I am very excited to assume the role of Editor of the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM)! I remember reading JOBM as a graduate student, pondering the conceptual issues discussed on its pages and marveling at the experimental control authors demonstrated in real-world settings. I am honored to serve this journal and the field of organizational behavior management (OBM). To begin my service, I have a few announcements.
First, I want to thank Dr. Ramona Houmanfar, JOBM outgoing Editor, for her many years of service to the journal. During her tenure, JOBM’s metrics improved. For example, JOBM’s number of full-text downloads, which is an important measure of the success of a scientific journal, increased from roughly 35,000 in 2014 to more than 45,000 in 2018 (the most recent year for which data are available). JOBM’s impact factor, which represents the frequency with which an average article is cited in a given year, improved from .48 in 2014 to 1.09 in 2018. The number of JOBM subscribers (not including OBM Network member subscriptions) increased from about 2,600 in 2014 to over 3,100 in 2018. Indeed, Dr. Houmanfar left the journal in good shape, and I hope to continue this improving trend. Thankfully, Dr. Houmanfar has agreed to remain on the board of editors of JOBM and assist with the editorial transition.
Second, I would like to introduce some new editorial board assignments. Drs. Mark Dixon, Donald Hantula, and Sigurdur Sigurdsson have stepped down as Associate Editors for JOBM. I thank each of them for their many years of service; all will remain on the board of editors. Drs. Mark Alavosius, Cloyd Hyten, and Heather McGee will continue to serve as Associate Editors for the journal. Drs. Nicole Gravina, Doug Johnson, and Byron Wine will now also serve as Associate Editors. I would also like to welcome Dr. John Austin, Ms. Lynn Bowman, Dr. Denys Brand, Dr. Shezeen Oah, and Dr. Rachael Tilka to the board of editors of JOBM. It is the voluntary work of the Associate Editors and the editorial review board that make each issue of JOBM possible. Associate Editors and reviewers spend many hours reading and editing manuscripts, and their hard work is apparent in the quality of every manuscript published in the journal.
Third, I want to explicitly state my goals for the journal. I plan to continue JOBM’s status as the recognized authority on field-based behavioral science in organizations, to publish the most cited and read articles in the field of OBM, and to have a readership that spans the academic and practitioner worlds. I don’t foresee any immediate changes to the publication policies or categories for JOBM; I think each category (i.e., Research Articles, Discussion Articles, Research Reports, and Reports from The Field) is unique and provides an outlet for a different type of scholarly work.
I do have some special issues planned. In fact, I am excited to provide a brief preview of an upcoming special issue of JOBM. Manuscripts in this special issue will cover professional topics such as Ethics in OBM, methodological issues in OBM research, as well as detailed reviews of common OBM interventions such as feedback. The manuscripts appearing in this special issue will also be featured in a forthcoming book entitled Handbook of Organizational Performance: Foundations and Advances, edited by Drs. Doug Johnson and Carl Johnson. This book will be a great addition to any OBM library! I welcome suggestions for additional special issue topics.
That brings me to this joint issue (1st and 2nd) of Volume 40, the first volume for which I am serving as Editor. This joint issue of JOBM includes seven Research Articles and four Research Reports. The articles in the current issue run the gamut from feedback to driver safety. Four Research Articles describe novel work on feedback, one highlights individual and institutional contributors to JOBM, one describes the use of performance management in China, and one focuses on increasing following distance among drivers. The Research Reports in this issue include a study evaluating a method to increase recruitment of potential job applicants at conferences, a study which used virtual simulations in the context of training, and studies evaluating the impact of authority and consequence quality on performance.
Finally, I welcome any suggestions and feedback regarding journal policies and practices. Please feel free to send me an electronic message at [email protected]. I hope you find this issue of JOBM informative!