and more citations. This is the logic being used in many research quality assessments, both at the individual and institutional levels, with specific measures being developed (from H-index to Altmetrics). From this point of view, review articles might qualify as they tend to attract numerous citations (cf. de Bakker, Groenewegen, & den Hond, 2005; Kolk, Rivera-Santos, & Rufin, 2014). Yet, one might also argue that such articles mainly take stock of earlier work, provide a thorough overview and recommendations for further research, but do not contain original work themselves. While we value reviews (and have published them ourselves), we think a “best article” needs more than that. Another category of articles that tends to attract many citations are what we call “agenda-setting articles” especially if these have been authored by well-reputed scholars. Introductory articles for special issues sometimes serve this purpose (cf. Bapuji et al., 2018); yet these articles are not always reviewed in double-blind procedures and hence might be set aside as candidates for a best article.
Finally, we could look for impactful articles. Yet, to determine the impact of an article over time, a longer time horizon is needed. Sure, there are articles that shake up a field because they introduce new concepts that become highly popular, or because they offer a novel theoretical perspective. Yet, the problem with identifying these articles is that it takes time for articles to surface as influential—the lengthy review processes and the backlogs of many journals do not help here either. One well-known example is Wernerfelt’s (1984) classic article on the resource-based view which went virtually unnoticed for quite some years before being seen as one of the founding articles for this stream of thinking. Nevertheless, we think it still is possible to see what new work catches on: as articles usually appear online first before eventually being published, they can already be downloaded, read, and attract citations. Based on all these considerations we developed a procedure to select the annual Business & Society Best Article Award.
Procedure
As with any selection process, we must first determine the scope of the pool of articles from which we will be selecting the best article finalists. Each year, Business & Society will recognize the best article published the prior year; from all articles that appeared in a volume, a selection of three finalists will be selected. This year, the winning article was selected from among these finalist articles, determined in the following manner, which will serve as a template for future years:
A full list of articles published in print the previous year was collated, along with their total downloads and citations on Google Scholar and Web of Science, as well as other metrics. This list served as an overview of which articles were getting noticed (frequently downloaded, cited, etc.). Based on the full list of articles, these data, and their expert view on which articles are particularly surprising or well executed, the coeditors selected three articles as finalists. Articles that were not fully peer-reviewed, such as invited articles and special issue introductions were excluded, as were Editors’ Insights. The coeditors and associate editors read and ranked the three articles using an online poll. The highest ranked article is awarded the prize and the other two articles recognized as finalists. In case of equal votes, the coeditors retained the discretion to decide. The winner received US$1000 prize and the finalists, a certificate. The award was announced during the Business & Society editorial board meeting held at the Academy of Management meeting.
Finalists
In 2017, Business & Society published eight issues with a total of 34 articles (we have excluded an Editors’ Insights article from the count). A preselection committee consisting of the coeditors and production editor examined data on the most read and most cited (Google citation counts). In several board meetings candidates were discussed to reach a unanimous selection of finalists. Following the above procedure, we are glad to announce three articles that were shortlisted as our finalists (in alphabetic order):
First, Magali Delmas and Neil Lessem wrote “Eco-Premium or Eco-Penalty? Eco-labels and quality in the organic wine market.” In this empirical study, the authors examine how eco-labels work, studying how the environmental signal of eco-labels interacts with product characteristics such as brand, quality, and price. Using an experimental design and insights from marketing, the authors study consumer responses to different forms of eco-labeling, showing how eco-labels disclose information and influence consumer responses. As the authors argue, their findings “emphasize the need to create eco-labels that communicate clearly both the environmental attributes and the private benefits associated with them” (Delmas & Lessem, 2017, p. 319). This study shows how insights from different domains can be productively deployed in the field of business and society. The article also translates abstract ideas on CSR and sustainability into a concrete issue of communication and marketing, offering ideas on how consumers weigh different types of information. Such insights can have immediate practical value for organizations providing more sustainable products. Interestingly enough, the article had the highest Altmetric score of all articles published in 2017 in part driven by coverage in the media including the Los Angeles (LA) Times and The (Daily) Telegraph. All told, this article scored highly on rigorous research matched with practical relevance and impact.
In “The Institutionalization of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting,” Kareem Shabana, Ann Buchholz, and Archie Carroll trace the institutionalization of CSR reporting, taking an institutional theory perspective. Although CSR reporting has been receiving a lot of scholarly attention, arguably because it is one of the more traceable elements of CSR, this article offers an interesting take on this phenomenon, presenting a three-stage model of how isomorphic mechanisms have shaped CSR reporting practices over time. The authors map a development from defensive reporting, via proactive reporting, toward imitative diffusion where “the benefits of CSR reporting begin to outweigh any costs due to mimetic isomorphism” (Shabana, Buchholtz, & Carroll, 2017, p. 1107). The authors base their work on a study from Fortune 500 firms’ reporting practices from 1997 to 2006. The article combines a rigorous approach with a longitudinal view of firms’ reasons for incorporating social innovations. It became one our most downloaded articles of the year and also received a substantial number of citations. Therefore, this article stood out for its combination of scholarly impact, strong theoretical positioning, and strong data and methods.
The last finalist is an article by Natalie Slawinski, Jonatan Pinkse, Timo Busch, and Bobby Banerjee. In their work “The Role of Short-Termism and Uncertainty Avoidance in Organizational Inaction on Climate Change: A Multi-Level Framework,” Slawinski, Pinkse, Busch, and Banerjee (2017) develop a new theoretical framework for a better understanding of why many firms fail to reduce their absolute greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change; certainly a theme that speaks to the grand challenges we are facing. The authors combine insights from psychology, sociology, and organization theory (such as short-termism and uncertainty avoidance) and argue that antecedents related to short-termism and uncertainty avoidance reinforce each other at three levels—individual, organizational, and institutional. Together, these interactions lead to organizational inaction on climate change; this focus on inaction, on why organizations decide not to act on an important issue like climate change is one of the strengths of this article. This article speaks to the great challenges we outlined before and offers an insight into why change is so difficult to achieve—the significance of which is underscored by its high number of citations by other scholars. This article made it onto our finalists list due to a combination of the importance and complexity of the issue addressed, the significance of the theoretical contribution, and its impact on the field.
The coeditors and associate editors were then asked to read and rank each of these articles. Why was a ranking system chosen rather than a straight vote? Well, according to a Scientific American article (Dasgupta & Maskin, 2008), when there are more than two candidates, a ranking system provides more accurate results. This is especially important given that the greater the number of candidates, the less likely a majority can be achieved. After all, the associate and coeditors all have different backgrounds, with different expertise and preferences. The associate and coeditors were asked to read all three articles and assign three points to his or her favorite article, two points to the next favorite and one to the least favorite. The points were then tabulated for each article and the article with the greatest points was declared the winner. The winner was announced at the Business & Society editorial board meeting held at the Academy of Management meeting in Chicago, Illinois, USA, in August 2018.
To conclude, we would like to note that going through all the articles published in Volume 56, as coeditors we were pleasantly surprised (again) by the quality and the variety of articles. We decided to shortlist three articles, but this does not suggest that the nonlisted articles are any less interesting or relevant. The overall quality of the articles is strong, the themes are timely and relevant, and the diversity in topics and authorship underlines the relevance of a specialty journal like Business & Society. The winner of this award will be published on our website and blog (http://businessandsociety.org), where we are eager to hear your responses to our selection.