North American Society for Sport Management

In the course of its 25-year history, the Journal of Sport Management has undergone a number of important changes. The journal has seen a number of increases in its frequency of publication. In 1992, the journal went from being published twice a year to three times; in 1996, the number of issues increased to four a year, and in 2008 there was yet another increase in the number of issues—to six a year.

 During this time, we have seen a substantial increase in the number of submissions to the Journal. As reported at the last NASSM Annual Meeting (Tampa, June, 2010), JSM had received 225 submissions (18.8 per month) in the previous 12 mos.  This was a 16% increase over the previous year; preceding JSM annual reports have indicated a continuous, substantial, increase in submissions

 Along with this increase in submissions, publications, and issues, our editorial policy has not changed, as we have remained committed to publishing the highest quality sport management research (Thibault & Wolfe, 2008).  In our efforts to continue to meet the high expectations of the sport management scholarly community, however, a number of changes to JSM’s Editorial Team structure and processes have been necessary.  The purpose of this message is to inform you of these changes, which have been implemented to provide timely reviewing and editorial decisions, as well as to increase our capacity to provide high quality feedback to authors. These changes are described below.

(A) Changes to JSM’s Editorial Team Structure; our structure has been changed in a manner that is consistent with other major journals. To date we have had an Editor and an Associate Editor responsible for manuscript submissions. We have now added four excellent scholars to our Editorial Team:

-Janet Fink, University of Connecticut

-Daniel Rascher, University of San Francisco

-David Shilbury, Deakin University

-Dennis Smart, Texas State University San Marcos.

 This allows us to maintain, and possibly decrease, the time a manuscript will be in review as one person will no longer be responsible for the entire editorial process of every manuscript. This also will improve the quality of reviews and decisions, as the added scholars increases the expertise of the editorial team. Thanks very much to each of the above for agreeing to take on this very important role.

 We will, of course, continue to have a Digest Editor (Jeremy Jordan) and Book Review Editor (Tim DeSchriver); they are not included in this discussion, since they are not responsible for manuscript submissions.

 (B) Changes to JSM’s Editorial Process; in our revised process, all submissions, as is currently the case, will be received by the Editor who will give the submission a relatively quick overview to determine whether the submission is “appropriate” for JSM—i.e., is consistent with JSM’s “Submission Guidelines” (e.g., is within our topic mandate; there is no indication of author identity; is within our length (40 pp.) guideline). If the submission is appropriate, it will be assigned to a member of the Editorial Team. While in the past, all communication with JSM was with the Editor, for new submissions, communication from JSM will be from the member of the Editorial team responsible for the submission.

 We trust that you will find that our new structure will result in the timely review processes and high quality feedback we aspire to provide.  We thank you for your support of the Journal and look forward to seeing your submissions in the near future. 

 Sincerely,

 

Marvin Washington

Associate Editor, Journal of Sport Management

 

Richard Wolfe

Editor, Journal of Sport Management

 

 Reference:

 Thibault, L. and  Wolfe, R. The Journal of Sport Management: Making Progress. Journal of Sport Management, May2008, Vol. 22 Issue 3, p245-246