IIMB Management Review: The Quarterly Journal of IIM Bangalore
IIMB Management Review, widely known by its initials IMR, is the peer-reviewed quarterly journal of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, published from Bengaluru, Karnataka, in arrangement with the international publisher Elsevier. Launched in July 1986, it is addressed to management practitioners, researchers and educators, and aims to engage rigorously with practices, concepts and ideas in management while remaining accessible to a wide audience. With print ISSN 0970-3896 and electronic ISSN 2212-4446, and its digital edition hosted on Elsevier's ScienceDirect platform, IMR has grown from a modest biannual institute magazine into one of India's most visible management journals, carrying a special emphasis on research that illuminates emerging economies.
Launch in 1986 and Early Years
IMR's own milestone history records that the journal was launched as a biannual in July 1986, with Professor Basu Ghosh as editor, and with a focus on management applications and public policy in the context of Indian management. Seven volumes were published in that first phase, from 1986 to 1992. That founding brief is revealing: in the mid-1980s, Indian management publishing was still thin, and an institute journal that documented how management ideas actually worked in Indian organisations — including the large public sector — filled a genuine gap. After a pause, the journal was relaunched in 1996 as a quarterly, beginning again with Volume 8, under Professor N. Balasubramanian of the Finance and Accounting area as chief editor, repositioned to reach out to management practitioners with material that was fully researched and validated.
Reinvention as a Premier Management Journal
A third phase began under the editorship of Professor B. Mahadevan of Production and Operations Management, commencing with Volume 15, Issue 3, in September 2003. In that period IMR built on its strengths to position itself as a premier management journal, emphasising fresh thinking, newer approaches, conceptual and methodological rigour, and an increasing share of refereed content. Its Round Table and Interview features were reformatted for greater rigour, strengthening the academic component while retaining the practitioner focus. New features were introduced, including the Management Educator's Forum, exploring issues in management pedagogy, and On the Anvil, a preview of ongoing research in the field of management. From 2010 onwards, the journal entered its modern phase in partnership with Elsevier, marked by a combined March–June issue that announced the new co-publishing arrangement.
Aims, Scope and Editorial Standards
IMR's stated aim is to publish manuscripts that provide novel managerial insights in any of the core business functions, supported either by empirical data or by a well-justified theoretical model, and written well enough for a broad readership. The journal is explicit that rigour and good writing are necessary but not sufficient: the sole criterion for publication is contribution to the existing management literature. Full-length research articles of up to 8,000 words on all business functions, aspects of policy and management pedagogy form the core of the journal, while focused discussion and interview papers and book reviews are also featured. IMR follows a double-blind review process: submissions receive a preliminary editorial assessment, suitable papers go to an associate editor, and on that recommendation a paper may be rejected or assigned to two reviewers.
Special Emphasis on Emerging Economies
Although all manuscripts are welcome, IMR declares a special emphasis on papers that focus on emerging economies throughout the world. Such papers may improve understanding of markets in those economies through novel analyses, or build models that take account of their special characteristics in order to provide guidance to managers. This positioning distinguishes IMR from generalist journals headquartered in North America or Europe: it treats the institutional conditions of emerging economies — their regulatory environments, informal markets, family businesses and development challenges — not as background noise but as the central context that management theory must explain. For Indian scholars, and for researchers across Asia, Africa and Latin America, that editorial stance has made the Bengaluru journal a natural home for context-rich management research.
The Elsevier Partnership and ScienceDirect
IMR is brought out by IIM Bangalore in arrangement with Elsevier, with production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd, and its digital version is available through Elsevier's ScienceDirect service. The partnership, visible from the journal's 2010 combined issue onward, placed an Indian institute journal on the same global platform as leading international titles, with digital object identifiers, structured abstracts and worldwide library distribution. The journal has operated as an open access title since 2012 according to the Directory of Open Access Journals, publishing under Creative Commons licences including CC BY and CC BY-NC-ND, with articles archived in CLOCKSS. That combination — an Indian academic owner, a global commercial publisher, and open access availability — has substantially widened IMR's readership among practitioners who lack institutional subscriptions.
Indexing and Recognition
IMR is indexed on Scopus and in Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities, and it is listed on the Australian Business Deans Council Journal Quality List as a category B journal — a listing that matters to business schools internationally when they assess publication quality. Its bibliometric profile has recorded an h-index in the high thirties and a SCImago Journal Rank around 0.335, placing it in the third quartile for business, management and accounting and for economics and econometrics in recent assessments, with some listings recording a second-quartile placement in business and management categories. It is also included in the UGC CARE list used in India. For a journal that began as a biannual house magazine, presence across Scopus, the ABDC list and DOAJ marks a complete transformation in standing.
The IMR Doctoral Conference
IMR's influence extends beyond its pages through the IMR Doctoral Conference. In 2009, the journal started what it describes as the country's first annual doctoral students' conference for management, drawing on its then twenty years of experience to enrich the research atmosphere in India. Since 2013, the Office of the Fellow Programme in Management at IIMB has joined hands with IMR to host the conference, ensuring a stronger doctoral alignment. The 2019 edition, held on 4 and 5 January, included a keynote address on an agenda for governance and auditing research in India, a panel discussion on publishing from and on India, and a corporate connect session on FinTech delivered by a senior banking technology executive. The conference helps doctoral students improve the quality of their work through structured discussion with experienced scholars.
Conferences, Essay Competitions and Community Building
The doctoral conference was not IMR's first community initiative. The IMR Student Essay Competition was introduced in 1999 to recognise and reward excellence in management research and writing, with award-winning essays published in the journal. Initially open to students of IIMB programmes, its fifth edition in 2003–04 was opened to all IIMs, and in 2004–05 to postgraduate and doctoral students of all Indian management institutions. In 2004 the journal also launched the IMR Conference, a theme-based biennial event bringing together leading practitioners, educators and researchers, with selected papers published in IMR. Together, these initiatives show a journal consciously acting as an institution-builder for Indian management research — cultivating young authors, rewarding good writing and creating forums where research and practice meet.
Content in Practice: Round Tables and Interviews
A typical IMR issue mixes refereed research with formats designed for dialogue. Past issues have carried studies of information search behaviour among new car buyers, methodological work on attribute selection in marketing, and research on the yoga way of life and emotional intelligence in managerial performance. Its Round Table discussions have taken up major public policy questions — one led by Professor Rajalaxmi Kamath examined the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 with a panel of experts closely involved in its implementation — while its interviews have featured business founders discussing how to build long-term sustainability around pioneering business models. This blend of empirical articles, expert round tables and practitioner interviews is the practical expression of the journal's aim to be rigorous yet accessible.
IIMB Management Review Today
Today IIMB Management Review remains a quarterly, double-blind peer-reviewed journal published by IIM Bangalore with Elsevier, in print and on ScienceDirect, from Bengaluru. Nearly four decades after its July 1986 launch, it occupies a distinctive place in Indian publishing: an institute-owned journal that survived a relaunch, professionalised its review processes, internationalised through a global publisher and open access, and built a doctoral conference and essay competition around itself. Its continuing emphasis on emerging economies gives it a clear editorial identity at a time when management research from India is gaining global attention. For practitioners, researchers and educators — the three audiences named in its aims — IMR remains one of the essential Indian journals of management.
