Editorial: upcoming changes to the journal

Abstract

The area of sales has continued to grow over the past several years despite a global pandemic. While the state of the world has wreaked havoc in some areas (i.e., the supply chain) we have seen the demand and need for salespeople grow. The global pandemic has helped spotlight the importance of a strong frontline and reinforced that investing in human capital to build and develop customer relationships is critical for firm success. We have also witnessed increased demand for talent due to demographic shifts on a near global level. As tremendous amounts of sales talent are leaving the workforce, organizations are scrambling to replace individuals that have decades of relationship-capital and are the backbone of industry. Responding to these shifts, academicians have increased research productivity within the sales discipline. This journal has been the benefactor of these recent changes. Our submissions are up, and the quality of those submissions is also continuously increasing. Our citations are increasing, and in particular we are getting cited more often in the top marketing journals, as well as more specialized B2B and industrial marketing journals. JPSSM articles are getting downloaded more often, and the reach of the journal is increasingly global. These are exciting times. As the journal has continued to grow, we have sought insight from our senior advisory board, and determined that it would be valuable to evolve in two key areas: associate editor structure and conceptual submissions. While both of these currently exist within the journal, consensus suggests that further developing these areas could be beneficial to the journal. Below, we briefly outline what these changes encompass and what readers, authors, and reviewers for the journal can expect.