Small Business International Review

Editors’ letter

Carlos Martínez-Abarca Pastor: gratitude and recognition for an editorial career

This issue of Small Business International Review wishes to devote a few words of recognition, gratitude, and affection to Carlos Martínez-Abarca Pastor, a person closely linked to the history of this journal and to the editorial project that made it possible.

View full Editors’ letter

Carlos Martínez-Abarca Pastor: gratitude and recognition for an editorial career

Carlos’s relationship with this project began long before the launch of SBIR. Since 2008, he has been linked to FAEDPYME, where he worked as a project officer and contributed, steadily and discreetly, to the development of many of the Foundation’s initiatives. Among them was the creation, in 2012, of FAEDPYME International Review, conceived as an international academic forum for research on small and medium-sized enterprises.
From those first steps, Carlos was present as the journal’s managing editor. During that initial stage, until 2016, his work was essential in sustaining and developing an editorial initiative that would later enter a new phase. When, in 2017, the journal became Small Business International Review, Carlos continued to carry out that role from the very foundation of SBIR. His presence has therefore accompanied not only the birth of this journal, but also the transition between two stages of the same editorial journey.
Throughout all these years, Carlos has carried out work that was often quiet and not always visible to readers and authors, but essential for the journal’s progress, consolidation, and growth. Behind every published issue, every editorial process, every technical adjustment, every communication, and every final detail, there has been his serious, constant, and generous work.
Those of us who have shared this project with him know well that his contribution has gone far beyond the duties formally associated with his position. Carlos has always taken on more tasks and responsibilities than could reasonably be expected of him, not out of obligation, but out of personal commitment, a deep sense of responsibility, and a profound dedication to the journal. His way of working helped resolve many difficulties, gave continuity to editorial processes, and enabled SBIR to build, step by step, an increasingly solid, professional, and recognizable structure.
In a scientific journal, the most visible names are usually those of authors, reviewers, and editors. Yet there are people whose contribution is decisive precisely because they make everything else possible. Carlos is one of those people. His role as managing editor has sustained the journal’s day-to-day work, cared for its processes, attended to its details, and maintained the continuity of a project that, without such constant work, would hardly have reached the level of maturity it has today.
This collective effort, to which Carlos has contributed decisively, has enabled SBIR to achieve especially important national and international recognitions in recent years: the granting and renewal of the FECYT Quality Seal for Spanish scientific journals, inclusion in Scopus, with a Q2 classification in one of its subject areas, and inclusion in the Academic Journal Guide, with a 1 rating. These milestones are the result of the work of many people — editors, the editorial team, the scientific committee, reviewers, and authors — but it would be unfair not to acknowledge that Carlos’s work has been an essential part of the editorial infrastructure that made them possible.
For us, who have worked with him for so many years, Carlos has not only been a key figure in the journal’s editorial management. He has been, and remains, a close colleague: reliable, discreet, and generous; someone with whom we have shared concerns, urgent matters, difficult decisions, and also many satisfactions. His name forms part of SBIR’s history, of the previous stage that made its birth possible, and, more broadly, of the FAEDPYME trajectory from which this editorial project emerged.
Current circumstances prevent him from continuing to lead the day-to-day tasks he has carried out for so many years. Precisely for that reason, this letter is, above all, a gesture of gratitude and recognition: for his work, his commitment, his patience, his availability, and the way in which he has always cared for the journal. It is also an expression of gratitude for the privilege of having known him and of having shared with him such an important part of this journey.
As a lasting expression of this recognition, the SBIR Editorial Board has agreed to appoint Carlos Martínez-Abarca Pastor as a member of the journal’s Honorary Committee. Through this gesture, we wish to state that his contribution forms part of SBIR’s editorial identity and of the living history of this project. His name will remain linked to a journal that he has helped build from its origins and to which he has devoted so many years of work, commitment, and affection.
SBIR cannot be understood without Carlos Martínez-Abarca Pastor. His work is present in the journal’s evolution, in its way of working, and in the gratitude of all of us who have had the good fortune to walk alongside him.
Carlos, thank you for your work, your generosity, your loyalty, and everything you have given to this journal from its very beginnings. This issue is also intended as a token of our recognition and affection.
Gregorio Sánchez Marín
Julio Diéguez Soto
Co-Editors-in-Chief of Small Business International Review

Aims & Scope

Small Business International Review (ISSN 2531-0046) es una revista de ámbito internacional cuyo objeto es la publicación en acceso abierto de artículos de investigación que aporten conocimiento y comprensión a las pequeñas y medianas empresas (SMEs). La revista aborda una amplia variedad de temas relacionados con las SMEs

Ver completo aims & scope

Innovación y emprendimiento
Crecimiento y estrategias de desarrollo
Gestión de recursos humanos y liderazgo
Financiación y estructura de capital
Marketing y comunicación
Comercio internacional y globalización
Dinámicas y gobierno de la empresa familiar
Sostenibilidad y responsabilidad social corporativa
Tecnología y transformación digital
Gestión del conocimiento
Cultura organizativa y diversidad
Ética empresarial y gobierno corporativo

Small Business International Review busca diversidad de enfoques y metodologías que contribuyan a la investigación en SMEs, tal y como se detalla a continuación.

Trabajos teóricos y empíricos sobre pequeña y mediana empresa:

Small Business International Review pretende ser el principal medio de publicación de los mejores trabajos de investigación teóricos, de revisión y empíricos sobre una amplia gama de temas que afecten y condicionen a las SMEs. Asimismo, Small Business International Review es la revista para los trabajos de jóvenes investigadores orientados a las SMEs, que abordan nuevas áreas de investigación, y de investigadores más experimentados que amplían trabajos anteriores o abordan nuevos paradigmas.

Enfoque interdisciplinario de la investigación pequeña y mediana empresa:

Small Business International Review publica los mejores trabajos de investigación sobre temas relacionados con las SMEs procedentes de diversas disciplinas, como la gestión, el comportamiento organizativo, la sociología, la antropología, la psicología y la psicología social y las relaciones industriales. Small Business International Review es una plataforma internacional sobre la investigación en SMEs que trasciende los límites de cualquier región, área geográfica o disciplina concreta para llegar a un público amplio.

Un abanico de perspectivas y estilos:

Small Business International Review publica tanto investigaciones cuantitativas como trabajos cualitativos, casos de estudio o métodos mixtos. Estas orientaciones buscan no solo aportar conocimiento académico, sino también tener una repercusión en las políticas públicas y en la práctica empresarial. Independientemente del enfoque metodológico, todas las investigaciones publicadas cumplen con las normas más estrictas de rigurosidad y excelencia. Las orientaciones metodológicas de la revista abarcan desde análisis micro hasta macro, desde enfoques conceptuales y revisiones de literatura hasta métodos empíricos y experimentales, asegurando una repercusión significativa en las políticas públicas.

Además, Small Business International Review acepta notas de investigación, concebidas como contribuciones breves y específicas a un subtema relacionado con las SMEs. Estas notas permiten a los investigadores presentar hallazgos preliminares o enfoques innovadores que pueden abrir nuevas vías de investigación en el campo de las SMEs.

Small Business International Review (SBIR) has been included in Scopus after successfully completing the evaluation process conducted by the Scopus Content Selection & Advisory Board (CSAB)

Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) has included Small Business International Review (SBIR) in its latest Academic Journal Guide (AJG2024)

Dialnet IDR (Índice Dialnet de Revistas)

Small Business International Review has achieved a C2 rating in the IDR Dialnet Journal Index.

34% Acceptance Rate
4 Days from Submission to First Editorial Decision
170 Days to Accept
21 Days form Acceptance to Online Publication

The Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), a public foundation under the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain, has renewed the 'Seal of Quality for Spanish Scientific Journals FECYT 2025' for Small Business International Review.

Small Business International Review is a Diamond Open Access journal. This means no fees (APCs) are charged from submission to final publication.

Artículos

Artículos de Investigación Full open access

La continuidad de la empresa familiar: El compromiso de los sucesores y la elección de carrera en las empresas familiares finlandesas

Tarja Römer-Paakkanen, Hannele Rautamäki

2026-07-15

Editors’ letter

Editors’ letter

Aims & Scope

Aims & Scope

Artículos

Editor-in-Chief