Time for some armchair quarterbacking for the prestige journals – what deliberate steps could a consistently high ranked journal take to achieve a lower grading?

Hult, Reimann and Schilke (2008) have once again confirmed the JM – JMR – JCR trifecta as the top three journals with championships ranging from 1987, 1997 and now 2007.

Here’s my holiday season hypothetical question for marketers around the world: What would it take for the Journal of Marketing to remove itself from the top 10? 

The question is a hypothetical – could an editor take a series of conscious and deliberate strategic decisions to move their journal from #1 to #11?  If so, what sort of planned decisions would be needed?

The reason for the question is simple: If the Journal of Marketing cannot (by choice or accident) take measures that would cost it the #1 rank in the journal premiership, are the league table lists valid?  Time and time again, we see the Top 3 stay the same, and massive movements from #4 to #n+1. Rather than focus on the question of what can be done by the also rans to take the championship trophy, let’s focus on the pack leader and see what weaknesses it could exploit to drop from #1 to #11.  Later, we can examine whether the steps to failure can be reverse engineered into steps for success for the challenger journals.