General Guidelines for Special Issue Proposals

General Considerations and Scope

• For the International Journal of Managing Projects in Business (ijMPB), a Special Issue (SI) is considered as a collection of articles centered on a predefined topic within the domain of project studies.
• The topics of SIs primarily focus (not restrictive) on expanding knowledge in project studies through innovation, multidisciplinary perspectives, and theoretical contributions, and that is sufficiently broad to be of interest to ijMPB readers.
• The ijMPB conducts two major calls for SIs each year, in spring and winter:
  • First Call: Opens on February 1 and closes on April 30 at 23:59 CET.
    • Review and notification within 10 days of deadline.
    • Special Issue published not later than June 15.
  • Second Call: Opens on July 1 and closes on September 30 at 23:59 CET.
    • Review and notification within 10 days of deadline.
    • Special Issue published not later than November 15.
  • Proposals submitted after the deadline may not be considered in the evaluation process.
• All proposals must follow the guidelines and format outlined in the following sections to be eligible for consideration. Upon acceptance of the proposal, Guest Editors will need to complete the SI Proposal Form provided by Emerald.
• If further clarification is required, an ijMPB representative may contact the proposal’s author. Failure to respond promptly may result in the proposal not being considered.
• All the submissions must be done by sending a pdf file to the Editors in Chief, Nathalie Drouin (Drouin.nathalie@uqam.ca) and Francesco Di Maddaloni (F.dimaddaloni@ucl.ac.uk) with the subject: “ijMPB Special Issue Proposal”

Proposal Outline

The proposal must be written in Times New Roman size 12, with all borders of 2.54 cm (1 inch) and spacing of 1.5. The proposal should not be more than five pages (excluding point 5 and references) and contain:

1. Proposed title
2. Aims of the Special Issue
3. Justifications of why the Special Issue is needed and why is it timely
4. Demonstration of novelty and originality in the field of project management
5. Topicality and societal impact
6. A list of themes and key features of the Special Issue
7. A proposed timeline and activities related to the Special Issue
8. List of prospective Guest Editors, detailing their expertise, related articles and editorial experience.

Specifications

1. Proposed Title
   1. The proposed title should reflect the core intent of the SI. Please avoid using conference titles
2. Aims of the Special Issue
   1. The proposal should concisely state what are the aims of the SI and how will they be met.
3. Justification for why the Special Issue is needed and why is it timely
   1. The proposal should set demonstrate the significance of the topic and explain why it merits dedicated attention in project studies. This should include:
      1. The current state of the conversation, its complexity, and its relevance.
      2. Specification of why the proposal is timely, and how it would impact the project studies.
      3. Difference and novelty compared to past SI of the ijMPB and other project-related journals.
4. Demonstration of novelty and originality in the field of project management
   1. We expect authors to motivate their SI based on a clear demarcation of the proposed SI compared to prior and currently open SI calls for papers in ijMPB and related journals in the project management field. We encourage potentially innovative theoretical and methodological approaches used to understand such understudied topics.
5. Topicality and Societal Impact
   1. Evidence to support the need for the SI in terms of existing literature, events, societal implications and citations.
      1. Will this SI address any specific societal challenges? If so, how?
      2. Will the SI address any specific UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? If so, which ones?
6. A list of themes and key features of the Special Issue
   1. The proposal should include a list of themes centered on the SI. While there is no specific limit to the number of themes the SI can cover, they must align with its intended aims. Themes should encourage multidisciplinary approaches and should not be too specific or restrictive.
7. Proposed timeline and activities related to the Special Issue
   1. We expect Guest Editors to include a snapshot of intended marketing activities for the SI as well as (tentatively) planned pre- and post-submission events (which can be online and offline). Note that the exact timing of a SI will be determined by the ijMPB office and aligned with other SI running in parallel. Guest Editors should plan for a submission deadline no less than 6 months after the publication of the call for papers. Generally, for the SI to be completed we expect approximately two years. However, once a paper will be accepted for publication, it will be made available online before entering the Special Collection.
8. List of Guess Editors
   1. In this section, each proposed Guest Editor must provide a declaration of their expertise as well as a list of publications that support their stated expertise related to the proposal and demonstrate an active publication record.

Restrictions and expectations

• All manuscripts, previous formal acceptance, must be approved by an ijMPB Editor assigned to supervise the SI.
• The SI should at least have 10 papers, if the threshold is not met the papers will be published in the ongoing volume.
• Guess Editors must:
  • Act as a representative of the journal and must act in accordance with the reputation of the journal and the standards it abides by.
  • Guest Editors are expected to maintain the quality of the journal and keep to the guidelines set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics
  • All submissions and peer review must go through ScholarOne – there are no exceptions to this.
  • Not be authors/co-authors of any manuscript in the special issue, except with the previous formal approval of the ijMPB Editor in charge. Guest Editors are expected to produce an editorial of the SI.
  • Be involved throughout the whole SI development and show ethical conduct in the decisions taken.
  • Actively promote the SI through their network and participate in activities related to its promotion.

For more details refer here

brochure