Information for reviewers
Research on applied business and economics uses double-blind reviewing, where the names of the reviewers are hidden from authors and vice versa. Peer-review is based on trust and reviewers should keep in mind that a manuscript under review is a confidential document.
Reviewers shall submit their comments in two documents. One should be a short letter to the board of editors evaluating the article´s publication feasibility. The other should be a more detailed letter to the author(s) including suggestions and tips on improvements etc. A reviewer is expected to complete his work within three weeks.
Letter to the board of editors
There are four possible outcomes of a peer-review:
- the article is accepted,
- the article is accepted subject to certain changes,
- that major changes must be made to the article, which may be resubmitted for peer-review,
- the article is rejected.
Comments to the author(s)
The comments should be constructive, even if the final judgement results in a negative review. Reviewers are also encouraged to suggest improvements and changes even if they consider the article not eligible for publication. We recommend that reviewers summarize their conclusions at the beginning of the letter and then list suggestions and comments in more detail. Judgement of publication feasibility should not be a part of the comments to the author(s), it should be a part of the letter sent to the board of editors.
Some key criteria for reviewers
The following criteria, partly based on the information for authors, can be usefully applied when reviewing an article:
- Is there some novelty to the article – such as the presentation of new data, new results, theoretical contribution or methodological ones?
- Does it put forth a clear research question, one or more, or hypotheses if applicable?
- Does the introductory session clearly state the objective and research question/s of the article, its structure and what makes the subject important and/or interesting (not necessarily in this order)?
- Does it include an account of its theoretical basis?
- Does it include a discussion of other academic writings and research related to the subject?
- Does it explain the methods used in the research and how the data is processed?
- Does it report the results and take care that they comply with the objectives, research question/s and hypotheses if applicable?
- Does the data support the article’s results?
- Does it examine the results in view of the theoretical discussion?
- Does it discuss the conclusions which could be drawn from the research, as well as state its possible limitations and which further research could be made on the subject?
- Is the article well laid out and completed, e.g. source references?
- Are there opportunities for shortening the article without diminishing its academic content?
- Would it be desirable to further discuss certain issues or add e.g. tables and/or graphs?
- Does the manuscript structure, flow or writing need improving, e.g. by adding subheadings or improving their clarity, reorganizing sections etc.?
- Does the manuscript need additional proof reading?