As you may remember from a previous editorial piece about a year ago, we announced that the current issue, the first of 2014, was going to be of paramount importance for the future of Cuadernos de Economía y Dirección de la Empresa (CEDE). After a long and thorough reflection and debate, the editorial board, together with our parent association (ACEDE), have decided to publish the journal entirely in English. This is not the only novelty in this issue because it is also our pleasure to introduce you to the new title and image of the journal. As of this first issue of 2014, the journal will be called Business Research Quarterly (BRQ) and you will surely have already noticed the new image from the cover. We truly believe that these changes will help us to increase the diffusion of BRQ and, consequently, the quality of the papers we will publish in the future.
An unavoidable outcome of all this is that, in the next two years, the impact factor of the journal will be split into two. The procedure followed by Thompson Reuters when a journal changes its title is to spread its impact factor between the two names of the same journal for a two-year transition period. For this reason, in 2015 and 2016, CEDE and BRQ will each have their own impact factor but the result of adding the two figures together will give us the real impact factor. We will give as much diffusion as we can to this compound impact factor, particularly in the website of the journal (www.elsevier.es/brq or www.elsevier.com/brq).
If we look at the recent evolution of the journal, it is evident that the growth in the number of submissions received is now consolidated. As Table 1 shows, in 2013 CEDE has received a total of 154 articles (until December 20), a very similar figure to that of 2012 (155 submissions) and far above the 117 papers in 2011 and the 90 in 2010 (see Table 1).
Papers submitted to CEDE (2010–2013).
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013a | |
| Total submissions | 90 | 117 | 155 | 154 |
| Accepted | 18 (20.0%) | 24 (20.5%) | 20 (12.9%) | 1 (0.7%) |
| Retired | 3 (3.3%) | 7 (6.0%) | 3 (1.9%) | 0 |
| In process | 0 | 0 | 3 (1.9%) | 35 (22.7%) |
| Rejected | 69 (76.6%) | 86 (73.5%) | 129 (83.2%) | 118 (76.6%) |
| Desk-rejection | 36 (40.0%) | 37 (31.6%) | 82 (52.9%) | 85 (55.2%) |
| After evaluation | 33 (36.7%) | 49 (41.9%) | 47 (30.3%) | 33 (21.4%) |
Another aspect that deserves our attention is the evolution of the impact factor in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). In the last 3 years, it has increased from 0.268 in 2010 and 2011 to 0.395 in 2012. More importantly, it has also improved its relative position in the ranking. While in 2010 and 2011, CEDE was well established in Q4, in 2012, it occupied position 96 out of 116, which means that it is getting closer to Q3.
Table 1 also contains information about the acceptance rates of the journal. In 2010 and 2011, approximately 20% of the submissions sent to CEDE were finally published. This figure is even lower in 2012 (below 15%), which suggests that the average quality of the research published in the journal has increased in this period. Another important aspect to highlight is the large percentage of articles that are not sent to be reviewed: our policy is that papers that do not fit into the (wide) scope of the journal or have little chance of being finally accepted are desk-rejected, usually within the first two weeks after submission. Indeed, one of our objectives is to provide a relatively quick response to our authors. As can be seen in Table 2, more than 50% of the papers submitted receive a first answer in less than one month (most of them are desk-rejected) and another 25% in less than three months.
Time until the first answer (submissions received in 2012 and 2013).a
| Time (months) | # papers | % |
| Less than 1 month | 162 | 54.7% |
| 1–2 months | 47 | 15.9% |
| 2–3 months | 26 | 8.8% |
| 3–4 months | 22 | 7.4% |
| 4–6 months | 15 | 5.1% |
| More than 6 months | 4 | 1.4% |
| No answer yet | 20 | 6.8% |
| Total | 296 | 100 |
| Special issue | 13 | |
| Total | 309 | |