Abstract
With this issue, the journal completes two years. On the back of the strong foundation laid in the first year, the journal continues its success story, thanks to the hard work by the editorial team, the advisory board, peer reviewers and enthusiastic support from the academic community.
In 2014–2015, we received over fifty new submissions and the acceptance rate has been about 15 per cent, as compared to 16.6 per cent last year. Nearly half the articles were rejected at the desk review stage itself for a number of reasons including poor
Structure (format, size, style)
Clarity (coherence, readability)
Theoretical Contribution (conceptual framework, research questions)
Research Methodology (sample, methods, analytical techniques)
Empirical Contribution (presentation of findings)
Discussion & Conclusion (contribution to existing research, implications for practice for HRM in South Asia, limitations, future research directions).
The reviewers of this journal specifically look for the above criteria and thus, authors submitting manuscripts to the journal need to make sure they pay careful attention to them.
Our biggest challenge has been with regard to poor writing style and editing, particularly with junior scholars, including Ph.D students. While our editorial team members and peer reviewers go out of their way in offering their assistance to help authors do the final editing, there is a limit to how much they can do. It is important for authors to seek the help of senior colleagues in their institutions to improve the quality of their articles before submission. It is equally important for higher education institutions to run workshops and offer other forms of assistance to improve research and publication quality of their academic staff. Academic scholars from South Asia cannot meet international standards unless there is institutional-wide effort and investment to lift quality standards.
The journal aims to publish articles from all the eight countries in South Asia. In this regard, while articles from India and Sri Lanka are well represented in the journal, we are yet to see good quality articles from other countries, particularly from Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. We realize that management research in Afghanistan, Bhutan and Maldives are at nascent stage and we are willing to work with universities, management associations, scholars and practitioners from these countries to make a start.
The June issue of the journal was a special issue on gender (in)equality in South Asia which is a critical aspect of harnessing human resources potential in the region. Our special thanks to Pavithra Kailasapathy, Arosha Adikaram and Glenda Strachan, guest editors of the special issue. We seek the support of academic community to work on similar topics of importance in future issues.
As stated in the Journal’s ‘Aims and Scope’ statement, a distinguishing feature of the journal is its focus on ‘HR in practice’. Accordingly, we continue to publish high-quality interviews, case studies and commentaries in the ‘Practitioner Perspective’ section. With this balanced treatment of both the art (theory) and practice of HRM, we hope to make a tangible contribution to excellence in people management in South Asia.
In recognition of the critical role played by the peer reviewers, last year, we introduced ‘Excellence in Peer Review Awards’. In 2014–2015, nearly 40 academic scholars from around the world graciously accepted our invitation to conduct peer reviews and helped us largely meet the target to complete reviews within three months of receipt of a manuscript. The following reviewers have been selected for excellence in peer review for 2014–2015:
Gillian Whitehouse, University of Queensland, Australia
Premilla D’Cruz, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India
Romana Garma, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
The editorial team would like to thank the editorial advisory board members and SAGE India team, namely, peer review support team of Rahul Rajgopalan and Taru Narula; production editor, Gaurav Kumar; associate commissioning editor, Satvinder Kaur and executive editor, Neetu Kalra for their continued support and cooperation.