Two tales of rejection: Being rejected and rejecting others' (re)views

• Date: 01 February 2019
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• Author: Marie T. Dasborough
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2356

EDITORIAL

Two tales of rejection: Being rejected and rejecting others'

(re)views

It is my pleasure to present the next installment of the JOB Annual

Review. We have continued to receive a high number of excellent pro-

posals, some of which develop into full length review articles. The arti-

cles published in the JOB Annual Review reflect the expertise and

continued efforts of our authors, as well as our committed reviewers

who also deserve high praise for their valuable contributions.

Before introducing the articles in this issue, I would like to discuss

a painful topic for us all—rejection. As my family and work colleagues

know, I personally take no pleasure in writing JOB Annual Review

rejection letters. I find them difficult to write at the desk reject stage,

the peer reviewed proposal stage, and most especially at the peer

reviewed full‐length manuscript stage—perhaps because I am so famil-

iar with what it is like to be on the receiving end of such letters myself.

It really hurts! As with most journals, the chance of acceptance for

publication in the JOB Annual Review increases at each stage of the

process, so thankfully I do not write many rejection letters late in

the process after so much work has been done by authors (but it

can, and does happen, on rare occasions).

As indicated in an earlier editorial (see Harvey & Dasborough,

2018), we do not have a set number of proposals that we accept for

the JOB Annual Review each year. Although we do desk reject pro-

posals that are clearly unsuitable for the JOB Annual Review, for the

most part, we rely on the double‐blind peer review process for the pro-

posals and for the full‐length manuscripts to determine how many sub-

missions make it through to publication. The good thing about this

process is that even for those submissions that are ultimately rejected,

the authors are able to receive valuable feedback from our talented

reviewer pool at JOB. We do our best to select reviewers who have con-

siderable knowledge of the specific topic, and the selected reviewers

come from a variety of backgrounds and universities to ensure that

there is not just one viewpoint being pushed forward during the review

process.

1|REASONS FOR REJECTION

So, why do I reject submissions? When I initially screen the JOB

Annual Review proposals, I check for the basic things, such as:

•Format: Does it comply with the required 10 pages double spaced,

12‐point font (references do not count to page limit) format?

•Language: Is it difficult to read? Does it suffer from poor spelling/

grammar?

•Domain: Interdisciplinary work is OK, but is it relevant for our JOB

audience?

•Contribution: Will this be a unique contribution to the field, or has

something similar already published? Is there enough published on

the topic to warrant a review, or is it premature?

•Theory Building: Is there evidence of theory building, such as

introduction of new propositions or hypotheses? (organizing

frameworks are OK, but there should not be theory building in a

JOB Annual Review article)

•Systematic: Is there a systematic procedure for selecting the arti-

cles to be included in the review?

After these basics are covered, I then consider the future potential of

the proposal to turn into a high‐quality full‐length JOB review article.

This includes the potential to be:

•Comprehensive: Will it provide comprehensive coverage, or will

some areas be ignored?

•Critical: Will the review offer more than just a basic summary of

articles? At JOB, we desire a critical eye to help improve the state

of the field.

•Useful: Will the future research directions be specific and

actionable?

Together, all of these criteria determine if a proposal is rejected or

not. If the proposal is invited to be written up as a full‐length

manuscript, these same criteria are used to evaluate its quality—is

it comprehensive, systematic, critical, and useful for our JOB

audience?

In the case of a submission being rejected at JOB, it is not a

wise idea to simply turn around and automatically submit it to

another journal. For example, in the case of being rejected because

there has already been a review on the same topic recently, then

it is unlikely that sending the work to another journal will achieve

a different outcome. The feedback provided in the decision letter

and reviewer comments should give a clear indication of what

course of action the authors of rejected submissions should take.

DOI: 10.1002/job.2356

J Organ Behav. 2019;40:123–125. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 123