Read Human Relations; every paper should have a soul
An interview with Mark Learmonth, the new Editor in Chief of Human Relations
1. Tell us a bit about yourself; what is your background?
Prior to my academic life, I spent almost seventeen years working as an administrator in the British National Health Services (NHS). I still retain an interest in health care. Previously, before my appointment as an Editor-in-Chief of Human Relations, I served as Senior Editor at Organization Studies for five years, which is a similar journal to Human Relations in some ways. My personal research interests are in exploring what lies ‘underneath’ official accounts of organizational life and to achieve this, I try to integrate and build on various interdisciplinary perspectives.
2. Could you briefly talk about the kind and types of research we expect to see in Human Relations in the coming years?
The scope of Human Relations is very broad and I am particularly positive about this. A recent analysis of the characteristics of published articles shows that about forty percent of articles use qualitative methods, forty percent use quantitative methods and twenty percent of them are conceptual. I am comfortable with these proportions. As many things happen at work – and they can be understood in so many different ways – it does not make sense to limit perspectives. I particularly like lots of different insights being used around the same sorts of issues. Researchers should be publishing in the same journal – even though they might take opposed perspectives – and Human Relations is an excellent platform to do this.
3. Why is Human Relations still important?
Looking back to some classic articles in the journal, from 50’s and 60’s, they are still widely read today and famous. There are articles that really influenced so many people and holding on to this legacy is very important. People in different sub-disciplines within organisational studies and other disciplines like psychology and sociology published and continue to publish in Human Relations. Furthermore, I think that examining big issues – say for example, identity – from a single disciplinary perspective is a tad arrogant. Human Relations is a kind of an antidote to this sort of arrogance in the way we welcome multiple perspectives.
4. What are your thoughts on publishing Critical Essays?
One of the challenges in academic publishing today is to make sure articles reach a wider audience than merely other academics who think the same way as we do. With critical essays, I aim to encourage researchers to challenge current thinking and move it in new directions – perhaps radically new directions – this is the kind of thing I would like to see published more in Human Relations. I’d particularly like to encourage shorter critical essays that show the limitations of current debates and that can serve the purpose of reaching a wider audience – including in some cases, practitioners.
5. Can you talk about the possible strategies to ensure more people get to know about the work published in Human Relations?
Human Relations is a high quality international journal and we want to represent the whole world in as fair a way as possible in terms of geography. I’d especially like to do something to encourage submissions from those countries that are currently under-represented. To take one example, we currently receive fewer submissions than we would expect from India relative to its population – which is a great pity – and there are many other countries outside (broadly speaking) Europe, Australasia and North America that are in the same sort of boat. One success story however is that of China. Over the last few years, we have noticed a significant increase in the number of articles submitted from China. This is very welcome, and I hope we can start to replicate China’s success in other parts of the world.
One way we will try to represent the world in a better way than we do at the moment is through the composition of our Editorial Board members. Over the next few years I hope we can significantly expand our Editorial Board membership – in part to represent all the geographical regions in the world – including more members from the Global South where possible.
6. What are your top tips to be a Reviewer and eventually a member of the Editorial Board at Human Relations?
Let us know that you are interested in reviewing for us. You do not have to be a senior faculty member (e.g., a professor) in order to be a reviewer. PhD students and early career researchers often provide very good reviews. If you are interested in becoming an editorial board member, the best thing to do is to review constructively and consistently and finish your reviews on time. If you do them regularly, we will get to know you and in due course invite you to be a member of the Editorial Board.
7. Finally, what advice would you give you to authors who aim to publish in Human Relations?
a. Reading Human Relations is key. Draft your article around conversations you’ve read in the journal and you need to have read the journal regularly to do this successfully. In fact, I’d say get into the habit of reading Human Relations. I am not suggesting you read every issue from cover to cover – like you might read a novel – but read most of the abstracts and make sure you read a wide variety of the full papers.
b. Every article needs something like a soul. Integrate your personal interests into the writing and make sure this communicates itself to the readers. When the heart is not involved in writing, readers can easily tell it lacks something.
Read Mark’s editorial on Human Relations contribution to ‘social relations in and around work’ both in the past and into the future here:
