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The Wilderness Years at JMI

We reflect on JMI’s creation and first five years of publication. This “wilderness” period was marked with a good deal of ambiguity, challenge, and delight. We discuss JMI’s genesis in the innovative and collegial culture of the Western Academy of Management. We identify key founding events that fortuitously pushed the idea of a “nontraditional” journal towards reality. We describe critical decisions that shaped the journal’s initial structure and operations, and reveal our own thoughts and feelings in dealing with those thorny, start-up issues. We highlight how JMI’s practices challenged conventional thinking about management journals at the time. We discuss letting go of JMI and transitioning to a new leadership team.