Editorial: Introducing the Special Issue to mark the 75th Anniversary of Human Relations

Abstract

Landmark anniversaries tend to be occasions for reflection as well as for celebration. It was tempting, therefore, to celebrate the undoubtedly important and impressive heritage of the journal by reflecting upon Human Relations' history and on its contribution to the academic community (and beyond) over the last 75 years. In the end though, I resisted the temptation to write at any length on the journal's heritage, mainly because I felt that an essay of this kind would be unlikely to add much more to what has already been written so well and so comprehensively for previous anniversaries. 1 Instead, I curated this Anniversary Special Issue (ASI) with the aim of celebrating the heritage of Human Relations, while doing so in ways that directly serve our current readers' scholarly interests. All eight articles in this ASI build on (and in some cases critique) the legacies and traditions of the journal, traditions that have been established so distinctively and effectively over the last 75 years. But they do so in order to develop scholarship that speaks directly to our contemporary world in new and, I hope, interesting ways.The first two articles in the ASI are invited contributions that focus on major intellectual themes that have been central to Human Relations' influence on the academic community over the past 75 years. Importantly, however, these themes remain of considerable significance to current scholarship, as well as to practice. The next group of four articles were also invited, but this time are from authors of articles published in Human Relations over the last 15-30 years or so and that have proved to be particularly influential. I asked all these authors to reflect on the subsequent development of the issues with which their original articles engaged, especially in the light of current debates, and to suggest where these debates might be going next. The final two articles were originally submitted as standard articles but caught my eye because they engaged with topics that relate in interesting (if not always entirely direct) ways to a consideration of the journal's heritage and history, as well as to its continuing influence.In sum, the ASI was designed to speak to today's concerns, doing so through developments that reflect the legacy of the journal's first 75 years. Of course, it is impossible to do justice to the entire heritage of a journal like Human Relations in a single issue (for a more comprehensive appraisal, see Edwards, 2016aEdwards, , 2016bEdwards, , 2016cEdwards, and 2016d. It is my hope, nevertheless, that the ASI holds much of value for every reader, whatever their methodological and epistemological preferences might be, and regardless of their precise disciplinary interests. In other words, this ASI is intended to reflect something of the nature of the journal as a whole, and to illustrate its multidisciplinary ethos, its genuinely

Editorial: Crafting review and essay articles for Human Relations

“…. between disciplinary conversations' (Learmonth, 2022(Learmonth, : 1428. We hope this article will answer key questions faced by authors and urge the submission of their best reviews and essays to Human Relations.…”

“…Reviews and critical essays have a valued place in the Human Relations canon, and while the journal will continue in the main to publish the highest quality empirical work, we will also publish reviews and essays that are appropriate for a journal that strives to be theoretically generative, multi-disciplinary, inclusive, and relevant. We therefore welcome original and innovative reviews and essays that contribute substantively to theory-building in the social sciences, especially those which 'encourage a cross-fertilization of ideas…between disciplinary conversations' (Learmonth, 2022(Learmonth, : 1428. We hope this article will answer key questions faced by authors and urge the submission of their best reviews and essays to Human Relations.…”

“…As a leading social science journal, Human Relations has a distinguished history of publishing outstanding review articles alongside other empirical papers in regular and special issues. We welcome submissions from all social science disciplines and publish research that informs, innovates, and impacts meaningfully on social science discourses (Learmonth, 2020(Learmonth, , 2022. To foster this work, our goal here is to elaborate on some key issues in writing worthwhile reviews and essays and highlight problematics that our editors and reviewers will consider when evaluating such manuscripts.…”