Going through changes

This editorial is my first as the new Editor-in-Chief of EJIS. Assuming leadership of such a prominent journal is a great honour, and I will do my best to live up to the expectations. It is comforting to know that a reliable and highly committed editorial board forms the backbone of the journal. I will describe some recent changes to the structure of this editorial board below. First, however, I would like to thank Dov Te’eni for leading the journal over the past three years, always with incredible energy and devotion to adding value to our readership, our authors, and the IS community at large. I am very grateful that both Dov and Frantz Rowe are fully committed to staying on as co-editors.

In addition to changes to our editorial structure, I will take the opportunity to comment on some additional changes that we are undertaking. EJIS is well established as a key journal in the information systems (IS) field, as evidenced by its status amongst the “basket” journals and the latest statistics showing that we are maintaining a position as a premier IS research outlet. However, the editorial team is committed to continue finding new ways to improve our editorial structures, policies, and processes to maintain the relevance and performance of the journal. Some changes, however, are outside of our direct control and we need to make sure that such changes are to the benefit of the journal.

The most prominent current change at EJIS is the move from Palgrave and Springer to Taylor & Francis. A journal depends on its publisher for many things, not the least to support the review process, publishing, and readership interaction. The change to Taylor & Francis is a consequence of the OR Society’s decision to move all its journals to this publisher. Over the last few months, the three editors have worked closely with the team at Taylor & Francis to ensure a smooth transition. Indeed, rebranding a journal and reinventing its online presence is bound to cause some turbulence but we are happy to report that all of EJIS’ back content is now available in one place, on Taylor & Francis Online (www.tandfonline.com).

The change of publisher does not imply any changes to our editorial policy or the type of research we publish (Te’eni, Rowe, Ågerfalk, & Lee, 2015). In addition to publishing top of the line “mainstream” IS research, we will continue to cater for the underrepresented, quirky kind of research that we like to think of as European. We will continue to stress the importance and value of strong empirical contributions (Ågerfalk, 2014) and contextualisation of findings (Te’eni, 2015). Although I have a soft spot for design science research, American pragmatism, and mixed methods (Ågerfalk, 2010, 2013, 2014), we will continue to honour diversity (Rowe, 2012) and publish research of the highest quality regardless of its geographical origin and ontological and epistemological commitment. Most importantly, we will continue to help our authors effectively communicate their research to our international audience. We will also maintain our collaboration with the AIS Electronic Library to ensure widespread dissemination to the global IS community.

Moving to Taylor & Francis meant an upgrade to a different submission system from the one that we have been using over the last few years. (Actually, since we moved away from the email and spreadsheet solution that was in place when I started working for the journal – yes, I have been around that long.) From now on, all new manuscripts will be submitted through Manuscript Central at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ors-ejis. Moving to a submission system that most of our board members, authors, and reviewers are already familiar with should be of great benefit to everybody involved. In the interim, manuscripts submitted through the previous system (at ejis.msubmit.net) will stay in that system, which will also be used for submission of future revisions of those manuscripts. We decided to do it this way not to lose critical submission history, which should be comforting for authors.

Another significant change that we had initiated before moving to Taylor & Francis relates to the structure of our editorial board. EJIS has long maintained a flat editorial structure with three Editors and a set of Associate Editors, some designated as Senior Associate Editor to acknowledge long-term engagement with the journal (but they had mainly the same responsibilities as regular Associate Editors). Our Associate Editors are the ones responsible for marshalling submissions through the review process, after an initial decision by an Editor to initiate a review, all the way through to recommending a decision, and even drafting a decision letter. Although the Editor always has the final say, the Associate Editor recommendation typically becomes the actual decision, sometimes after additional minor comments and suggestions by the Editor. This structure has worked well, but as the number of submissions to the journal is increasing, the three Editors are struggling to keep on top of all manuscripts. Indeed, we see it as part of our commitment to our authors that the person who is ultimately responsible for their submission is also deeply engaged in its review. To maintain quality we have thus felt a need to extend the top-level of our editorial structure with additional Senior Editors. Over the last year, we have tried this using one of our Senior Associate Editors as an ad hoc Senior Editor, working together with one of the three Editors. It is now time to implement this structure officially by formally introducing a Senior Editor role at EJIS. This change means that instead of the three Editors having responsibility for submissions and decisions, we will share this responsibility with Senior Editors. I would like to stress, though, that our firm belief in the competence of our Associate Editors will remain and the new Senior Editors are expected to keep up the EJIS tradition. This tradition is essential since the Associate Editor is typically the expert on the subject and the methodology of a submission. The Senior Editor is expected to be, well, senior, and able to handle a broad range of topics, sometimes well outside of their comfort zone. Thus, decisions will continue to be a joint activity in which the editors at all levels collaborate in the best interest of the journal, our readers, and our authors. For potential authors, I would like to emphasise the importance of considering the complete editorial board and take the opportunity to nominate editors that you find competent to handle your submission, perhaps most importantly at the Associate Editor level where the topic expertise is most critical. You can find brief statements of research interests from our Associate and Senior Editors at the EJIS website (www.tandfonline.com/ejis).

When extending the Senior Editor layer of the board, we have decided to start small and enlarge if and when needed. With that said, I am happy to welcome the initial set of EJIS Senior Editors:

• Michel Avital, Copenhagen Business School.

• Jan vom Brocke, University of Liechtenstein.

• Kieran Conboy, National University Ireland, Galway.

• Michael Myers, University of Auckland.

• Ojelanki Ngwenyama, Ryerson University and University of Cape Town.

• Virpi Tuunainen, Aalto University.

Of these six highly qualified individuals, Jan vom Brocke will assume the designated role of Senior Editor for Practice and be responsible for our science-to-practice initiative described in the last EJIS editorial (Te’eni, Seidel, & Brocke, 2017). The other five will act as general Senior Editors and support the three Editors with the editorial process, taking responsibility for new submissions as they come in. Since all six Senior Editors are well-known scholars in the IS community, I will not spend precious print pages on introducing them further here. Instead, you can expect to see editorials in future issues of EJIS where they elaborate on selected topics of their choice.

My early career mentor, Göran Goldkuhl (1996), argued that Information Systems is a discipline “i, om och för förändring” – a discipline about change and for change, and one that is also changing. I could say the same thing about EJIS. Rest assured that the current changes at EJIS will lead to an even brighter future for the journal and everyone with a stake in its success. I look forward to working with you all in making this happen.

Pär J. Ågerfalk
Uppsala University
[email protected]