Written By Ceyda Sinag, Newly minted Ph.D. at Bogazici University, Turkey
Henri Weijo, a newly appointed Associate Editor at IJRM, is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Aalto University. Aalto University is one of the top Nordic business schools with a multidisciplinary vision emphasizing societal impact, innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. Its vision aligns with Henri's background in the creative industries and his research interests in consumer creativity and value creation.
Bringing his interests to the AE position, Weijo's guidance is an exceptional resource for navigating the complexities of scholarly writing. I had an opportunity to talk with him about his new role as AE, and he shared invaluable insights in crafting high-quality academic papers.
His perspectives on the review process
Once authors submit their research to a scholarly journal, awaiting the reviews is fraught: mixed feelings of anticipation, hope, and anxiety. Even though I am familiar with these emotions being on the author's side, I wonder what is unfolding on the other side. Henri unveiled the review process and his personal views on the role of reviewers.
Henri told me that reviewers are recruited for their expertise to critically evaluate papers; knowing the literature well means they are positioned to assess whether research gaps are well-defined and to scrutinize specific claims with care. Reviewers raise concerns about the research as part of their critical evaluation. That said, we might have heard stories about reviewers who are too negative, but for Henri, this is more of an issue of style and delivery. He emphasizes that reviewers must find a balance between offering constructive guidance and maintaining a critical stance.
“If authors choose to study a topic from a specific perspective, the reviewer has to be willing to accept that choice while giving critical feedback and proposing alternative approaches. However, this does not mean imposing a particular perspective; the reviewer might propose alternative approaches without insisting that authors adopt them.”
- Henri Weijo -
Envisioning the paper’s potential
Since Henri recently became an Associate Editor for IJRM, I gained additional insight into the different perspectives and contributions that AEs bring to the review process.
A reflexive AE acknowledges the fact that, on the one hand, authors often have an incentive to downplay previous contributions in the literature while putting too much stardust on their claims, and, on the other hand, reviewers are usually hypercritical. So, one of the essential roles of an AE is to understand the motivations and incentives of each party and create a common path to unveil the hidden potential of a paper. This requires the AE to discern whether the reviewers’ envisioned trajectory for the paper aligns with the manuscript's true capabilities and intended direction. Hence, per Henri's words, the AE role requires a nuanced understanding of both the reviewers' insights and the paper's inherent strengths.
Invaluable advice for a robust research paper
To be honest, before talking with Henri, I had never thought that knowing relevant literature deeply and effectively communicating it plays a crucial role in getting research published in a reputable academic journal. There are two main reasons why it does. First, having a thorough understanding of the literature gives the AE confidence that, if reviewers are not convinced the authors have adequately proven their points, authors will be able to address the reviewers' concerns effectively and make the improvements necessary to realize the paper's potential. In addition, a deep understanding of, and engagement with arguments presented in previous studies, is paramount so that authors may acknowledge prior literature honestly and generously.
“Assume that the reviewers are intelligent, and they read the stuff. Sometimes, they even wrote the things you are writing about. I don’t think a paper has ever been rejected for being honest and acknowledging the prior papers. Still, papers have been rejected when they were pretending that there is no prior research, pretending that past scholarship has ignored a topic, when it is clearly not the case.”
- Henri Weijo -
So, authors should not hesitate to acknowledge similar research in the literature but should emphasize how their work builds upon and extends prior literature.
One more invaluable insight I learned from Henri about writing high-quality research papers is that, even though authors give detailed information about the context of the research and the data analysis, they often fail to convey a comprehensive view of the research itself. Hence, when presenting findings, authors must use the analysis presented in their studies to tell a good story.
To some extent, all papers undergo revisions and rewrites. However, if authors signal that "this is our paper, and this is the only story we can tell from this dataset," it becomes challenging to progress past the first round of review, especially if the reviewers are critical. As an AE, Henri might conclude, "I do not think they can tell any other story from this dataset." A positive revision decision might be elusive.
Motivations and Goals as an AE
Henri has reviewed for a long time, so he brought some perspective to the new AE role. He served as a guest editor for a special issue of the Journal of the Association of Consumer Research, where he got a sense of what it means to synthesize reviews into a reasonable choice of paths for authors to pursue.
When the opportunity came to take up the post at IJRM, he thought the time was right to take on greater responsibilities than those of a reviewer.
“Because there is a little bit of North American bias in marketing, I think it is important that IJRM is a top-quality European and international journal. Having a top outlet that not only accepts but also proliferates other perspectives than the North American marketing model is important, so I want to be part of that. It is a significant project.”
- Henri Weijo -
Meet Henri Weijo
If you would not be a marketing researcher, what would you be?
I came from the advertising world and went into academia, and I enjoy this sort of creativity. Still, I don’t know if I would like to return to that world because there are layoffs and turbulence in marketing communications and advertising. Given my current interest, I think I would like to do something related to politics, maybe a think tank or something like that, because I like engaging with big ideas and the idea having an impact, proposing something, and seeing it become law. There is the appeal of that. I think many academics have a nagging suspicion that they are not doing enough for society. So maybe there could be something like that, but I am not sure. Perhaps something in the political sphere, the NGO space, is where I would like to go.
If you could retain only one concept in marketing, what would it be?
Value. Value is what we know best and understand best; we bring more varied perspectives to value than any other field. Anthropologists know a lot about value, people in finance know a lot about value and microeconomics; they all talk about value, but I think in our discipline, we have the potential to understand value from these various perspectives and understand what it is, what value does to markets, and how consumers create value and what people value.
Who is the researcher, from any field you would like to sit to lunch with, what would you say to him/her?
It's too bad anthropologist David Graeber died because he was the person I wanted to meet. Then, it would be philosopher Martha Nussbaum. I really like her scholarship. She is very clear; she has this mentality of being impact-oriented, clearly politically driven, and clearly passionate about making a difference. I also like her ideas, so she would be one I would like to meet and have lunch with.
This article was written by
Newly minted Ph.D. at the Bogazici University (Turkey)
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