[Iefac.list] "Who Are the Gatekeepers? An Examination of Diversity in INFORMS Journal Editorial Boards"

[Saif Benjaafar]

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to share with you this paper (
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/serv.2021.0274) that has
been recently published by *Service Science *and is free to access. In the
paper, the authors, Laker Newhouse and Margaret Brandeau, explore the
important subject of diversity in the editorial boards of all 16 INFORMS
journals.

The research was in part supported by the INFORMS initiative on DEI.

We hope the paper can serve as a basis for discussion as to what more we
can do as a community to increase editorial board diversity and
inclusiveness and to level the playing field for everyone.

Saif

Who Are the Gatekeepers? An Examination of Diversity in INFORMS Journal
Editorial BoardsLaker J. Newhouse, Margaret L. Brandeau

https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/serv.2021.0274

*Abstract:* Publishing in respected scholarly journals is critical to
academic success. However, if journal editorial boards fail to reflect the
diversity of thought in a field, worthy work may be overlooked. This study
assesses the level of diversity in the editorial boards of the 16 INFORMS
journals. We examine gender, whether an individual is an underrepresented
minority, and institutional affiliation, and perform a network analysis to
identify coauthor relationships between editorial board members. We find
that the editorial boards have low levels of diversity: women comprise just
under 20% of the editorial board members; fewer than 1% of editorial board
members are underrepresented minorities; and 10 institutions (less than 5%
of the total) account for more than 25% of the editors. We find a high
level of connectivity between editorial board members (as measured by
co-author relationship) for some of the INFORMS journals, suggesting the
influence of an “in crowd” of like-minded individuals. INFORMS can and
should work to end this state of affairs: we provide a set of actionable
recommendations for broadening diversity and reducing connectivity on the
INFORMS journal editorial boards. In this way, INFORMS journals can support
a diversity of backgrounds and views, enabling the publication of a broader
range of ideas and invigorating academic discourse in our profession

-- 
Saif Benjaafar
Presidential Endowed Professor
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
University of Minnesota
saif at umn.edu

Editor-in-Chief, Service Science
https://pubsonline.informs.org/journal/serv
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