Promotion of diversity does not equal a preference for your own research method.  In a recent editorial Steve Kachelmeir referred to me as promoting “field research” and suggested that CAR under my editorship had devalued analytical research due to the percentage of board members that were analytical.  As one makes an editorial board bigger and more diverse the percentage devoted to any one paradigm will decline, it is basic math.

What did analytical research look under my CAR editorship?  We had a well known analytical researcher as Editor, seven hand picked by him Editorial Board members as well as others on the Board that had some analytical expertise!  What did Steve offer as an example of a move to diversity on his editorial board – he appointed Ken Merchant to the Board!  It is a long way from appointing one board member to have an Editor and a dedicated staff of EB members.

But Steve misses the point, it is not the promotion of field research or indeed qualitative methods or methodology that should govern Editors and Editorial Board appointments at an Association journal.  It is the recognition that as an association journal one has the primary responsiblity NOT to those who published in the journal before BUT the entire membership of the association.  No argument will ever convince me that ad hoc editors and reviewers do the trick.  After all North Americans only have to look at JAR in the Ray Ball era to realize how narrow a journal can get if it gets rid of half of the analytical researchers and all of the experimental researchers.  If ad hoc editors and reviewers would do the trick – how did JAR go from being 15% experimental to 2% experimental during those years????