Editorial to 40th issue of AJM

This 40th anniversary Issue marks a special milestone in the history of the Australian Journal of Management. The Journal has become the Australian journal of choice for innovative and high-quality management papers, and has just achieved a 2014 impact factor of 1.0 with a 5-year impact factor of 1.09. Indeed, one of the reasons the journal has been so successful over its 40-year history is that it is prepared to publish new, big and bold ideas. This issue is no different. The AJM is taking the lead in promoting new research frontiers in Finance by focusing on both qualitative and interdisciplinary papers. As Benson et al. (2014) point out, there is a real lack of qualitative research in finance, whereas qualitative research has been prominent in Accounting for quite some time. ¹

Qualitative research as a method of inquiry has gained prominence across numerous, and even quantitatively oriented, disciplines such as accounting ² for quite some time, but has as yet received little attention in the finance field. ³ The qualitative research papers contained in this Special Issue pose questions that cannot be answered with conventional large databases. These unique questions are addressed in a rigorous way using a number of steps. First, a statement of the theoretical lens being employed; ⁴ second, a triangulation on sources; third, a matrix of research questions and how they relate to interview questions; fourth, the iterations in the data analysis from initial coding to final themes and a matrix of results that links the results to the sources (documents, interviews, observations). ⁵ Interdisciplinary research is also gaining importance in the AJM. In addition to the qualitative papers, this issue features a paper on environmental finance: a new area bringing together insights from both the finance and natural sciences disciplines.

The first paper in this Special Issue is Salmona et al. (2015). This paper examines the issue of qualitative theory in finance and provides some hands on examples that translate theory into practice. There are extremes of theory here. At one extreme we can view the world as consisting of objective reality and we, as scientists, are out to pinpoint exactly what that objective reality is. At the other extreme, we can take the view that each of us observes the world differently and that there is no objective reality, only our unique individual interpretations of it. I would guess that most finance researchers fall close to the first extreme. The truth (if there is such a thing) is that both extremes are valid ways to view the world and that the intermediate component of the spectrum provides a more reasonable view.

The second, third and fourth papers in the Special Issue are qualitative studies on the important question of managing retirement decisions. The paper by Cheah et al. (2015) presents results from a focus group study that examines the important issue of long-term retirement decisions. Common themes that emerge from these focus groups (representing different age groups) are complexity, relevance of decisions and uncertainty. Behavioural theories in the form of heuristics, confidence, costs of mistakes, mental accounting and the importance of social interaction did not seem to be validated in the focus groups. The authors conclude that an attempt should be made by the retirement industry to break complex and important retirement investment decisions into more manageable pieces so that more focused and relevant information can be provided to investors.

Earl et al. (2015) examine the self-managed superannuation fund industry, and particularly the ability of individuals to act as trustees of these funds. Self-managed superannuation funds are a very important part of the retirement industry and represent over 30% of the total industry assets of US$1.9 trillion. Most of the self-managed super fund participants are elderly: over half are older than 55 years, and 46% are aged above 64. This raises the issue of competence due to dementia issues, general mental ability and mastery of the complexity of superannuation. Using a survey that contains both qualitative and quantitative sections, Earl et al. (2015) find that cognitive ability and behavioural dementia symptoms both relate to financial literacy. The authors conclude that retirement self-efficacy is related to age, cognitive ability, financial literacy and behavioural dementia symptoms, with those reporting dementia symptoms more vulnerable to making poor financial decisions.

Bruhn (2015) examines the personal and social impacts of significant financial loss arising from the Storm Financial collapse. The study finds that large financial loss has a devastating impact on emotional wellbeing and mental health. The individual finds that their social world is impacted with a negative impact on relationships with family and friends and engagement in community and cultural activities and roles. The victims perceive a sense of judgement from society about their losses that further exacerbates their emotive and social impacts.

The Special Issue also features an interdisciplinary paper. Linnenluecke et al. (2015) introduce the new area of environmental finance, bringing together insights from the natural sciences and finance. We learn here that the planet is not at risk, it is humanity itself that is at risk. Further, we learn of the nine planetary boundaries necessary to sustain human life on the planet. Linnenluecke et al. (2015) stress the need for not only grass roots action which has taken shape in the divestment movement but also in policy action by businesses and governments. They propose that a confluence between policy responses and organisational responses is beginning to emerge that will lead to action on climate change.

In a series of two papers, Neck (2015a, 2015b) asks the question – why do top women working in senior levels of the Finance industry leave? Neck (2015a), in a purely qualitative study, interviews 27 senior women to provide a deep understanding of the organisational culture facing women working at a senior level in finance as well as insights into why they make the decision to leave. The decision to leave is primarily related to frustration, change and choice. Frustration by itself is not enough, change by itself is not enough, but cumulatively with the option to choose to leave leads to the decision to leave. In addition, Neck (2015b) offers a large scale survey with both qualitative and quantitative components. This study reinforces the qualitative study of Neck (2015a) and finds that women make the decision to leave due to a combination of a trigger for leaving coupled with having a choice. Women who left the industry feel they had achieved all they wanted from the job and that there was more to life than their job and the fact that their senior roles in Finance provided financial security all go together to play a key role in the decision to leave. My conclusion from these papers is that, worryingly, top women choose to get out while they still can.

Gippel (2015a) examines how gatekeepers (senior editors in the field of finance) view today’s research agenda, including the future direction of research and its relevance to practice. Based on interviews with senior editors in the field, Gippel (2015a) finds that the field is bound by a narrow and fixed set of methods and although the field is thought to be applied, the inputs from practice to research are limited to the incomplete data in the pre-collected databases used by researchers. Gippel (2015a) also finds that there is relatively little direct feedback from practice to theory and finally that there is some call from a few gatekeepers to broaden the established boundaries of research, particularly after the global financial crisis.

Gippel (2015b) shows how field observation and participation by academics contributed to the understanding of practice during the early years of the emergence of modern finance theory. The study uses the American Finance Association historical interviews with the Masters of Finance. The scholars interviewed include Markowitz, Sharpe, Samuelson, Merton, Arrow, Scholes, Engle, Treynor, Black and Modigliani (tributes), Fama and Miller. Gippel (2015b) finds that in the early years of the development of the finance research field that academic finance was very closely connected to practice and that both ideas and theories were generated and tested in the field.

In the final paper in this issue Ho (2015) examines the investment decisions of tuna boat owners in the Vietnam fishing industry. Using interviews, observation and documents the study finds that buying a boat is a commitment to working long term in the fishing industry in order to maintain and develop the respondents’ identity as a fisher. Both financial and nonfinancial factors are relevant to the decision with non-financial rewards consisting of job satisfaction such as being one’s own boss, the thrill of the activity, the social company, and passion for the sea. Using publicly available data sets we are able to see only that a fishing boat was bought. Using qualitative methods, Ho is able to get behind the decision to buy, ask the owner the questions that enable us to see what influences the owner to make such a large investment.

All of the papers in the issue represent the philosophy of the Australian Journal of Management. The AJM is a leader in developing and promoting new research fields and promoting big, bold, important ideas. The AJM also provides for the exploration of new avenues for interdisciplinary research. Each of the papers presented here are unconventional and open up new avenues for research. It is little wonder that under the outstanding Editorship of Professor Baljit Sidhu that the journal has gained the 1.0 impact factor that it richly deserves.