Determining the kinds of debates that are associated with a journal is one of the key issues for any editor in trying to carve out a unique position for their publication. Some journals have very strict scope definitions and tend to publish articles within a confined space and/or rely heavily on certain theories and methodologies. In some areas this is, of course, to be expected with dominant paradigms dictating how research is undertaken. Other journals are much more eclectic and tend to focus on novelty, topicality and, more importantly, the perceived importance of the subject matter of the article within the field. Here, it is not entirely unusual that relevance (perceived or real) takes precedence ahead of rigour. With a journal like CME these decisions are particularly difficult. Our scope is very broad covering the management and economics of construction. At the same time we are also confined by our positioning in between a theoretically driven agenda and that of our responsibility (heritage/lineage) of being relevant to practice.
So why is this important? Well for a number of reasons, not least that of what the role of a journal really is within the current publishing landscape. CME, in comparison to most other journals that we are familiar with, has a very rigorous review process. We have a large database of reviewers that has been kept up to date over a very long time. This means that we are able to carefully align the reviewers with the content of submitted papers. We always get at least three reviews, unless the first two are very strongly recommending reject. Furthermore, every editorial decision is taken by at least two editors in order to make the decision as objective as it possibly can be. We commonly go through two or three rounds of revisions (which could be compared with the one and done strategy of many of our peers). What this means, apart from authors having to invest a lot of time and effort in the development of the papers, is that what we publish has been significantly improved from what was originally submitted.
Given the robustness of our review and editorial processes, it could be expected that every paper that we publish should resonate with sections of our community such that they are cited. However, despite the diligent efforts of the editors, our reviewers and our authors, many of our papers remain uncited. This, we would submit, is not a reflection of the quality of the papers we publish, but perhaps relates to the fact that some of the topic areas that we attract papers in are not those which are currently attracting significant attention in the field. In an attempt to begin to address this, we will this year be focusing attention on special issues that respond to significant movements within construction management and economics and adjacent fields. The first of these will be on “key performance indicators and critical success factors”, a topic which has proliferated in recent years. For this issue we will welcome contributions that draw upon actual data in terms of project outcomes. This could take many forms, but it cannot be a factor ranking exercise privileging perceptions ahead of actions. We hope that such an issue will provide a significant milestone in the development of thinking around performance indicators for projects that might provide new directions for this important sub-field, and that it might challenge some of the perception-based work that has dominated this sub-field in recent years.
We would also like to invite construction management and economics scholars to propose other topics that are likely to have relevance to burgeoning debates within the community. If you have ideas which plug in to key debates playing out across our community please get in touch.
Editors-in-Chief
Construction Management and Economics