How do editors use editorials to lead their journals? Insights from the field of human resource management

Learned Publishing. 2024. Vol. 37. No. 2. P. 89–97.

Plakhotnik M. S.

Editorials have earned a special place among many practices, tools, and policies available to editors for journal advancement. Despite the vital and diverse roles of editorials in academic journals, they have rarely been systematically analyzed for common characteristics or patterns. In this study, I approached editorials as a leadership practice of journal editors. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand how editors use editorials to lead their journals. To render a manageable set of editorials and, at the same time, to capture the latest trends, I focused on editorials published in 2022 in top journals in the field of organizational behavior\human resource management indexed by Scopus. The sample consisted of 120 editorials found in 103 journals housed by 21 publishers. I analyzed the editorials using qualitative content analysis that was guided by two research questions: (1) How commonly do editors use editorials? (2) What objectives do editors pursue in their editorials? The analyses showed that editorials appear to be neither a regular nor a common practice. An overwhelming majority of editorials were written to validate the existing knowledge. The findings raise several important issues, including an unclear contribution of editorials, perceived or factual, to academic journals and the editor’s role in the journal development process. Journal editors, editorial board members, publishers, universities, and organizations associated with the journals should consider revisiting their policies and practices to ensure a purposeful, meaningful, and systematic use of editorials.

Keywords: leadership, academic journals, scholarly communication, human resource management