Abstract
Luca Berchicci, Glen WS Dowell, Paula Jarzabkowski, Ann Langley, Amit Nigam, Co-editors, Strategic Organization
The first issue of the year is an occasion for the co-editors of Strategic Organization to present our annual awards, and make other announcements about ongoing and future special issues, as well as general information on the progress of the journal.
Strategic Organization publishes conceptual and empirical articles at the intersection of the fields of strategy and organization theory. Empirical articles may draw, of course, on a wide variety of methods, ranging from experiments and simulations to archival studies and surveys to qualitative research. The current issue of the journal focuses specifically on qualitative studies with two empirical articles and a special So!apbox Forum on ‘Navigating the Tensions of Quality in Qualitative Research’. This set of six essays offers a wonderful resource for qualitative researchers. Entirely coincidentally, the two award-winning papers for 2021 announced next are also highly relevant to the theme of qualitative research, confirming the leadership of Strategic Organization in this area, as well as the potential for qualitative research to contribute significantly to the field.
The 2021 SO!WHAT awards for scholarly contribution
The 2021 SO!WHAT awards for scholarly contribution were launched in 2008 to recognize the most outstanding article and the most outstanding essay published in SO! 5 years earlier. Award winners are selected by the co-editors, after considering citations in the Web of Science and Google Scholar, downloads from http://journals.sagepub.com/home/soq, as well as qualitative evidence of the publication’s importance and impact on subsequent research. SO!WHAT award-winning papers back to 2008 are posted in a separate section of the journal website, and are available free to download and enjoy.
This year’s winners, selected from Volume 14 (2016) are the following:
Best paper award winner
Berends H, Smits A, Reymen I, et al. (2016) Learning while (re) configuring: Business model innovation processes in established firms. Strategic Organization 14(3): 181–219.
This paper draws on longitudinal qualitative data to examine how established organizations develop new business models. The paper identifies two distinct process patterns that combine cognitive search and experiential learning in different ways. The paper offers a fine exemplar of rigorous and insightful qualitative process research published in Strategic Organization. It has been particularly influential in the literature on business model innovation.
Best So!apbox essay award winner
Reay T and Jones C (2016) Qualitatively capturing institutional logics. Strategic Organization 14(4): 441–454.
This So!apbox essay offers an engaging and extremely useful primer on ways of assessing institutional logics on the basis of qualitative data. It draws on the authors’ personal experiences and conversations with other scholars of institutional logics to explore alternative methods. This highly cited piece is also part of the SO! Methods Collection – a Virtual Special Issue that brings together articles and essays dealing with research methodologies.
Congratulations to all award winners!
Journal statistics
For the 403 new submissions to Strategic Organization between 1 September 2019 and 31 August 2020 (a record for annual submissions), 58% were desk-rejected (i.e. returned to their authors without review, on average within 8 days); 29% were rejected after blind review; and 13% were invited to revise and resubmit their work for further consideration after review. It is difficult to assess recent acceptance rates because submissions have not yet all worked their way through the system. However, of all regular papers (i.e. not including essays) first submitted in 2018, the overall acceptance rate was 8%. For these accepted articles, the average time from initial submission to final acceptance was 416 days (about 14 months), including both time with the reviewers as well as time with the authors working on revisions. Our strict ‘single major revision’ review policy makes this possible. We believe that this policy in which we make a decision after the first revision has been reviewed is fairer and faster for authors.
Special issue announcements
Our Special Issue guest-edited by Pratima Bansal, Juliane Reinecke, Roy Suddaby, and Ann Langley on the topic, ‘Temporal Work: The Strategic Organization of Time’, is currently in second round review, and is likely to include seven excellent papers appearing in the February 2022 issue based on an initial pool of 66 submissions. The deadline for our Special Issue call on the topic, ‘Categories and Place: Categories and Place: Materiality, Identities, and Movements’, guest-edited by Robert David, Candy Jones and Grégoire Croidieu, is 28 February 2021 – we look forward to receiving your work. We are also pleased to launch a new Special Issue on ‘Research Frontiers on the Attention-Based View of the Firm’ edited by Willy Ocasio, John Joseph, Daniella Laureiro-Martinez, Amit Nigam and Claus Rerup in the current issue, with a deadline of 31 January 2022. In addition to the regular special issues, we are publishing a Special So!apbox Essay Forum on ‘Navigating the Tensions of Quality in Qualitative Research’ in the current issue. Later in the year, we expect to publish another So!apbox Forum on ‘Sustainability and Strategic Organization’.
Our special issues and forums are intended to reflect the positioning of the journal at the intersection of strategic management and organization theory. If you have an idea for a future Special Issue or So!apbox Forum, please do not hesitate to contact one of the co-editors. And of course, keep the regular articles and essays coming in too!
Special thanks to our reviewers and editorial board members
In closing, we would like to give a special thanks to all the editorial board members and reviewers who supported the journal in 2020. During a year that has been particularly challenging for many of us, you delivered! Thank you and all the best for a happier 2021!