JICSB Translation: Boldly positioning for broader and deeper impact

Does our research influence how entrepreneurs and small business owners think or accomplish their business objectives? Does our research effectively inform policy such that legislation is largely evidence-based? Is our research contributing to solving some of the world’s greatest challenges (for example, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the Navol/tcgqtional Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges) at a pace proportionate to society’s collective need for solutions? Many individuals (for example, scholars, grant funding agencies, policy makers, practitioners, editors, authors) worry contemporary entrepreneurship and small business research (and most academic research more broadly) has little impact on practice, does not effectively inform policy, and is not producing output proportionate to the global need for solutions to the world’s biggest problems. Aguinis et al. (2014) suggested the theory–practice divide is largely due to the fact that “[t]he majority of inquiry on scholarly impact has focused almost exclusively on one particular stakeholder and one type of measure: academics and citations” (p. 624). While, as scholars and editors, we appreciate citations, these are insular metrics to academia’s ivory tower that only indirectly facilitate translation to practice, primarily through textbooks (Aguinis et al., 2019). Exacerbating the divide, while societal need for solutions continues to increase, fewer incentives and less of a researcher’s time are available to devote to practical relevance (Eckhardt & Wetherbe, 2014). This leaves academia and practice at a standstill, with each looking to the other to figure out how to build a better bridge. For too long, research translation has been left primarily to chance, yet real impact is the “result of agency and a desire for change” (Fenby-Hulse, 2019, p. 191). Therefore, we are pleased to announce in this editorial a new initiative by the International Council for Small Business (ICSB) directly aimed at facilitating translation between its flagship academic journal, the Journal of Small Business Management (JSBM), and its applied, practitioner-, and policy maker–oriented journal, the Journal of the International Council for Small Business (JICSB). Specifically, ICSB is pleased to announce a new article type to be published in JICSB (viz., JICSB Translation), aimed at bridging the theory–practice divide by purposefully working with authors of accepted JSBM articles to develop policy maker– and practitioner-translated versions of their research for broader dissemination. JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SMALL BUSINESS 2021, VOL. 2, NO. 4, 275–277 https://doi.org/10.1080/26437015.2021.1989637