Editorial policy

1. Journal of Strategic Management Studies, or JSMS is published and copyrighted entirely by the International Academy of Strategic Management or IASM. The mission of JSMS is to advance theoretical and practical knowledge centering on strategic management research and associated studies and to publish articles that are in accordance with, and can help achieve, this mission.
2. In order to secure scholarly rigor as well as practical relevance, the acceptance of submitted manuscripts (or simply submissions) are subject to a rigorous peer-review process. JSMS is scheduled to be published at least biannually in a business year (from the beginning of September through to the end of August).
3. Our academy publishes two different types of articles. One is a “research-article” type of papers; the other is a “research-note” type of papers. The former is more advanced in terms of theorizing and/or empirical testing than the latter.
4. In addition to the regular articles above, that is, research-article and research-note types of article, our academy publishes invited papers, which are not subject to the peer-review process for acceptance, on a special topic issue of the journal. The authors of invited papers are those who were invited to attend the annual meeting to present their research on the conference topic.
5. Responding to the call for papers on the annual conference topic, prospective authors can submit their papers to the special topic forum of JSMS after the annual conference is held.
6. In addition to JSMS, IASM publishes the electronic version of the Japanese-written journal called Senryaku-Keiei Journal (Japanese Journal of Strategic Management, or JJSM), as JSMS’s sister journal. Senryaku-Keiei Journal or JJSM is available on IASM’s website exclusively for our academy members. For prospective authors who have plans to submit their manuscripts written in Japanese to Senryaku-Keiei Journal, please access the IASM website for more information on the journal, including submission steps and style guides.

Submission guidelines

1. Manuscripts that have already been published or are under review at other outlets will not be accepted for review.
2. Manuscripts should be written in English.
3. Only authors who are members of IASM are allowed to submit their manuscripts to JSMS. When a group of multiple authors submit a manuscript, at least one of them must be a member of IASM. That person is to be the corresponding author responsible for submission and subsequent contacts with the editorial board of JSMS and /or the chief reviewer.
4. Authors should submit two files. One is the author(s) information document and should include the following pieces of information:
   • Paper category, that is, either research article or research note
   • The title of article
   • Author name(s) (provide all author names in the case of multiple authors)
   • Affiliation(s) (provide all authors’ affiliations in the case of multiple authors)
   • Author’s position at his or her affiliation (provide all authors’ positions at their affiliations in the case of multiple authors)
   • Full contact details (including email and postal addresses, and phone number for the corresponding author alone)

   The other file is the article and should include all of the following parts:

   • The title of article
   • Abstract (no more than 200 words)
   • Keywords (no more than 7 keywords)
   • The main body of the article
   • Figures
   • Tables
   • Appendix
   • Footnotes
   • References
5. Submitted manuscripts will undergo a blind peer-review process by multiple reviewers who are unaware of the identity of the author(s). Prospective authors thus are required to remove any information on their manuscripts before submission that directly or indirectly identifies them (e.g., the author’s name and affiliation, and acknowledgements). Acknowledgements are allowed to be included in the article after its acceptance.
6. Authors should make sure that the submitted files do not feature their names.
7. Authors are required to submit their articles to email address:
   editor@iasm.jp
8. Authors should write their articles using Microsoft Word. In case the content of the article changes during its submission via email (e.g., figures in the article might not be displayed properly), the author is required to convert the manuscript into a PDF version and submit the PDF-converted manuscript to the email address above.

Review process

1. Upon receiving the manuscript, the chief editor will examine whether or not it satisfies the JSMS guidelines, for example, the removal of author-identifying information in the article. When the editor has found the article does not meet the guidelines, he or she will ask the corresponding author to correct it and resubmit the manuscript.
2. For each manuscript that has passed the preliminary review stage described above, the editor assigns a senior editor who has expertise in the area of the manuscript. Then, the senior editor assigns two reviewers for the manuscript. The review team, consisting of the senior editor and two reviewers, review the submission; the senior editor is responsible for coordinating the team and making a final publication decision within around a month since the reviewing team was formed.
3. Reviewers evaluate a manuscript on a four-point scale. 4 points represent “unconditional acceptance,” meaning acceptance of the manuscript without any required revisions. 3 points represent “conditional acceptance,” implying the acceptance of the paper on conditions that, on the basis of the comments from reviewers (e.g., revisions required for paper improvement), the author(s) has made appropriate revisions to the paper originally submitted. 2 points indicate “the revised paper will undergo the review process again after re-submission; that is, the manuscript will be reviewed again if it has been entirely revised according to the comments from the reviewers. 1 point indicates “rejection,” meaning rejection without any conditions.
4. Manuscripts are assessed in terms of whether they meet research relevance and rigor. They are also evaluated based on other requirements for academic or practical papers in regard to strategic management research as well as associated studies.
5. Not only do reviewers evaluate manuscripts on the 4-point scale, but they provide detailed comments to the author(s) in order to help improve the paper.
6. Upon receiving reviews including the comments from the senior editor, the chief editor will forward them to the corresponding author along with the final publication decision, that is to say, whether or not the submitted paper is accepted.

Style guides

1. Research-article submissions should not be longer than 30 pages (including references, tables, figures, and other all information) in principle. Research-note submissions should not be longer than 15 pages (including references, tables, figures, and other all information) in principle.
2. The manuscript should be written in A4 or US letter size and be double-spaced.
3. Each page should leave at least 2.5 cm or 1 inch margins all around.
4. Page numbers should be placed consecutively in the top right of each page.
5. The paper title should be written using 16-point Times New Roman font. The main body of the article should be written using 12-point Times New Roman font.
6. Our journal adheres to APA (American Psychological Association) style as our writing style. Prospective authors should prepare their manuscripts according to APA style guidelines, using the manual Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). The manual can be purchased from the APA website: http://www.apastyle.org/ or other online or brick-and-motor (physical) bookstores. The APA website provides information on the APA style.

Compliance with academic codes of conduct

Prospective authors should comply with codes of conduct for academic research. Our journal adheres to those codes proposed by The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science: https://www.jsps.go.jp/j-kousei/data/rinri_e.pdf
　We recommend the prospective authors should understand the academic codes of conduct before their submission.

If prospective authors have any questions about submission to JSMS, please email our editorial committee at: editor@iasm.jp

Prospective authors can download a template for JSMS here.

• JSMS's Cover Template
• JSMS's Body Template