Introduction

Editorial board members and editors of academic journals are considered the gatekeepers of knowledge, because they have significant influence on what is published and, hence, what informs theory development, research and practice (e.g., Braun and Diospatonyi2005; Konrad2008; Raelin2008). This gatekeeping role is the basis for suggesting that editorial boards should be sufficiently diverse in their backgrounds to facilitate the publication of manuscripts with a wide range of research paradigms and methods (Özbilgin2004; Feldman2008). Diversity in research paradigms and methodologies is necessary for the growth of knowledge (Tung2006). This assertion is based on the business case for diversity in organisations (e.g., Robinson and Dechant1997). In broad terms, the business case for diversity contends that workforce diversity is good for organisations because demographically different people (e.g., in terms of gender, ethnicity or age) have different backgrounds and, therefore, have different experiences and perspectives. Diverse experiences and perspectives should enhance problem-solving, creativity and innovation (Robinson and Dechant1997).

We draw on the diversity literature to similarly posit that researchers from different countries, and hence with different training, academic affiliation, doctoral origin and backgrounds, are expected to rely on different paradigms and methodologies in the conceptualisation and execution of their research. This diversity in researcher background is believed to broaden a field of knowledge (Lukka and Kasanen1996; Tung2006). But researchers from diverse backgrounds can only broaden the field of knowledge if their work is published. However, editorial boards (EBs) composed of people with similar backgrounds might limit the scope of what is published, because their members are likely to share a common research paradigm and methodological preference due to their similarity (Braun and Diospatonyi2005; Daft and Lewin2008; Rosentreich and Wooliscroft2006).

Further, internationalisation of EBs might be desirable from a fairness perspective. As countries other than the UK and US produce increasing numbers of management scholars, it seems fair to offer those countries representation on EBs of management journals. This fairness motive, however, might also give our global community of scholars an opportunity to access new areas of research and inquiry.

Greater internationalisation of editors and of editorial boards of academic journals might, therefore, be desirable for the evolution of knowledge. A widely held belief is that geographically homogeneous editorial boards comprise members with similar intellectual backgrounds who might favor a narrow set of topics, paradigms and philosophies (e.g., Baruch2001; Miller2006; Stremersch and Verhoef2005). This bias can restrict research innovation and scope. However, our knowledge of trends and current levels of geographic diversification in editorial board (EB) membership is patchy in general and almost non-existent in the field of management in particular. Bedeian and colleagues voice their surprise about this lack of published research, given editorial boards’ “paramount role in determining the fate of ideas as well as individual careers” (Bedeian et al.2009,p. 23). The little research conducted to date in management and non-management fields is chiefly descriptive (e.g., Lukka and Kasanen1996; Özbilgin2004), based on a small number of journals (e.g, Baruch2001; Stremersch and Verhoef2005; Svensson2005; Uzun2004) and/or spans a short period of time (e.g., Özbilgin2004; Polonsky et al.2006). Burgess and Shaw’s (2010) study covers a much larger number of journals (36) and editorial board members (nearly 3,000). However, their study mainly focused on analysing linkages between institutions and journals, and provided only a very limited and descriptive coverage of geographic diversity at one point in time. With the increasing globalisation of knowledge and management education, it is important that we build on our scanty understanding of trends and levels of geographic diversification in EB membership of management journals.

Although we value diversity in methodological approaches as much as we value diversity in editorial boards, we feel that at this stage—where our knowledge is mostly based on descriptive data for a limited number of journals—progress in the field is best served by using a large-scale sample with a traditional hypothesis-testing approach. We contribute to knowledge in this field by drawing on network theory to examine the current levels, and trends over a period of 20 years, in the geographic representation in editorial boards of 57 journals across five fields of management, covering approximately 16,000 editorial board members. Specifically, we tested the relationship between the country or region in which a journal editor works and the geographic distribution of that journal’s editorial board members, as well as the development over time of this relationship. We also examine the impact of the field of research on the level of geographic diversity of editorial boards.

Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

Intellectual diversity, the representation of different views and perspectives, is generally seen as desirable for the development of a field of knowledge (Baruch2001; Hodgson and Rothman1999; Stremersch and Verhoef2005; Tung2006). Geographic diversity is an imperfect, albeit acceptable, proxy for intellectual diversity. Past studies have eloquently argued for the influence of a myriad of factors, such as academic affiliation, doctoral origin, professional age, area of expertise and professional training, on cognitive similarity that delimits what is considered valuable research (e.g., Bedeian2004). Nevertheless, geographic diversity has been commonly used in past research into diversity in academic journals (e.g., Polonsky et al.2006; Svensson2005; Thomas et al.1994), reflecting the difficulty of conducting a more fine grained analysis by, for instance, professional training within countries across subfields and age cohorts. Furthermore, demography research scholars consider demographic characteristics to be “reasonable proxies for underlying differences in cognitions, values, and perceptions” (Joshi et al.2010,p. 10).

It is possible that the association found in past studies between country of origin of editorial board members and the journal’s editor is partly due to being part of the same local research networks. For instance, anecdotal and empirical evidence points to the isolation of non-US scholars from influential US based research networks as an explanation for the dominance of US editorial board members (Baruch2001; Hodgson and Rothman1999). Networks comprise the work and social contacts an individual has inside and outside of his/her organisation (Ibarra1995), which enable him/her to secure benefits (such as EB membership or access to the editor) by virtue of his/her membership in those networks (Portes1998). It is reasonable to assume that the association found between the country of origin of the journal editor and editorial board members partly stems from individuals having more same-country contacts in their networks than geographically diverse contacts. This low geographic diversity in academic networks emanates from greater opportunities to interact with one’s own country colleagues than with colleagues from other countries. For example, living in the same country might increase the probability of face-to-face interaction because of physical proximity (Zitt and Bassecoulard2004). Face-to-face interaction enhances familiarity and facilitates the development of trust allowing for closer relationships between individuals (Smith1991). Therefore, it has been suggested that journal editors are more likely to choose EB members from their own country than from other countries, because those are the people in their networks that they know best (Feldman2008) or in fact know at all, either personally or by the quality of their work.

In sum, based on network theory and scarce empirical evidence on the association between country of origin of EB members and journal’s editor, we expect that journals have the largest proportion of EB members from the country in which the editor works. We believe it is necessary to test this hypothesis with a large and diverse sample, because Baruch (2001) is the only study that examined this relationship using a very small sample of journals, published either in the UK or US, between 1980 and 1995. We examine this relationship for a much larger sample and extend the time period to 2009. Further, we include both US and a wide range of non-US journals to provide a counterbalance to previous research that has mostly focused on a presumed ethnocentric bias of US journals (e.g., Baruch2001; Rosentreich and Wooliscroft2006).

Hypothesis 1a:

Journals will have the largest proportion of EB members from the country in which the journal editor works.

Network theory also provides a possible explanation for the high representation of US based academics in editorial boards of management journals. It is possible that for US based journals the size of the network within the home country is already so large that one doesnot need to go outside the network to source new EB members. A similar conclusion was reached by Pérez-Batres et al. (2010) in their study of International Business scholarship. They suggested that “North American scholars do not need to go outside their region to have a critical mass network (familiarity) that can guide them successfully through the publishing process” (82). Most non-US countries have a smaller population of management academics than the US. Therefore, the corollary of the above logic is that, on average, non-US journals will have a higher proportion than US journals of EB members from other countries because they have to go outside local networks to source new EB members. Thus, we propose:

Hypothesis 1b:

US based journals have a lower proportion of non-home country EB membership than non-US based journals.

In addition to country, field of research might also influence what level of geographic diversity a journal has in its editorial board. A case at hand is the International Business (IB) field. IB journals have a higher need for international board members, because of their international content. Although the countries of most interest have changed over the years, IB journals have always published research about a large variety of countries (see Ellis and Zhan2011). Moreover, reflecting our network perspective, IB scholars are more likely to have international networks than scholars in other fields, because much of the IB scholar’s work takes place in multinational teams of researchers. In a recent study of IB journals, Ellis and Zhan (2011) found that more than 40% of the co-authored papers published between 2000 and 2008 involved such multinational research teams.

Hypothesis 2:

IB journals have a higher proportion of non-home country editorial board membership than journals in other fields.

In spite of our arguments above, we envisage a country’s dominance in EB membership to decline over time due to the expected influence of the Internet in making information easily accessible and in connecting people who live in different countries (Tsoukas2008; Zitt and Bassecoulard2004). In addition, we have witnessed the globalisation of academia over time through an increase in the number of international conferences and workshops, as well as increased participation in international academic faculty exchange and international research consortia. These exchanges are partly facilitated by organisations such as the European Union (see e.g. Altbach and Teichler2001; Vincent-Lancrin2006). In turn, the increased interaction between scholars from different countries is likely to increase the geographic diversity of the academic networks of both US and non-US scholars. Over time, enhanced geographic diversity in academic networks should lead to increased geographic diversity in the editorial boards of academic journals, because the dominant group (US scholars for US journals, British scholars for UK journals, etc.) have an increased number of contacts from the non-dominant group in their networks to choose from (in the case of editors) or to recommend (in the case of editorial board members) for EB positions.

Finally, the increasing importance of university accreditation systems such as AACSB and EQUIS as well as the importance of various university rankings lead to isomorphic pressures in terms of publication in international journals. Hence academics who in the past mainly published in local journals might experience higher levels of pressure to publish in international journals instead. As a result, these academics will be both more qualified and more desirous to serve on editorial boards of international journals.

Previous studies have examined the trend over time in the geographic diversity of EBs by focusing on US editorial board membership and have reported inconsistent findings (e.g., Baruch2001; Stremersch and Verhoef2005). Therefore, our study will look at the trend of geographic diversity of EBs of management journals by using non-home country editorial board membership for US, British, continental European and Asia-Pacific journals.

Hypothesis 3:

The proportion of non-home country editorial membership will have increased over time.

Method

Sample and Data Collection Procedures

We used archival data for this study, which involved collecting information on EB membership for a total of 57 journals. The unit of analysis for our study was the individual journal. Journals in five areas of Management that are represented at most business schools were included: Operations Management, International Business, General Management & Strategy, Human Resource Management/Organisational Behavior/Industrial Relations (HRM/OB/IR), and Marketing. For each area, we aimed to select 10–12 journals, generally focusing on the top-ranked journals in each field, but ensuring a spread of North American and European journals; European journals include both continental European and British journals. It is worth noting that these criteria meant that we could not rely on existing lists of journals. For example, using only the ISI Management list would have excluded most Operations, International Business and Marketing journals. Nevertheless, journals with complete data for all five time periods were more difficult to find for Operations Management and International Business than for other areas. As a result, our sample comprises only 8 Operations Management and 9 International Business journals as opposed to 13/14 for the other areas.

As one of our hypotheses tests the increase of international editorial board representation over time, we collected data at five points in time: 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004 and 2009. In a handful of cases we were not able to access the editorial board or table of contents for a particular year. In that case we imputed data from either the year before or the year after, depending on availability. Five-year gaps in the data collected were chosen to allow time for changes to occur, while generating enough data points over the 20 year period studied. Originally, 1984 was included as a sixth data point, but we omitted this year from the analysis because of the high proportion of missing data. The first issue for each of the five data collection years was used to access the pages with EB information. A research assistant coded the editorial board/editor data for country. The country was determined based on the EB member’s/editor’s current university affiliation. This coding method does not always accurately reflect the nationality of the EB member in question, as many academics work in a country different from their country of origin. However, our hypotheses are grounded in network theory and we assumed that embeddedness in particular networks would be based more on current location than on the academic’s country of origin. This assumption is partly based on the challenges that virtual teams face (Kirkman et al.2002) and the fact that the Internet was not used to a great extent in three of our time periods. In addition, without collecting detailed information on the actual career histories and networks of all 16,000 editorial board members—a task that could easily take up more than 16,000 hours, i.e. about nine years full time—it would be impossible to establish whether current or home country networks are stronger. Finally, as our analysis takes places at the level of the individual journal, individual idiosyncrasies for board members are unlikely to have a strong impact on our results. We acknowledge that for editors our data are more sensitive to a distinction between country-of-origin and current affiliation. However, there are very few editors in chief in our sample that work in a country different from their home country and in general they have worked in this country for an extended period. Hence, we would believe that in a large-scale study like ours, country of affiliation is a sufficient proxy for the academic’s current network.

We have complete records for all 57 journals for 1999, 2004 and 2009. However, data was missing for 13 journals in 1989 and five from 1994. These journals were either established after 1994 (1989) or did not have an editorial board in 1994 (1989). The size of the editorial boards varies substantially across the five areas, with Marketing and Operations Management journals on average having larger boards (72 and 77 members, respectively) than journals in the area of International Business (45) and HRM/OB/IR (47). General Management & Strategy journals fall in between these two extremes with on average 57 members.The average size of the EB has increased steadily from 40 academics in 1989, to 47 in 1994, 54 in 1999 and 65 in 2004. A big rise occurred in 2009, when the average number of EB members increased to 89. Five journals now have more than 200 EB membersFootnote 1.However, as we used theproportion of international EB members for each journal, these differences do not distort our results. In total, we coded more than 16,000 EB members.

Measures

Theproportion of editorial board members (from a particular country or region)—the dependent variable in our study—was calculated for each journal by dividing the number of EB members for each country/region by the total number of EB members in each of the five data collection years.

Our independent variable, thecountry of origin of the journal was measured as the country of affiliation of the editor. We focus on the editor, rather than on the country where the journal is published, as the editor generally has more influence on the choice of EB members than the publisher. Moreover, one would not for instance consider all Elsevier journals to be Dutch journals, simply because the publisher is located in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, in the majority of cases the two countries were identical. Our second and third independent variables—sub-discipline and time—were measured using the five areas of Management and the five time period specified above.

Results

Descriptive Results

The journals in our sample are ranked in the Table 3 in descending order of international diversity, defined as the proportion of non-home country editorial board membership. As can be seen from the Table 3, the variation in the proportion of non-home country editorial board members in this set of 57 journals ranges from 0% to 100%.

As mentioned before, most previous research focused on US versus non-US board membership. In Fig. 1 we therefore first report the development of these statistics over time. It is clear that US editorial board membership has decreased steadily over the years, from 70.0% in 1989 to 57.1% in 2009.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Proportion of US versus non-US editorial board membership over time

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In 1989, the proportion of US editorial board membership ran from 0% percent (European Journal of Marketing,Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology) to 100% (Academy of Management Review,California Management Review,Industrial and Labor Relations Review,Industrial Relations,Journal of Vocational Behavior,Journal of World Business, andThunderbird International Business Review). The editorial boards of the three top journals in Management (Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), Academy of Management Review (AMR) and Academy of Management Journal (AMJ)) were almost composed of only US American academics until 1999 (see also Baruch2001). Since 1999 all three journals have increased their proportion of non-US board members, but AMR (1999: 12%, 2004: 20%, 2009: 25%) and AMJ (1999: 16%, 2004: 14%, 2009: 23%) more so than ASQ (1999: 5%, 2004: 10%, 2009: 11%).

In 2009, only California Management Review still has a board consisting 100% of US academics, although six other journals (Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Industrial Relations, Human Resource Management, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, MIT Sloan Management Review) score above 90% in terms of US editorial board membership. In contrast, in 2009,International Studies of Management & Organization is the only journal with a 0% US board membership, although six more journals (Australasian Marketing Journal, European Journal of Industrial Relations, European Journal of Marketing, European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Business Performance Management, Journal of Marketing Management) have at most 10% US editorial board membership.

The average US editorial board membership over the last 20 years (1989–2009) varies by disciplinary area, from a low of 48% for International Business journals to a high of 69% for General Management & Strategy journals. Interestingly, the two discipline areas that Metz and Harzing (2009) found as doing most poorly in terms of gender diversity (International Business and Operations Management) do best in terms of international diversity. It seems gender diversity and international diversity are driven by different factors.

Figure 2 shows the proportion of EB membership for different geographical areas,excluding the US. We can see that the proportion of UK and Canadian board membership was fairly stable between 1989 and 2004, but rose in 2009. Continental European board membership increased steadily over the years, resulting in an overall increase of about 34%. The most noticeable changes have taken place for Australia/New Zealand and Asia, with both regions doubling their proportion of EB members over the last 20 years. The proportion of EB members from Latin America and Africa continues to hover around a very low 1%. As of 2009, there are only 14 journals that have one or more editorial board members from these continents, and half of these journals only have one editorial board member from these regions. The only two journals with a substantial number of editorial board members from Latin America or Africa are The International Journal of HRM (5) and The International Journal of Crosscultural Management (7).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Proportion of non-US editorial board membership over time

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Although the proportion of Asian editorial board members has been increasing over the years, the bulk of the Asian editorial board members remains concentrated in two countries: Hong Kong and Singapore. Moreover, the share of these two countries has increased over the years from 22% in 1989, to 25% in 1994, 43% in 1999, 57% in 2004 to 59% in 2009. Indian editorial board membership has increased very slowly over the years, but is stuck at six individuals since 2004. Chinese editorial board membership has increased more rapidly from none in 1989 to 24 individuals in 2009. The number of Chinese editorial board members increased from 11 to 24 between 2004 and 2009 and hence we expect further growth in the near future. Both Russian and Brazilian editorial board membership is limited to one or two individuals. Hence, the importance of these four emerging economies in the world economy is not in any way mirrored by the presence of these countries in editorial boards of management journals.

Distribution of Editorial Board Membership by Country/Region, by Field and Over Time

Turning to our specific hypotheses, we first test whether journals have the largest proportion of EB members from the country/region in which the editor of the journal is located (Hypothesis 1a). Table 1 provides an overview of the proportion of EB members from specific regions for journals where the editor is located in the US, the UK, Continental Europe, and Australia/New Zealand (ANZ). As we only had one Asian journal in our sample, we did not include it in the analysis.

Table 1 Proportion of editorial board members from specific regionsa
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In general, there is substantial support for Hypothesis 1a. For the US, Continental Europe and ANZ the largest proportion of EB members originates from the editor’s home country or region, usually by a great distance. Journals with an UK editor have slightly more continental European board members than UK board members. However, once we analyse the editorial boards by individual European countries, UK journals clearly have more EB members from the editor’s home country (UK) than from any continental European country.

Hypothesis 1b predicted that journals with an US based editor would have a lower proportion of non-home country EB membership than journals with a non-US based editor. To test Hypothesis 1b, we calculated the proportion of home-country EB membership for each journal for each year of data collection. Hence, Continental Europe and Asia-Pacific were split up by country for this test. A t-test comparing the proportion of home country EB membership for journals with an US editor versus journals with an editor from another country was highly significant (t = − 9.082, p = 0.000). Over the 20 years included in our study, journals with US editors on average have 80%, whilst journals with non-US editors have 29%, home-country EB membership. A comparison between the three non-US countries/regions of origin that had more than one observation (UK, ANZ and Continental Europe) found home-country EB membership to be lowest for journals with continental European editors (9%), followed by journals with UK editors (30%) and highest for ANZ (72%). However, since the last observation is based on only two journals, we should interpret this result with caution. Overall though, there is very strong support for Hypothesis 1b.

Hypothesis 2 suggested that journals in the field of International Business would be likely to have a higher proportion of non-home country membership than journals in other fields. Table 2 illustrates that this is indeed the case. For every year included in our data-base IB journals have a higher proportion of non-home country editorial board members than any of the other fields of research. By 2009, nearly two thirds of the editorial board members in IB journals do not come from the same country as the editor.Because of the small number of observations in each category, the results do not reach statistical significance. However, the differences are large enough to be of practical interest. It is important to note that these differences are not caused by a disparate distribution of US versus non-US journals in the various fields. Both US and non-US IB journals show higher proportions of non-home country editorial board memberships than journals in other fields of research.

Table 2 Non home country editorial board membership by field of study
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Hypothesis 3 predicted a decline in home-country editorial board membership over time. Our data provide strong support for this hypothesis. As Fig. 2 shows, on average for all journals, home-country editorial board membership declined steadily from 74% in 1989 to 59% in 2009. However, this decline was only marginally significant (p = 0.09) from 1989 to 1994 and non-significant from 1994 to 1999. In contrast, both periods from 1999 to 2004 and from 2004 to 2009 saw a significant (p = 0.05 and p = 0.019, both 2-tailed) decline in home-country editorial board membership. If the decline in home-country editorial board membership were to continue at this rate, our group of journals would on average show a nearly 50%–50% distribution of home-country versus non-home-country editorial board membership in 2019. Journals with an US editor have shown a more significant decline in home-country editorial board membership (from 89% to 75%) than journals with a non-US editor (from 32% to 28%) (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
figure 3

Proportion non-home country editorial board membership over time

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A supplementary analysis also found that the proportion of non-home country EB membership had increased more for highly ranked than for lower ranked journals. We used Mingers and Harzing’s (2007) summary ranking for the purpose of allocating journals to ranks, as that summary incorporates information from a wide range of rankings. Highly ranked journals doubled their proportion of non-home country EB members over the 20-year period, whilst in lower ranked journals this proportion changed little. This is partly because higher ranked—mostly US based—journals started out from a lower base than lower ranked ones. Nevertheless, this result shows that geographic diversity is finding its way to our top management journals.

By 2009 we also see increased internationalisation in terms of the home-countries of the journal editors. Until 2004 virtually all journals had an editor from the same country for all data-collection points. Minor exceptions were two Canadian editors for journals published in the US, and a Hong-Kong based editor (who spent a large part of his/her career in the US) for an US based journal. The only major exceptions were theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, where editorship alternated between Belgium and France, theEuropean Journal of Operational Research, where the editorship moved from the UK to Poland in 1999, and theJournal of Organizational Behavior, where editorship moved from the UK to the US in 1999. However, in 2009 nine journals had, for the first time in their history, editors from a country different from that of each of their predecessors.

This surge in geographically diverse editors might well be one of the most significant reasons for the further internationalisation of editorial boards and in particular for an increased internationalisation of US journals. As Metz and Harzing (2009) have shown for gender diversity, the editor of a journal can have a very strong impact on the diversity of its board. This study’s data also provide ample illustration of this. TheInternational Journal of Cross Cultural Management is the only journal that has more than one board member from Africa (with five in total); one of IJCCM’s current co-editors has a strong research interest in Africa and regularly visits that continent.Journal of World Business went from EBs with 100% US board membership in 1989 and 1994 to 47% US board membership in 1999, 44% in 2004 and 41% in 2009. We suspect that one of the main reasons for this was the decision made in 1999 by the new editor-in-chief to appoint associate editors not only for content areas, but also for geographical areas (Asia-Pacific and Europe).

Discussion

Greater internationalisation of editorial boards of academic journals is perceived to be desirable for the growth of knowledge (Baruch2001; Hodgson and Rothman1999; Feldman2008; Özbilgin2004; Stremersch and Verhoef2005; Tung2006). Yet, we do not know how international the editorial boards of management journals are or have become. To gain this understanding, we examined the levels of geographic representation in editorial boards of 57 journals in five different fields of management over a period of 20 years. We found that the geographic diversity of editorial boards has increased in the last 20 years, but it is still low for most management journals. We also found that two factors partly predict the geographic diversity of EBs of management journals: whether the journal has an US based editor or a non-US based one and the field of the journal.

Editorial board members from emerging economies, such as China and India, are severely underrepresented in management journals. With the increasing importance of these countries for the world economy, as well as the increasing volume of research conducted in these countries, it would seem of paramount importance to increase editorial input from these countries. A failure to do so might limit the generation of context-specific knowledge on doing business in these countries as editorial members from Western countries are likely to evaluate manuscripts according to their own home-country perspectives.

Journals with US–based editors had the highest proportion of home-country membership (80%) and continental European journals had the lowest (9%). The size of the pool of management academics (i.e., size of the local network) could partly explain US editors’ greater propensity to surround themselves with colleagues from their own country than non-US editors. Based on the number of publications per year in management journals printed in English, the US has the largest pool of academics in the management field (Reuters Thomson Essential Science Indicators 2000–2010). As a result, US editors do not need to go outside their local networks to find EB members, because the US based supply of eligible academics is likely to meet the demand.

Journals in the field of International Business have a higher proportion of non-home country editorial board membership than journals in the other four fields of study. This is true for every year in our data collection. By 2009, nearly two thirds of the editorial board members in IB journals do not come from the same country as the editor. Although this is not entirely surprising, given the international subject nature of the field and the generally larger international networks of IB scholars, the size of the difference with other disciplines is. As a result, editors of IB journals could share their experience with colleagues from other disciplines on how to increase the levels of geographic diversity in EBs of non-IB journals.

Study’s Strengths and Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research

This study’s strengths include its sample size and statistical approach. Compared to the few pioneering studies to date, we examined the trends in geographic diversity of the editorial boards of a very wide range of journals across five fields of management, over an extended period of 20 years. For example, Stremesch and Verhoef (2005) included five, and Svensson (2005) one, marketing journal(s) in their studies, and Baruch (2001) analysed seven management journals. We also performed more robust statistical analyses than before (e.g, Baruch2001). The robustness of the analyses performed in this study partly lies in the size of its sample of EB members. The very large sample of more than 16,000 editorial board members minimises the probability of Type I errors (Cohen and Cohen1983).

The impact of EB internationalisation on outcomes (such as the geographic diversity of authors) and social network analysis of EB membership through a study of institutional linkages were outside the scope of this paper. We recommend that future research investigate the impact of EB internationalisation on outcomes by using a smaller sample of journals (and, thus, EB members and authors). Future research might also benefit from social network analysis of EB membership and the study of institutional linkages between institutions and journals, although some studies already exist in this area (e.g., Burgess and Shaw2010).

Lastly, given this study’s findings, we recommend future research into the geographic diversity of editorial boards of academic journals in other fields. We suggest that such research will benefit from using large sample sizes and statistical approaches to enable generalisations to be made. Further research is also desirable to gain a more fine grained understanding of the reasons for low geographic diversity in editorial boards of academic journals. For example, in-depth interviews with journal editors would allow researchers to gather detailed data on the selection decision making process of EB members. Understanding the editors’ perspective is critical to understanding this phenomenon. It is also important to understand the authors’ and the EB members’ experiences. Thus, detailed analyses of individual authors’ and EB members’ resumes and networks would provide complementary insights.

Implications for Theory and Management Journals

Despite the internationalisation of science (Zitt and Bassecoulard2004) and the explosion in the use of technology-based communication (Tsoukas2008), this study indicates that the world has not become that much smaller than before when it comes to the selection of EB members for academic management journals. As a result, this study contributes to network theory by showing that individuals are more likely to draw on their local networks than on non-local ones in situations where country of residence is a strong proxy for education and professional standing. This tendency to rely on local networks appears to be greater when the size of the local network is large. However, international academic conferences can assist in making new (non-local) personal connections even when local networks are large.

Further, in line with social network theory, we suggest that an editor’s level of comfort with candidates for EB positions partly explains the fact that the largest proportion of EB members still originates from the editor’s home country or region. People need to make a conscious effort to go outside their “comfort” zones to include (or consider) people who are not like themselves (Portes1998). There are several ways in which journals, editors and academics can go outside their “comfort” zones, in an attempt to increase the geographic diversity of the editorial boards of management journals. For example, our study provides initial evidence that journals with geographically diverse editors have geographically diverse editorial boards. Therefore, journals might consider appointing a new editor from a different country to that of his/her predecessor. During their term, geographically diverse editors are likely to appoint some members to the editorial board from their own local networks, thus increasing its geographic diversity. Alternatively, incumbent editors who are not geographically different from their predecessors can make a conscious effort to go out of their comfort zones to increase the geographic diversity of their editorial boards.

Academics in general can also make an effort to go out of their comfort zones for instance by attending top management conferences outside their country/region. We recognise, however, that these suggestions are not always easy to follow. For example, it is possible that some academics attend a conference locally for financial reasons. Nevertheless, it is also possible that some academics prefer to liaise with people from their home countries/regions. So, academics with aspirations to EB membership in journals with an editor who is based in a different country/region to themselves also need to make a conscious effort to go out of their comfort zones to “be known” in the international community.

We acknowledge that maximum geographic diversity in editorial boards does not necessarily equate with maximum innovative research and growth in knowledge. As suggested by Hodgson and Rothman (1999) for the institutional concentration of economics journals, there might be a point beyond which geographic diversity is not good for management journals or for knowledge growth. The challenge for future research in this area is to find the proportion, or the range, of geographic diversity in editorial boards that allows for new approaches and knowledge to flourish. This proportion might vary across fields of management study.

Conclusion

An increased emphasis on formal research evaluation means that academics in more and more countries are expected to publish in top journals. Their ability to do so might be compromised by the fact that the largest proportion of the gatekeepers in these journals are part of a dominant group. It is therefore important to understand the level of international diversity in editorial boards as well as the factors influencing this diversity. Our study, the first large-scale investigation of this phenomenon, found that encouraging progress has been made in the area of international diversity. However, continued active management by editors, professional associations and individual academics alike is necessary to ensure that our editorial boards properly reflect the diverse management community.

Appendix

Table 3 Journals ordered by proportion of non-home country membership
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