Joseph Astrachan is the Editor in Chief of the   Journal of Family Business Strategy which publishes research that contributes new knowledge and understanding to the field of family business. Here, he shares his thoughts on launching a new journal.

While the Journal of Family Business Strategy has yet to publish its first issue, I believe the thought and process that has gone into this journal launch can provide lessons for all journals in the Elsevier family. The lessons also include many learned when I was editor, for more than 13 years, of the first scientific journal devoted to family business, and took the journal from being unrated to a 2008 impact factor of over 1.35.

Family business is an exciting area of study. Family firms represent some 60% of GDP worldwide. As a field, it combines multiple disciplines, because psychological forces are strong in closely held ownership groups and in families that have major stakes in companies that were listed in prior generations (think of Wal-Mart, Sainsbury’s, Ford, Heineken, Toyota, ArcelorMittal, Samsung, LG, Maersk, Hoffmann La Roche, BMW, Auchan, Cemex, to name a few).

My knowledge of the field strongly suggested it was the right time to introduce a new journal. When I met with the professionals at Elsevier to investigate the launch, I quickly recognized their expertise. After working with other journal publishers, I can say with confidence that Elsevier is a vast improvement in organization, drive and professionalism.

When we first explored the journal idea, I provided my limited data as to the growth of the field, including submissions I had seen, academics addressing the issues, outlets publishing on the topic, dissertations, chairs, presentations, academic programs and so forth. Elsevier then did two things that I think can be useful at any stage of journal maturity: they did a bibliometric study and they conducted a survey of leading scholars in the field. The bibliometric study showed a 17% per year growth rate over the last 12 years in the number of authors writing on and papers concerning family business. This compares with a typical two to three percent growth rates in most other fields. It was almost too startling to report, but the last four-year period showed a near 500% increase. The finer-grained details of growth and trends in topics were important in helping craft the right article mix for our premiere issue. Elsevier’s survey showed journal editors and scholars alike were interested in a new outlet. I also believe the survey gave some scholars a sense of helping build the journal from the start.

Elsevier has also been willing to understand the value of calculated risks. A new journal with the prestige of Elsevier behind it will attract more authors to the field and lead to even greater success. The field has grown enough to warrant a first-rate scientific enterprise that will pull the best minds into the field. My vision is one that sees family business ideas becoming increasingly mainstream, and things that family businesses have been doing for centuries to promote survival and success will be increasingly influential.

Awareness of the field has been growing, but continued efforts to create visibility are critical. In addition, fostering a sense of commitment among scholars for the new journal was identified as a crucial task. Initial awareness activities included email blasts by Elsevier, and a well-designed marketing campaign. On the editorial side, we helped create awareness and commitment by our editorial structure and the development of the editorial review board. We chose associate editors with several different sets of discipline-specific knowledge to facilitate communication within each discipline, and to demonstrate our commitment to high standards regardless of a submission’s home discipline. In creating the editorial review board, we engaged a similar process and expected an acceptance rate of 50% or less. To our pleasant surprise, our acceptance rate was better than 90%. Of those who declined, all but one person said that they would like to join the board as soon as they could manage it in their schedules.

Before discussing some of the innovative ideas Elsevier helped develop, I will discuss many of the things I have done in the past to build awareness, develop commitment and stimulate new research. A critical source of stimulus has been business owners and owning families. Their interest, ability to fund research and willingness to serve as research subjects and sounding boards for theory development is an incredible constellation of resources available to scholars. I have approached this constituency directly, on behalf of others, by establishing academic-community partnerships (groups of business owners that gather at regular intervals), helping other universities do the same, presenting research finding at trade and industry association meetings, writing for their publications, and maintaining good media relations so that the word about a growing science of family business can spread among the “end-users”.

In addition to helping create a ‘pull’ from business families, I have sought other means to entice scholars. One important step was the creation of databases that can be used openly for research. For 20 years, I have been helping to lead a USA national data collection effort (every three to five years) and provided data free to scholars. Several friends and I have worked diligently to establish family business research awards in multiple academic and professional associations like the Academy of Management and the Family Business Network. Colleagues and I helped found the International Family Enterprise Research Academy, which provides resources and networking to researchers interested in developing their craft in the family business field. I also find traveling to other universities to present family business research findings and talk with doctoral students of great value to stimulating research. We have also been spending a great amount of time mentoring young scholars, as well as seasoned scholars from other fields, who want to quickly grasp the body of research and theory available in the family business field.

The above activities may appear to be well planned, but I assure you they were all opportunistic. On the other hand, the team at Elsevier had many good suggestions and we continue to take advantage of their ideas. The helped organize a ‘Meet the Editors’ event at the Academy of Management meetings and sent invitations to family business scholars from around the world. Our web presence was established quickly, and they have produced podcasts and videos, which have been made available on YouTube. We plan to have podcasts of interviews with authors who can discuss their work and hopefully generate academic and popular interest. We also established a Facebook group and it has been encouraging conversations among researchers.

The field of family business has come a long way. The start of the Journal of Family Business Strategy represents another hallmark in its exciting growth. However, in relation to the significance of family businesses to the prosperity, welfare, and social cohesion of most nations around the world, family business as a field has a long way to go. For example, the publicly listed North American Fortune 500 firm remains the prevailing paradigm in research and the focus of most business and management Journals. While family firms are also present in this segment of firms (according to recent empirical studies, roughly 30% of Fortune 500 firms are family-controlled), and even outperform their non-family counterparts, typically they are not the primary interest of journal editors, and therefore researchers alike.

One of the driving forces behind creating this journal is to change this prevalent attitude. For these changes to occur, the new journal will naturally question some of the prevalent paradigms in extant research, call into question the underlying assumptions of researchers in other fields, and challenge the orthodoxy of current research. But whenever change occurs, like the start of a new journal in a new and emerging field, that questions the orthodoxy of current research, prevalent paradigms, and theories used, it may be seen as a challenge, or even a threat. In order not to challenge the prevalent orthodoxy too much, and run into the danger of provoking resentment and “closed doors,” we need to work diligently on the politics of academe. This includes maintaining good relationships with other journal editors; remaining open to alternatives and potentially divergent ideas; and permanently striking a balance between orthodoxy and innovation.

The field will grow as a matter of time, and so will the author- and readership of the new journal. Our goal is to use a collaborative approach in that we borrow concepts from mainstream areas and apply them in family business to advance theory building and understanding; and – at the same time – show researchers from these fields how family business can advance their research in opening new and previously unexplored issues. Our aim is that ultimately, all constituencies – authors, journal editors, our scholarly body of knowledge, and the businesses, which are the ultimate beneficiaries of our research, will benefit.

Would you like a bibliometric analysis for your journal? Contact your publisher.

To cite this article, please use: Joseph H. Astrachan, Ph.D., “Editor’s View: Launching a new journal”, Elsevier Editors’ Update, Issue 28, November 2009.

Useful Links
  Video interview with Dr. Astrachan
  Journal of Family Business Strategy
  Dr. Astrachan’s web page