Gender and geographical diversity in the JIBS editorial board: an update
Announces an update of white paper on editorial board diversity
When working at the Department of Management in Melbourne, I was keen to complement my international collaborations with projects with local colleagues. One of my colleagues, Isabel Metz, now a Professor at Melbourne Business School had an interest in gender diversity. I had an interest in the workings of academic journals. So what would be more natural than combining our interests and studying gender (and international) diversity in editorial boards of academic journals?
We ended up publishing five academic papers together on gender and geographical diversity in editorial boards. However, in 2011 we also decided to do a detailed analysis for one specific journal: Journal of International Business Studies, the top journal in my field of research. This was published as a white paper on my website, but also in AIB Insights. In 2016, when the new JIBS editorial was appointed, we updated our analysis by including data for 2012-2016. A quick summary can be found below, the full analysis is included in the white paper.
Figure: Increase in geographic and gender diversity of the JIBS editorial board over time [black markers signifying a change of editorship].
Abstract
This white paper shows that, over the years, the editorial board of the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) has steadily increased in terms of both geographic and gender diversity. We also show that editors have a very significant impact on the level of diversity of the editorial board. With nearly every newly appointed editor, both geographic and gender diversity increased. However, it appears that non-traditional editorial board membership needs to be actively monitored if it is not to slip back to traditionally low levels. We draw two general conclusions from our case study. First, diversity and increasing journal reputation can coincide. Second, instituting a rotating editorship might benefit geographic and gender diversity.
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Copyright © 2023 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Tue 17 Jan 2023 16:59
Anne-Wil Harzing is Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London and visiting professor of International Management at Tilburg University. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.
