The editor-in-chief of the Journal of Organizational Behavior (JOB), opens the first issue of 2010 with a commentary (Ashkanasy, 2010) on how publishing in applied psychology has changed dramatically in recent years. He recalls a time when obvious rejections were quite frequent and easy to spot due to poor quality writing and research. According to the author, those days appear to be over, as only a very small percentage of journal submissions are of obviously poor quality. Additionally, the quantity of submissions to the top I-O psychology journals is increasing substantially. For instance, in 2009, JOB received twice as many submission as it did in 2007.
PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR RESEARCHERS
Importantly, the author offers several recommendations that are relevant to practitioners, early career researchers, and graduate students who are interested in publishing. The following tips are recommended:
Build a solid theoretical backing for the study. Many of the top journals are stressing theory. This should provide a strong explanation for the study’s findings, and is not merely a listing of past research findings.
Stay away from single administration, self-report studies. Although not necessarily “bad,” reviewers are much more accepting of multi-source studies.
Present research at conferences before submitting to journals. Professional conferences are great places to receive critical feedback that can improve the quality of a manuscript.
Do not submit an article if its contribution is unclear. The take-home message of the article should make sense and should pass the “so what?” test.
Seriously consider reviewer comments even if an article is rejected and sent to another journal. The world of I-O psychology is relatively small and scholars often serve as reviewers for many journals.
THE BOTTOM LINE
As for the future, the author posits that I-O psychology journal articles will become shorter in length, in order to present more research findings with the same journal space. Ultimately, this commentary should increase our confidence in the quality of the research published in the top I-O psychology journals. And although this commentary may be discouraging to researchers, the prestige and sense of accomplishment that comes along with publishing will inevitably increase as publishing in the top journals becomes increasingly difficult.
Ashkanasy, N. (2010). Publishing today is more difficult than ever. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(1), 1-3.
Image credit: Unsplash+