Male mastheads

Gendered power displays do not have to be sexual in nature, as illustrated by the occupation of gatekeeping positions in academic systems, in this case in respect of research and publishing. There are many instances of this, but one that came to my attention was the incidence of male editorships of journals. Given the number of journals, I present here just a small sample from my field of management and entrepreneurship. I selected from the top 30 journals in this field, plus a European journal and two top entrepreneurship journals, and checked their editorships termed “editor-in-chief” or “editor”: without exception these were all male.

The journals are: Administrative Science Quarterly; Marketing Science; Management Science; Academy of Management Review; Accounting, Organizations and Society; Strategic Management Journal; European Journal of Management; Journal of Business Venturing; Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. I could add to this list.

In some management journals, once an editor is appointed, he occupies that position until retirement, while some other journals (eg, British Journal of Management, International Journal of Management Reviews) have maximum periods in office of three to five years.

I am semi-retired and have no personal axe to grind, but I do think that it is time for publishers to rotate and appoint editors for limited periods. This would be good for the journal as well as for the gender profiles of the journals in question.

Elizabeth Chell
Professor of entrepreneurial behaviour and research consultant
Kingston University

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