Professor Tom Cooney has recently completed a six-year tenure as Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor of Small Enterprise Research. This time of transition provides an opportunity for the current editorial team and the leadership and the membership of SEAANZ to express our deep appreciation to Tom for his remarkably dedicated and effective leadership of Small Enterprise Research (SER).

Tom’s significant impact to the Small Enterprise Research journal has been far-reaching and comprehensive. During his time as editor, the journal became ranked amongst the Entrepreneurship and Small Business journals by the UK-based Chartered Association of Business Schools, and key metrics such as citations improved significantly. Throughout his tenure, Tom has worked tirelessly to improve the editorial process for both authors and reviewers. His hands-on approach to working with authors, reviewers, and the publishers have witnessed not only the improvement and clarification of processes related to journal submissions, but the editorial process itself. The average time from submission to review and average time from submission to Accept / Reject has also improved substantially, and the number of submissions has increased year on year. The articles published now have a greater global geographical spread than the tradition target market of Oceania, as promotion of the journal was pushed into new markets. Small Enterprise Research has moved from producing one Issue per year to three Issues per year, with six Special Issues being produced during Tom’s tenure. The reaction to Issue 23.3 on Small Business Policy was so positive that it was published as a book by Routledge. Other developments introduced by Tom included the addition of a voluntary Marketing Executive to the Editorial Team and the introduction of a Panel of Reviewers who offered their services to the journal.  Under Tom’s leadership, Small Enterprise Research is better positioned to advance research, education, policy, and practice in the field of small enterprise and entrepreneurship.

While he may be formally leaving the roles in Small Enterprise Research, we hope that he will always remain a highly regarded and very valued leader in our small business community.

You have done a wonderful job!!