Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing: Scopus, Metrics, Scope & Submission Guide

Key Takeaways

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing; print ISSN 0885-8624; online ISSN 2052-1189.
• Scopus record supplied for this guide: Source ID 22893.
• Publisher-reported metrics: CiteScore 2025: 9.8; Impact Factor 2025: 4.3; five-year Impact Factor: 3.9.
• Publisher-reported editorial indicators: 66 days to first decision, 40 days acceptance-to-publication, and 14.9% acceptance rate for the stated reporting periods.
• Current article length: 6,000–10,000 words, including the abstract, references, tables, figures and appendices; allow 280 words per figure or table.
• Structured abstract required, maximum 250 words including keywords and article classification; up to 12 keywords.
• Peer review is double anonymous; suitable papers are normally sent to at least two independent referees.
• Gold and green open-access routes are available; gold OA is optional after acceptance and carries the applicable APC.

Journal Information at a Glance

What This Page Covers

• Aims and scope
• Scopus and metrics
• Subject coverage
• Article types
• Manuscript rules
• Peer review
• Open access and fees
• Journal-fit checklist
• Publication readiness

Methodology and Sources

This guide was prepared from the supplied Scopus source record and the current official Emerald journal and open-access pages available when the article was created. Journal-specific facts are separated from practical publication guidance. Metrics, acceptance rates, editorial teams, fees, timelines, indexing status and policies can change, so researchers should reconfirm critical requirements immediately before submission.

What Is Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing?

JBIM is a specialist marketing journal centered on transactions, relationships, networks, capabilities and market processes between organizations. Unlike a broad consumer-marketing journal, its principal lens is organizational buying and selling: firms marketing to firms, public bodies, institutions or other organizational actors.

Emerald describes the journal as publishing new ideas in B2B marketing and expects contributors not merely to propose theories or concepts, but to support them with research. That expectation is important for journal selection. A manuscript with an interesting managerial proposition but weak research design, limited evidence or an unclear theoretical contribution may be less competitive than a well-grounded study that connects evidence to a meaningful B2B marketing problem.

Recent published work spans digitalization, supply-chain resilience, servitization, entrepreneurial ecosystems, customer journeys and business networks, illustrating that JBIM applies its B2B lens to contemporary managerial and theoretical questions rather than only traditional industrial-selling topics.

Journal Aims and Scope

The official scope emphasizes the changing B2B landscape and research that explores emerging features of business markets. The journal’s stated coverage includes competition and cooperation, business networks, buyer behaviour, purchasing and supply management, product offerings, new product development and innovation, distribution and routes to market, market and customer communication, customer relationship management, sales and key account management, and organizing for global markets.

Since 2019 JBIM has also hosted the IMP Forum, intended to advance research on interactivity and interdependence in business relationships and to explore implications for marketing management, business development and society.

For researchers evaluating fit, the central question is not simply whether a manuscript contains the words “marketing”, “business” or “industry”. The paper should make its B2B relevance explicit. A study of digital transformation, for example, may fit when it explains how digitalization changes interorganizational value creation, business relationships, customer journeys, sales, networks, channels or purchasing. The same technology study may be outside scope if its marketing connection is incidental.

Topics that are plausibly well aligned

Potentially weak fits include purely consumer-behaviour studies, generic management research with no substantive B2B marketing contribution, or technical studies whose marketing implications are added only in the conclusion.

Subjects and Research Approaches

The journal is positioned within social sciences and business, management and accounting, with a clear marketing specialization. Its author guidelines accept multiple manuscript categories, which indicates room for empirical, conceptual, technical, practical and review-oriented scholarship when the work remains relevant to the journal’s scope.

As a practical publication-readiness step, authors should inspect several recent JBIM papers close to their topic and compare: research question, theoretical framing, method, unit of analysis, B2B setting, contribution language and managerial implications. This does not create a journal requirement; it is a way to judge whether your manuscript “speaks the same scholarly language” as current work in the journal.

Is Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Indexed in Scopus?

Yes. The supplied journal source record identifies Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing as Scopus Source ID 22893, and the official Emerald page displays Scopus-based CiteScore metrics. Researchers whose university requires Scopus indexing should still open the current Scopus source profile before submission to confirm active coverage and any date-specific requirement.

Current Journal Metrics

Emerald currently displays a 2025 CiteScore of 9.8 and a 2026 CiteScore Tracker of 9.1. A tracker is provisional and changes as the current citation window develops. The publisher also displays a 2025 Journal Impact Factor of 4.3 and a 2025 five-year Impact Factor of 3.9.

These metrics are useful for context but should not replace scope fit. A manuscript that is poorly matched to JBIM’s B2B mission is not strengthened merely because the authors prefer its metrics. Universities may also use different metric years, categories or databases, so candidates publishing for PhD or promotion purposes should check the exact institutional rule.

Article Types and Manuscript Categories

During submission, Emerald currently lists the following paper types for JBIM: Original Article, Case Study, IMP Forum, Book Review and Executive Summary. It also asks authors to select a manuscript category, with options including research paper, viewpoint, technical paper, conceptual paper, case study and literature review.

A research paper may report model or framework development/testing, action research, survey or market research, empirical/scientific work or practically focused research. A conceptual paper is expected to develop ideas or hypotheses through disciplined argument rather than simply summarize literature. A literature review should have literature synthesis and critique as its primary purpose.

Who Should Consider Submitting to JBIM?

JBIM may suit university researchers, PhD scholars, faculty, early-career academics and industry-oriented researchers whose manuscript is firmly anchored in B2B marketing. It can be relevant to studies of manufacturing, technology, professional services, industrial ecosystems, supply relationships and organizational customers when the contribution is framed for the B2B marketing literature.

Manuscript and Submission Requirements

Emerald’s current JBIM guidelines ask for article files in Microsoft Word. A PDF may accompany the Word file, but a PDF alone is not acceptable. LaTeX can be used only with an accompanying PDF.

Because review is double anonymous, authors should remove names and other identifying information from the manuscript. Emerald specifically warns against self-identifying language and asks authors to keep acknowledgements and biographies in separate files.

How to Submit

1. Re-read the official aims and scope and verify that your paper is genuinely B2B-marketing focused.
2. Prepare the manuscript to the current JBIM author guidelines, including the structured abstract, keywords, anonymous-review version and reference style.
3. Check authorship order, funding disclosure, permissions, ethics, conflicts of interest and originality declarations before submission.
4. Access JBIM’s ScholarOne submission system through the official Emerald journal page. Emerald states that authors should submit directly and not through a third-party proxy.
5. Complete metadata carefully, choose the closest paper type and manuscript category, upload required files and add ORCID information where available.
6. Retain the ScholarOne confirmation and manuscript number for future correspondence.

Peer-Review Process

Emerald states that each submission is first screened by the journal’s editorial office. A paper can be declined or returned before external review if it does not meet submission policies, aims and scope, or if language/manuscript quality is considered too low.

If the manuscript is considered suitable, JBIM sends it to at least two independent referees for double-anonymous peer review. After reviewer reports are received, the editor may accept, request minor or major revisions, or decline the manuscript.

The publisher reports 66 days to first decision for submissions between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025. That is a historical average, not a service guarantee. A specific manuscript can take longer or shorter depending on reviewer availability, revision cycles and complexity.

Open Access and Publication Fees

JBIM is not presented as a fully open-access journal; Emerald offers authors a choice between gold open access and green open access/self-archiving. If an author chooses gold OA after acceptance, the version of record is made openly available under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

Emerald’s 2026 open-access pricing page states a single hybrid-journal APC of £3,222 / US$4,351 / €3,710, plus VAT or other applicable tax. Institutional agreements, vouchers, waivers or publisher policy changes may affect the amount actually payable, so authors should verify eligibility and current pricing before choosing gold OA.

Emerald states that there is no submission fee and that authors are not asked to pay for publication, processing or review unless they choose the gold OA route after acceptance. The publisher also offers green self-archiving, allowing the accepted manuscript to be made openly available under its stated policy.

Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

Emerald states that it follows COPE guidance and expects submissions to be original, not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere, and compliant with authorship, conflicts-of-interest, copyright, permissions and consent requirements. The publisher may use Crossref Similarity Check as part of originality screening.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and integrity of their work and for disclosing substantial prior publication or related material. Studies involving organizations, individuals or non-public information may require permissions or consent to publish. Funding and conflicts of interest should be disclosed as required.

As publication practice, authors should also ensure that data, methods, code and cited sources are described transparently enough for readers to understand how claims were produced. Emerald states that it is a signatory to the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines.

How to Judge Whether JBIM Fits Your Manuscript

How to Prepare a Stronger, Journal-Aligned Manuscript

Although the following steps are not all journal-specific requirements, they are practical ways to improve publication readiness:

1. State the B2B problem early. Make the organizational market, relationship or managerial context obvious in the title, abstract and introduction.
2. Clarify the contribution. Explain what the paper changes, extends, reconciles or tests in existing B2B marketing knowledge.
3. Connect theory to evidence. JBIM’s scope explicitly expects new ideas to be backed by research; avoid conceptual claims that outrun your design or data.
4. Use recent journal literature selectively. Read current JBIM articles related to your topic to understand active debates, but cite them only where genuinely relevant.
5. Strengthen method transparency. Describe sampling, constructs, measures, analysis, qualitative coding, validity checks or review protocols clearly enough for peer evaluation.
6. Develop managerial implications from findings. Avoid generic advice. Tie implications to evidence and the B2B setting studied.
7. Prepare for anonymity. Remove author-identifying metadata, self-revealing wording, acknowledgements and other signals from the review file.
8. Check every submission field. A well-written paper can still be delayed or returned if word count, abstract structure, file format, permissions or declarations are incomplete.

Common Reasons a Manuscript May Be Unsuitable

• The research is primarily consumer marketing with no substantive organizational-market contribution.
• The manuscript uses a B2B sample but does not explain what the results contribute to B2B marketing theory or practice.
• Theoretical claims are not adequately supported by research evidence.
• The paper is outside the 6,000–10,000-word requirement or ignores the structured abstract and submission instructions.
• The anonymous-review file contains author names, acknowledgements or identifying self-references.
• The paper has weak research integrity, undisclosed overlap, incomplete permissions, citation problems or unresolved authorship issues.
• The manuscript is under simultaneous consideration elsewhere.

Current Editorial and Publication Indicators

At the time checked, Emerald lists Michael Ehret, Antonella La Rocca and Roberto Mora Cortez as Editors, with Hakan Hakansson as Senior Associate Editor, alongside associate editors and an international advisory structure. Editorial rosters can change, so authors should use the current journal page rather than an old PDF or third-party directory when contacting the journal.

The publisher reports 40 days from acceptance to publication for its stated reporting period. This should be interpreted as an average production indicator, not a promised publication date for an accepted manuscript.

Special Issues and Calls for Papers

Emerald’s JBIM page currently lists a call for papers titled “Well-Being in B2B Marketing: Rethinking B2B Marketing for a New Era” with a closing date of 30 September 2026. Special-issue deadlines and themes are time-sensitive; researchers interested in them should confirm the current call details on the official journal site before developing a submission plan.

Publication-Readiness Checklist

How Contentxprtz Can Support Publication Readiness

Contentxprtz can ethically support authors before and after submission through manuscript assessment, journal-fit review, academic editing, ESL language polishing, formatting, reference and citation checks, structured-abstract refinement, cover-letter editing, pre-submission review and reviewer-response editing. For thesis-derived manuscripts, support may also include helping authors reorganize a dissertation chapter into a journal-article structure while preserving the author’s research, evidence and intellectual responsibility.

Such support is preparatory rather than determinative. Contentxprtz does not control editorial screening, reviewer availability, peer-review recommendations, acceptance, indexing, citation performance or publication dates, and therefore cannot guarantee acceptance or publication.

Authoritative Sources

• Emerald Publishing — Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
• Scopus Source Profile — Source ID 22893
• Emerald — Open access routes and 2026 APCs