And Still We Rise: Inclusive Impact Through Rigorous Research to Improve the Well-Being of Individuals, Society, and the Environment

Abstract

The future of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M) is bright, and we are grateful to have played a role in its evolution. Our editorship, spanning July 2020 to July 2023, was marked by significant societal, environmental, and political turbulence and transformation.We acknowledge the hills we continue to climb (Gorman 2021), individually and collectively, over the course of this historic time. Our professional and familial roles and capabilities were stretched in the face of pandemic, war, human rights violations, and pervasive misand disinformation; this was followed by specific tactics that threaten human rights and marginalize underrepresented populations and anyone who seems “different.” Earlier this year, Black, Latino, and LGBTQIA+ Americans were warned by civil rights groups to avoid travel in certain U.S. states (Schneider 2023; Yan, Alonso, and Gallagher 2023). As a counterpoint, communities around the world have come together in solidarity in the face of hate (NATO 2023; Rahim and Picheta 2020). Against this often inconceivable background, our marketing and public policy community found strength in our differences, and this led to highly impactful new knowledge across a number of pressing areas. Still we rise (Angelou 1978). JPP&M thrived during this time, perhaps not in spite of the state of the world but because of it. Since its founding more than 40 years ago, JPP&M has published critically important research that helps scholars, policy makers, marketing managers, and the broader community make sense of their complex realities. The journal’s achievements over the last three years speak to its enduring place as home for research that makes a difference and meaningfully improves individual, community, and societal well-being. The journal was passed to us in excellent shape, and it has been a great privilege to work to further elevate its stature. There is tremendous interest in and support of the work in the journal. This recognition has been years in the making, with generations of JPP&M editors and the support of the marketing and public policy community. JPP&M is stronger than ever. In the last three years, JPP&M’s impact factor has grown to 7.80, its highest impact factor to date. As outlined in Table 1, relative to other leading journals, JPP&M has demonstrated substantial growth in its impact factor. In 2022, for the first time, JPP&M’s impact factor exceeded that of the Journal of Marketing Research and the Journal of Consumer Research. The Social Sciences Citation Index (SCCI) business category now ranks JPP&M at 37 out of 154 business journals worldwide, a first for the journal. While JPP&M’s impressive impact factor and SCCI ranking are certainly important indicators that this work matters, our community also strives to demonstrate impact in other areas. We are equally proud of other statistics, such as the journal’s global reach, measured via submissions and fulltext downloads, which has continued to grow and to bring in underrepresented regions including South America, Africa, and parts of Asia. Additional efforts that are difficult to quantify have made JPP&M the important scholarly outlet it is today. In this editorial, we would like to share some of those efforts that have characterized our time at the helm. We are so pleased to pass the editorship to Professors Beth Vallen and Jeremy Kees, and we could not be more excited about the excellent ideas they have shared. The future of JPP&M will remain bright under their leadership. We conclude our term as editors with gratitude, not only for the new editor team but also for the tremendous support we have received from the associate editors (AEs), editorial review board (ERB) members, American Marketing Association (AMA) staff, past editors, the broader marketing and public policy community, and our families. We could not have achieved our goals for JPP&M and fulfilled the four pillars of our strategic plan without your help. Thank you!