Entering its 40th anniversary, the Journal of Management and Business Research is the longest-standing and most iconic journal in the field of management in Taiwan. Widely respected and recognized for its excellence, the journal has strived to increase the speed of manuscript review to ensure that the first review is completed within 60 days after a manuscript is submitted. For the 50 manuscripts submitted in the previous year, the first reviews were completed within 58 days of their first submission on average. We will endeavor to continue providing efficient reviews and delivering timely, high-quality services to authors and reviewers through our electronic submission and review system.

       The journal's review policy and principles have been updated in response to changes in academia. We previously conducted judgment-oriented reviews that apply strict standards, resulting in a high rejection rate. However, as a key player in the development of the academic community and the growth of researchers and scholars, we recognize the importance of giving promising articles the opportunity for revision. Therefore, we have shifted to a more diagnosis-oriented approach for our manuscript reviews and, along with our reviewers, begun to assist authors in developing and improving their articles. For manuscripts that explore interesting topics and exhibit the potential to make theoretical contributions, our reviewers will provide clear instructions and recommendations in their comments to facilitate progressive revisions of the manuscripts. To reflect this shift in our review approach, we have also modified our rigid review principles to grant the area editors and editor-in-chief greater decision-making power with respect to reviews.

       The journal launched a call for papers in April this year for a special issue titled “Multifaceted Influences of Social Media: Pioneering Research on Theory and Practice”; the editors-in-chief are Prof. Tsai Hsien-Tung from National Taipei University and associate Prof. Peng Chih-Hung from National Taiwan University. Social media play a pivotal role in contemporary society, providing various platforms that each represent a separate space for consumers to share their experience and receive feedback from other in real time. Social media change how people interact with each other, provide new tools to businesses and nonprofit organizations, and play a key role in shaping public opinions and promoting public policies. We welcome all scholars interested in our special issue theme to share their findings, and we accept both full-length article and long abstract submissions. The submission deadline is January 10, 2024, and a conference on the special issue is scheduled to be held on May 17, 2024. More information on the special issue is available on the journal's official website. We look forward to your contributions to the special issue!

       This issue comprises four articles. The first article, titled “Emergency Bricolage: A Case Study of the National Face Mask Team in Taiwan,” discusses how a temporary organization can be established to assemble, coordinate, align, and build resources during an emergency and to combat the challenges brought about by adjustments in routine operations. A case study was conducted on National Face Mask Team, a temporary organization established during the COVID-19 pandemic, to analyze, which was able to successfully assemble 92 mask production lines within 40 days. On the basis of bricolage theory, this article explores how the team managed to consolidate limited resources into a productive configuration by applying various theories and conducting a case study. The bricolage of resources by the mask production team is divided into four phase structure, specifically goal-setting during the urgent phase, then integrating parts into a greater whole during exploration, formulating regulations and practices during adjustment, and achieving mass production while ensuring regulatory compliance during steady and fast growth. Then three work practices central to the process, namely mobilizing resources, aligning resources, and framing resources. Finally, the article summarizes the essence of bricolage, three core features playing crucial roles - resource assembly, desperate creativity, and legitimation.

       The second article, titled “Corporate Social Responsibility and Stock Returns during the COVID-19 Crisis,” is built on an observation that businesses with stronger corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance achieved significantly higher stock returns during previous stock market crashes relative to those with less favorable CSR performance, and it investigates how CSR practice affected listed Taiwanese businesses during stock crashes. Taiwan is a suitable location for the investigation because the stock market crash that it experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic was the first instance that had occurred since the Financial Supervisory Commission mandated in 2014 that all applicable companies must provide CSR reports. The article reveals that businesses with stronger CSR performance achieved significantly higher stock returns during the pandemic stock market crash relative to their counterparts with poorer CSR performance. This observation was robust when corporate governance variables were controlled. Additionally, businesses that produced and disclosed CSR reports also achieved high stock returns during the market crash.

       The third article, titled “University Social Responsibility Practice: An Analysis of Actor­–Network Theory in Exploring Fields with Objects,” discusses the practical experience with University Social Responsibility (USR) and reflects the initial ambiguity of the challenges faced by USR frontliners in nascent organizational fields. This article focuses on the CSR experience of Tamkung University and the nearby 100-year-old Tamsui Old Street, and it investigates the university's social embeddedness in the context of a program that ran from mid-2017 to 2022 and was aimed at helping students to explore the history and stories of Tamsui through reality games. Drawing on the literatures of actor-network theory (ANT) and practice theory, a process model is developed to explore how actors dynamically construct actor networks through a course of practice works under the accountable context of the USR field.

       The fourth article, titled “The Impact of Corporate Governance on Financial Constraints: Does the Life Cycle Stage of a Firm Matter?” investigates the potential effect of corporate governance on financial constraints and the potential effect of life-cycle stages on the relationship between corporate governance and financial constraints. The empirical findings of the article reveal the significant and negative effect of corporate governance on financial constraints during the introduction, growth, and decline stages, indicating that favorable corporate governance can mitigate the financial constraints of a business during these phases. However, this effect is not present in the maturity stage. Therefore, businesses should adjust their corporate governance model on the basis of their life cycle stage and their financial situation to minimize their risk of becoming financially constrained and promote positive business development.