The field of Business Management is served by numerous high-quality academic journals. The top-tier journals are often recognized for their rigorous peer review, high impact factors, and significant theoretical and empirical contributions.
Here are some of the most highly regarded academic journals in Business Management, often categorized as “premier” or “A/A* ranked” by various academic and professional bodies:
Core General Management & Organization Theory
These journals cover broad management issues, organizational studies, and foundational theory:
- Academy of Management Journal (AMJ): Publishes empirical research that tests, extends, or builds management theory and contributes to management practice.
- Academy of Management Review (AMR): Focuses on theoretical and conceptual developments in management, proposing new frameworks and challenging existing theories.
- Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ): A highly selective journal dedicated to organizational studies, focusing on organizational behavior, theory, and the broader social context.
- Management Science: Publishes high-quality papers that focus on the mathematical and computational aspects of management, decision-making, and organizational problems across various business disciplines.
- Organization Science: Features research on organizations, including strategy, structure, dynamics, and performance.
- Journal of Management (JOM): A comprehensive journal covering various management topics, including organizational behavior, human resources, and strategic leadership.
- Journal of Management Studies (JMS): An international journal for management scholars, covering a wide range of topics in management and organization.
Specialization Journals
Top-tier journals also exist for specific sub-disciplines within business management:
Strategy
- Strategic Management Journal (SMJ): The leading journal in the field, dedicated to research on strategic management theory and practice.
International Business
- Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS): Takes an interdisciplinary approach to international business, covering topics like global strategy, cross-cultural management, and multinational enterprises.
Entrepreneurship & Innovation
- Journal of Business Venturing (JBV): Focuses on entrepreneurship, new venture creation, and innovation.
- Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP): Publishes research from various disciplines relevant to entrepreneurship.
- Research Policy: Dedicated to the study of the management of research and innovation.
Operations and Supply Chain Management
- Journal of Operations Management (JOM): Publishes cutting-edge research on operations, supply chain, and service management.
- Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM): Focuses on the production and operating systems of firms.
Marketing
- Journal of Marketing (JM): A premier journal for marketing theory and practice.
- Journal of Marketing Research (JMR): Emphasizes research on marketing methodology and empirical generalization.
- Journal of Consumer Research (JCR): Focuses on consumer behavior.
Ethics
- Journal of Business Ethics: A leading journal for scholarly work on ethical issues related to business.
How Top Journals are Identified?
Academic journals are typically assessed using metrics and rankings from various organizations:
- Impact Factor (IF) and CiteScore: Bibliometric measures that reflect the average number of citations to articles published in the journal over a specific period. Higher scores often indicate greater influence.
- Academic Journal Guides (e.g., CABS/ABS, ABDC): These ranking lists (like the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide or the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List) rate journals, often using a star system (A*, A, B, C) or a numerical tier system (4*, 4, 3, 2, 1), with A* or 4* representing the most elite, highly selective journals.
- Financial Times (FT) 50: A list of 50 top academic and practitioner journals used by the Financial Times to compile its research ranking for business schools globally.
Researchers usually target these highly-ranked journals to publish their most significant and methodologically rigorous work.