The Appeals Process

Occasionally, the review team may make (factual) errors in their reviews. It is possible these errors impact the final negative decision. Therefore, we allow authors to appeal “reject” decisions.

Authors should not appeal decisions only because they disagree with the outcome, or believe the evaluators lacked appreciation for their work, or because of their standing in the research area. We give all authors, regardless of standing in the field, an equal opportunity to appeal a decision and maintain a double-blind review process.

Informal appeals to the Editor-in-Chief or any of the Senior Editors are not available. This is the only procedure for appealing a decision:

1. An appeal must be sent by e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief no sooner than 30 days and no later than 180 days after the date of the decision letter on the manuscript.
2. All authors must be copied on the appeal email to the Editor-in-Chief.
3. The authors must provide a document that quotes each evaluator statement that is in error and explains why the statement is incorrect.
4. Authors who appeal must provide the names of three candidates to serve as an appeals judge. Each candidate is to be drawn from the current set of Associate Editors and Senior Editors, qualified to evaluate the manuscript, and free of any conflict of interest. A conflict of interest arises, for example, if the candidate is currently at the same or home university or firm as any of the manuscript’s authors, a current or past member of the dissertation committees of any of the authors, a current or past student of any of the authors. Between the rejection of the paper and the completion of the appeals process, authors must not discuss the paper, the paper’s review process or the authors’ intention to appeal, with candidate appeals judges. That is, authors should in no way “canvas” Associate Editors and Senior Editors to identify those who would be a favorable appeals judge.
5. The Editor-in-Chief determines whether the appeal is appropriate, i.e., whether it is based only on alleged errors made by the reviewers or evaluators, which are well documented by the authors. If the Editor-in-Chief determines that the appeal is not appropriate (e.g., the authors feel the evaluators merely lacked appreciation for what they have done), the Editor-in-Chief rejects the appeal at this stage.
6. If the Editor-in-Chief determines that the appeal is appropriate, the Editor-in-Chief selects at random one appeals judge from the three candidates selected by the authors. If any candidate was involved with the review process of the manuscript for which the authors are appealing, the Editor-in-Chief selects an appeals judge among the other candidates.
7. The appeals judge is asked to review all the facts of the case, make a recommendation, and write a report to the Editor-in-Chief. This process is double-blind: The identity of the authors is not communicated to the appeals judge and the identity of the appeals judge is not communicated to the authors.
8. The Editor-in-Chief makes a final decision based on the appeals judge’s report. If the appeal fails, then the manuscript’s rejection is final. Otherwise, the Editor-in-Chief decides the terms by which the manuscript proceeds: accept, revise and resubmit, or reject and resubmit. The authors receive the Editor-in-Chief’s decision along with the appeals judge’s report.