Abstract
Why a new journal, and why JSCAN?
Starting a new journal today has significant challenges and we have no illusions about the effort required for success. However, we strongly believe that we have the foundations in place for success – to develop an important, thriving and active community of scholarship that will build, broaden and sustain a thriving JSCAN. In this inaugural editorial we outline our passion and vision for the journal, its strengths and challenges, and warmly invite you to join its future – for without you, and people like you, submitting manuscripts, or reviewing for the journal, or even joining the board, we cannot succeed.
Many argue that the market within which we, as scholars and curious practitioners 1 , operate today is rapidly changing. However, we can reasonably argue that the pace of change has not been that rapid. Rather than rapid change, pressures on scholars emerge from greater expectations on our roles as academics and as researchers, and from uncertainty and complexity in the academic systems within which we work. Administrators and evaluators expect young academics to perform as all-rounders who teach, research, publish, get grants, administer and make an impact through doing these five activities well, and in a global context. For example, academics have ‘lists’ of desirable places in which to publish research. Also, each discipline has such official or unofficial lists to make sense of the quality of academic research. Administrators and peers often advise neophyte academics to aim for journals highest ranked in their list, and avoid those lowest ranked. Herein lies one of the biggest challenges for a new-born journal – how do we elicit quality submissions when our journal may not make the lists for months, perhaps even years? What incentives can we offer that other journals do not?
Starting a new journal involves taking risks which we can minimize by ensuring some solid foundations. The proposal for JSCAN required approval from two reputable organizations: first, we convinced the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management’s (IACCM’s) board of its value for members; and, second we convinced SAGE Publications of the value of this scholarly journal in a crowded academic space.
As a joint venture between IACCM and SAGE, JSCAN had to clarify its aims, scope and the value of a new journal in contracting and negotiation from the outset. As we explored the idea of the new journal with IACCM, one gap we highlighted for Tim Cummins (IACCM’s Chief Executive Officer) concerned the lack of a scholarly journal for an association with twice the members of the Academy of Management. His response revealed the board’s strong support for developing a journal and theoretical bases for the issues that IACCM addressed: strategic contracting and negotiation. The board’s and the association’s strong support foretells its success.
The IACCM’s support led to SAGE’s strong commitment to develop a journal for future growth and impact. IACCM has a membership of over 30,000 people across 158 countries and 8,000 IACCM members have direct online access to JSCAN. This guarantees that research will reach business, government and non-government organizations globally, and increases the potential for research impact. JSCAN is a SAGE journal, which means publishing with the world’s largest independent academic publisher, and one of the top 5 leading global publishing houses overall.
However, in our conversation with Tim, other interesting issues emerged. Tim saw a disconnect between those that strategized, contracted and negotiated in practice and the scholars versed in theory and methods that made sense of and advanced knowledge in this domain. He saw a world divided by industry and trade-oriented publications and practices, and scholarly journals more concerned with pure academic constructs and phenomena. Some people engaged in the actual practice of the work, others wrote about the work being practiced, and others studied the work, but very little conversation existed between these groups. JSCAN provides a venue for such a forum.
Herein is also a significant strength of the journal – its ambition to bridge the practice–scholar divide and to bring practitioners and scholars closer for mutual value added. Not purely an applied journal, JSCAN uses theory to inform practice – and vice versa. As with all quality scholarly journals we emphasize the importance of good theory, and well designed and executed methods. JSCAN constitutes an outlet for research and theory about practices that challenge the status quo in strategic contracting and negotiations, and the commercial implementation of business strategy or policy. The journal also addresses the impact of contracting and negotiation on trust and ethics within and between organizations – be they commercial private firms, public sector or non-for-profit. Contracting and negotiation has become core to organizational and inter-organizational relationships, irrespective of sector or industry, and of national or international boundaries.
In using the term ‘challenging the status quo’, we allude not just to questioning the dominance of economics and law as primary theoretical lenses to understand strategic contracting and negotiation; we also mean challenging the status quo in how people practise and apply their trade. The IACCM, through a variety of mechanisms will seek to connect members to researchers to find ways to advance knowledge in our field. For example, all JSCAN articles will have an accompanying one-page executive summary, created by IACCM experts, to make complex research easily digestible and accessible for wider reach. We will also produce video presentations of key works, and invite authors to present web seminars (‘webinars’) to industry partners to share ideas, engage in debates, and thereby help in the evolution and development of knowledge in this field of research and complex area of practice.
Our editorial commitment
The social sciences offer significant theoretical and empirical insights to supplement legal and economic insights for complex, multidimensional views of current practice in this vibrant organizational area. Effective management of projects, organizations and human relations at both local and global levels requires stepping beyond simple disciplinary models and approaches. As a cross-disciplinary endeavour drawing on the social sciences, JSCAN aims to lead the slow wave of change concerning theory, research and the practice of strategic contracting and negotiation. As the name suggests, ‘strategic’ forms a keyword – referring to the idea that contracting and negotiations must serve longer-term strategy, and hence play a crucial strategic function.
We aim to provide consistently high quality insights, and to advance and to extend knowledge in how actors form, bind, manage, and unbind relationships for effective practice. We focus on: Works that advance our understanding of contracting and negotiation as relational process, including but not limited to work that considers power and politics, trust, human relations, rules, and ethics in contracting and/or negotiation. Works that advance the strategic role of contracting and negotiation, in terms of commercial outcomes and performance. Works that especially engage social theory to explain the role of negotiations and contracting in and on society, ecology and economies. Works that are empirically and theoretically sound, exciting and diverse, advance our understandings of the strategic importance and impact of contracting and negotiation on interpersonal, national and international society, ecology and economy.
At JSCAN, we commit to ensuring that the journal gives voice to diverse ontological or epistemological groundings; we welcome papers with diverse perspectives, methodologies, and theoretical underpinnings. We have expert reviewers across a broad range of methodological approaches from case studies, large-scale surveys, ethnographies, action research and more. Our international board represents several different disciplines, and so JSCAN does not privilege one approach or tradition over others.
As we build the journal, we will provide a selection of invited (but peer-reviewed) pieces by leaders in the field; currently, we have started to receive regular submissions and we have not even launched the journal. In addition to scholarly papers, we also welcome the JSCAN essay, an opinion piece (non-blind reviewed) seeking to generate debate and discussion amongst our community. Essays will include contributions by academics and industry practitioners. In addition we will also be inviting book reviews on key titles in our field.
To authors who submit to JSCAN we commit to the following: we use a double-blind review system, with expert reviewers in the subject area; we aim to ensure fast but quality reviews (with turnaround of about 6 weeks) with comments that will assist contributors in developing papers irrespective of rejection or acceptance; we privilege no ontological or epistemological tradition over another; and we promote novel, insightful and cutting-edge ideas.
The answer is JSCAN
We foresee great things for the future of JSCAN. The journal comes at a time where complex challenges for contracting exist in a global market consisting of organizations of different sizes, sectors, industries, geo-political locations, socio-political intentions and economic power that pose various challenges for the relationships for effective participation. At JSCAN: We promote an international outlook; We understand contracting and negotiation as complex and as inherently strategic; We embrace a comprehensive range of traditions, disciplines and methodologies; We serve as the IACCM’s official journal; We are backed by SAGE’s experience and prestige; and We actively promote scholar/practitioner interactions.
We welcome you to our first issue, and we invite you to become a central part of this future agenda. Please grow with us and be part of our growth, submit your manuscripts to JSCAN.