Back to the Future: A Review and Editorial Agenda of the International Journal of Business Research and Management

In September 2020, in the tenth year of its life, a strong editorial turnaround happened within the International Journal of Business Research and Management (IJBRM). In this vein, editorial and review board members, together with the Journal’s current and future authors, should be made aware of the history of the Journal as well as its future agenda. Thus, this contribution aims to: i) identify the major research themes faced by the Journal’s articles in the past, and ii) define a research agenda for the Journal’s future development. All the 98 articles published in IJBRM up to August 2020 have been initially analyzed according to: i) number of papers published per year, ii) authors’ nationality, and iii) number of papers per research design. Thus, all papers have been thematically analyzed to identify the main research areas they represent. Results show that authors’ institutions are mainly based in Asian countries and the main areas addressed were “Marketing” and “Technology and Innovation Management”. Important implications for editors and future authors arise from the analysis. In particular, to exploit potentially fruitful collaborations in Europe and the Americas, editors and highly involved reviewers are asked to build their own sub-communities around the Journal, including the encouragement of Special Issues on all research areas within the management realm. In addition, authors are asked to explore unfulfilled research areas and to increase the scientific soundness of proposed works.