A bounty of riches, a threat to objectivity? Maintaining the double‐blind peer‐review process amid rising submission levels

• Author: Paul Harvey,Marie T. Dasborough
• Date: 01 September 2018
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2326

EDITORIAL

A bounty of riches, a threat to objectivity? Maintaining the

double‐blind peer‐review process amid rising submission levels

We are pleased to present the latest installment of the Journal of

Organizational Behavior's Annual Review!

As many readers are aware, the Annual Review has experienced a

substantial increase in popularity since transitioning from a book series

to a JOB publication. In addition to the usual metrics (e.g., citation

counts and article downloads), evidence of its growing reach has come

in the form of rising submission numbers. This increase has occurred in

a manner that calls to mind Mike Campbell's response to the question

of how he went bankrupt in Ernest Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises:

“Two Ways. Gradually at first, then all at once.”

While submission levels have increased each year since becoming a

JOB publication, the rate of growth has accelerated dramatically in the

past two years. This reflects well on the work of past authors and the

Annual Review's focus on comprehensive, systematic, and critical evalu-

ations of extant research. It also presented us with a difficult question,

however: What happens when (not if) we start receiving more submis-

sions that meet these criteria than we have room to publish?

We are certainly not the first publication to face this exciting but

challenging dilemma. Our editorial colleagues at other journals in this

space have developed a variety of effective strategies to balance

review submissions with publication capacity. As is often the case in

the world of Organizational Behavior, however, there is “no one best

way.”Each strategy presents the challenging trade‐offs that typically

emerge when allocating a scarce resource. While the demand for

space in each issue of an academic journal is variable and theoretically

limitless, the supply has historically been capped by the logistical real-

ities of the publication process. As such, strategies have typically

focused on managing the “demand”side of the equation. Many review

outlets, including this one, do this by modifying the open submission

model that their host journals typically employ by requiring that a pro-

posal be approved before a full submission is permitted. This allows

editors to manage the number of submissions vying for available space

and, importantly, saves authors countless hours that might be spent

writing a full manuscript that does not fit the aims or scope of a given

outlet. A significant trade‐off, however, is the challenge of accurately

and objectively predicting the quality of a full manuscript based on

the content of a short proposal.

Review publications vary in their approach to managing this chal-

lenge. Some utilize the combined expertise of their editorial members

to determine which review proposals will move forward, allowing a

high level of control over the balance between submission levels and

publication capacity. Under this model, editors generally provide ongo-

ing feedback to authors who are invited to submit full manuscripts,

often in lieu of the traditional peer‐review process. Other review out-

lets evaluate proposals at the editorial level then utilize peer review

for full submissions. A smaller number of outlets, including the JOB

Annual Review, use double‐blind peer review for both proposals and

invited manuscripts (with the exception of desk rejections for pro-

posals that do not fit the Annual Review's criteria or are otherwise

unlikely to survive the peer‐review process).

There are, again, pros and cons to each approach. The Annual

Review's use of double‐blind peer review is consistent with publication

norms in a majority of academic disciplines. The decision by some

journals to modify or remove it from their annual review issues,

however, is not without justification. Peer review introduces a level of

unpredictability that diminishes our ability to ensure a balance between

accepted papers and available publication space. Unlike traditional

journal articles that can spend months or years in a publication queue

awaiting their turn for publication, review articles become less and less

current with each passing month. Although “online first”publication has

eased this concern, expedient publication remains a top priority.

Although the process has generally worked itself out in the past,

the growth in submission numbers means we can no longer leave

the balance between accepted papers and journal space to chance.

The seemingly obvious solution was to adopt the form of editor‐

controlled evaluation process described above, thus giving ourselves

the ability to invite and/or accept only as many submissions as journal

space allows. We were hesitant to diminish or remove the double‐

blind peer‐review process upon which so much scientific research is

based, however. To be clear, we do not feel that our approach is inher-

ently better or worse than those used by other review outlets. Each

has advantages and disadvantages that we believe largely cancel each

other out. That being the case, we believed the field would benefit by

continuing to have both annual review models in use among the field's

core journals.

Following discussions with JOB editor‐in‐chief Suzanne

Masterson and the production team at Wiley, it was determined that

JOB would run an additional issue to accommodate our strong pipeline

of submissions. We are extremely grateful to be given this additional

journal space, and we are sure that the authors are too! The creativity

and appreciation for the Annual Review's goals shown by the

leadership of JOB and Wiley have allowed us to have the best of

Received: 24 August 2018 Accepted: 27 August 2018

DOI: 10.1002/job.2326

J Organ Behav. 2018;39:817–819. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 817