About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business (JESB) publishes empirical and conceptual research, and literature reviews, around change and transformation in business from a dynamic and /or evolutionary perspective.

The journal will publish papers which analyze and explain past and contemporary changes in strategy, entrepreneurship, management, organization, business and political relationships, gender in business, and typologies of business in the world in past and present times. 

JESB is an open access publication with two issues per year, with an external and international academic peer review process of evaluation, with the sponsorship of RCUB (Revistes Científiques de la Universitat de Barcelona) gratefully acknowledged.

Our audience is global in scope, and the journal aims to attract academic scholars from a variety of disciplines interested in the analysis of change and transformation in business in the long run, as well as institutions, business practitioners and policy makers. 

Business is in constant change, and Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business has the commitment to analyze change and transformation in businesses of past and present times. The journal strongly beliefs that time, and context, must be taken into account to understand that lessons of success or failure are not universal, and change taking into account time and space. Context shapes oppportunities and obstacles for business, and at the same time businesses can shape context in different ways considering changes in the environment, and in the temporal context in which they evolve. Research that takes into account change and context in business are the focus of this journal, and welcome to submit. The Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business encourages submissions that contribute to a better analysis and understanding of the diversity of processes that lead to change in entrepreneurship, business organization, and strategy, in past and present times.

The Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business publishes original research, literature reviews and essays about International Business, Creative Industries, Management Challenges, Urban Ecosystems of Innovation, Smart Cities, Business History, Strategy, Gender, Politics and Business, and Entrepreneurship. Special attention is paid to contributions that highlight the interdisciplinary, long-term analysis of businesses and organizations.

The journal is committed to showcase original research, and outstanding literature reviews, that highlight the dynamic nature of business models in their experiences of adaptation (successful, or not) to internal and external factors of change. Adaptation, and path dependence, to a diversity of contexts and environments, are crucial concepts in the articles of this journal, all necessary to allow a correct understanding about the opportunities, and the obstacles, businesses face in the diverse parts of the world.

Peer Review Process

The editorial process uses the Open Journal Systems (OJS). Within this system the external anonymous peer review process follows international academic standards of quality, as indicated below:

1. Authors register and submit a  manuscript following submission guidelines, and accepting ethical policies of the journal. All submissions will undergo the following process, including submissions aiming to become an article or a research note or a review essay:

2. Editors in chief check that the manuscript a) deals with topics that fall within the thematic focus described above, and b) follows style and ethical guidelines of the journal. With this first filter editors in chief send to the authors the decision to: 1) reject to the authors, or b) assign the submission to an associate editor to supervise the peer review process of the text . In cases of rejection, or acceptance, editors always send motivated explanations to justify the decision to the authors.

3. The assigned associate editor, following the ethical policies of the journal to prevent conflicts of interest, plagiarism, and ethical considerations for studies involving the participation of human subjects (e.g. ethical approval, consent, participant anonimity), will then invite 2 external expert reviewers,  and if there is disagreement a third or a fourth one, for a double blind process of review with reviewers that usually will be external to the editorial board of the journal. There will be a first round of review of the manuscript, and if necessary a second or third round of reviews in communication with expert external reviewers that will revise the original manuscript, and later revisions made by the authors considering previous comments received from the journal that include the external reviews. Authors are expected to revise their manuscripts after a round of reviews, carefully, and encouraged to write a file with responses or replies to comments received by the reviewers and the editors, sent through the journal platform.

4. The Assigned editor supervises the review process, and that the journal platform receives at least two reviews per round of review. Assigned editor sends each round of reviews and an editorial decision to the contact author. Editorial decision can be: Accepted, Rejected, or Major or Minor Revisions Requested. The assigned editor supervises, also, that reviewers answer the journal invitation to review in due time, around two to three weeks; if the invited reviewer does not answer the assigned editor will re-send the invitation to the invited reviewer for a second time. If the invited reviewer does not answer any of the two invitations the assigned editor will drop the invitation and will send an invitation to another reviewer until receiving acceptance. At this moment, the reviewer may have 4 weeks (up to 4 months if necessary due to a variety of reasons) to send the revision to the journal. Exceeding 4 months in sending a revision by a referee may mean that the assigned editor drops out this reviewer and invites a new reviewer. The assigned editor usually will communicate with the author unexpected delays to leave the author the right to withdraw the manuscript from evaluation in the journal.

5. Authors undertake the revision of the manuscript following indications from the assigned editor when the editorial decision is Major or Minor Revisions.

*Authors who receive a Reject editorial decision can after four months of the rejection mail resubmit to the journal a completely substantially different version of their manuscript that significantly improves the weaknesses indicated by the assigned editor in the rejection mail.

*Frequent reasons for Rejection are: topic not aligned with the thematic focus of the journal; absence or bad quality of essential sections or parts of the submission which do not follow submission instructions and style guidelines of this journal (typically weak justification of the interest of the paper, weak theoretical section, insufficient or not  updated review literature, weak conclusions, weak sources, lack of a clear scientific methodology)

6. Assigned editors send for a second round of reviews the revised manuscript, if the Author accepts to modify the manuscript following comments from the first round of reviews and the first editorial decision.

7. Once the manuscript is finally accepted, authors fully adapt to proficient English style, and citation and style guidelines of the journal and send a polished final file for copyediting. The adaptation is never done by the journal, and failure of authors to adapt may delay considerably final publication. Once authors complete the style adaptation to the journal guidelines, the final file is copyedited by the journal copyeditor in communication with the contact author.

8. Authors have to carefully revise their English style, and can have orientation in the University of Barcelona style guide: https://www.ub.edu/cub/criteri.php?id=2176

* Reviewers of JESB include expert academic scholars from management, economics, economic and business history, from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.

* Authors and reviewers are required to follow, and accept in a written statement at the time of the submission, the journal ethical guidelines, developed below. If the studies involve human participants (e.g. with interviews) authors must prove and make explicit, in the manuscript, the existence of explicit written approval and consent of the human participants, and written indication of how participant anonimity will be preserved. Authors must send this written approval, consent, and indication of preservation of participant anonimity in a letter to the editors of the journal prior to publication.

* Only original submissions not published or submitted elsewhere can be submitted to this journal.

* Artificial Intelligence tools cannot be the authors of submissions. If they are used for clarification, style, or any other use in the preparation of the manuscript, it must be acknowledged in a note in the manuscript. This  journal only accepts authorship of original ideas from the registered authors in the journal, not from machines. The journal has tools to test the use of AI tools and can use them.

Publication Frequency

JESB publishes two issues per year, one in the first days of January, and the second one in the first days of July.

 

Journal History

2015 Design and composition of the team and the journal

2016 First issue

2020 Accepted in Scopus Source List

2021 Among the top 400 journals in Business and International Management Scopus Source List

2022 Podcasts with interviews to authors, reviewers, editors of this journal, by New Books Network of the U.S

2022 Creation of Scientific Advisory Board

Past members of the editorial board

Jaume Valls-Pasola, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. Cofounder and coeditor in chief 2016-2021

Adoración Alvaro, CUNEF, Spain. Associate editor 2016-2021

Eloi Serrano, Tecnocampus/UPF, Spain. Associate editor 2016-2021

Santiago López, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain. Associate editor 2016-2021

Esther Hormiga, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. Associate editor 2016-2021

Sylvia Rohlfer, CUNEF, Spain. Associate editor 2016-2022

Elena Golovko, Tilburg University, Netherlands, Associate editor, 2016-2022

Paloma Miravitlles, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain, 2016-2023