Submission Guidelines

Management Science

Management Science is a scholarly journal that publishes scientific research on the practice of management. Within our scope are all aspects of management related to strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation, information technology, and organizations as well as all functional areas of business, such as accounting, finance, marketing, and operations. We include studies on organizational, managerial, and individual decision making, from both normative and descriptive perspectives.

Author Portal (for additional author support)

The INFORMS Author Portal is a resource to support authors as they move through peer review and production. Visit the Author Portal for detailed information regarding INFORMS publication policies, accepted author support, resources (including pre-submission editing services), and journal metrics.

—PLEASE REVIEW THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATION AND ETHICS POLICIES BEFORE YOU SUBMIT—

• General Submission Guidelines
• Authorship/Authorship Changes
• Copyright and Plagiarism
• Guidelines for Ethical Behavior in Publishing
• ORCID
• Rights & Permissions

Submitting Your Manuscript

Manuscripts should be submitted online at the ScholarOne Manuscripts site for Management Science.

IMPORTANT NOTE: By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication, including, when necessary, sharing with the publisher (INFORMS) and partners for production and publication. The publication and the publisher recognize the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed. You can learn more here.

The ScholarOne Submission Process

There are seven steps for uploading a manuscript in the ScholarOne system:

Step 1: Type, Title & Abstract: “Type” refers to the department in Management Science to which the manuscript is being submitted. Abstracts should be 250 words or less.

Step 2: Attributes: Please provide three to five keywords.

Step 3: Authors & Institutions: All authors and their institutions must be identified. Please note that the submitting author is required to provide their ORCID iD (more information about ORCID iDs can be found here.

Step 4: Reviewers & Editors: The names of five appropriate reviewers for the manuscript, including their institutions and e-mail addresses, are required.

The names of three Associate Editors (AEs) who would be appropriate to review the manuscript must be included. The three preferred AEs should in general be chosen from the list of current AEs in the Editorial Board list. Authors may recommend one Guest Associate Editor, providing his or her contact information and the reason for the choice in the submission cover letter.

Authors should not select any DE, AE, or reviewer with whom any author of the paper has a conflict of interest (COI). An author has a conflict of interest with (i) his/her major professor or a student for whom the author served as a major professor, (ii) a person working at the same institution, and/or (iii) a co-author on work completed or in progress, if the joint work was done during the 5 years prior to submission. If an author feels that it is absolutely necessary to include a person with a COI, then they must clearly identify the COI with that particular person and explain the reason for the person’s inclusion.

Step 5: Details & Comments (cover letter, ethics policy, and department editor preference): Submitting authors will enter their cover letter first. The cover letter should include the abstract of the manuscript. It may also include (i) a brief description for the author’s choices of 5 reviewers and 3 Associate Editors (in particular if a guest AE was recommended) and/or (ii) any additional comments to convey to the department editor. Any related submission previously submitted to Manuscript Science must be disclosed in the cover letter. See Ethical Guidelines below.

Submitting authors will designate a Department Editor (DE) to whom they would like to submit the manuscript. (Before choosing a DE, authors should consult the journal's Editorial Board list and the departmental Editorial Statements.) The preferred DE is likely to be assigned, but a different DE may handle the paper if the workload of the preferred DE is too great or if the DE feels that another DE would be better suited to handle the paper. The corresponding author will be notified if the paper is assigned to a different DE, and the author will have the option to withdraw the manuscript. If the submission is a revision and the DE on the previous version is not listed, then he or she is no longer on the editorial board and might not be assigned to handle the revision. Authors should choose "Other" as the preferred DE if they would like the previous DE to handle the revision; DE assignment will be decided on a case-by-case basis. Note that revisions will be assigned automatically to the AE who handled the previous version.

Last, submitting authors will certify that they are complying with the journal's ethical policies.

Step 6: File Upload: Submitting authors will upload the anonymous files for their manuscript and supporting documents. Please do not upload a title page with your submission.

Step 7: Review & Submit: As the final step, authors will review the previous six steps for completeness and view the PDF proof generated by the ScholarOne system (this is required). Be sure to select “Submit” when done.

Ethical Statements Authors Will Certify

Data Provenance

We certify that the authors of the manuscript have the right to use the data and publish the research results contained in the manuscript. This includes data that may be collected from public sources such as open web-sites. When data are collected from public sources, they should not violate the fair use policy of the data owner, e.g., the web-site. In the cases where corporate or other legal permissions are required to use the data or the results derived from the data, these must be obtained before submitting the manuscript for review. A violation of the data provenance may result in withdrawal of the manuscript from Management Science (even after acceptance, retroactively). To understand fair use policy, authors are encouraged to review Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors here: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/.

For details about the policy, click Management Science Data Provenance Policy.

Ethical Guidelines

I acknowledge that I am aware of Management Science's guidelines for ethical behavior in publishing (http://pubsonline.informs.org/page/mnsc/submission-guidelines) and all INFORMS policies referred to therein and that this submission conforms to those policies. I have disclosed (in my cover letter and in any related submission questions) any possible perceived conflicts of interest and noted all of my work that has substantial overlap to prior publications, conference proceedings, book chapters, and papers submitted to this journal or any other journals. I also certify that the copyright for all portions of this paper can and will be transferred to INFORMS upon acceptance. I understand that upon receiving my manuscript, Management Science may ask me to provide a written confirmation that I received favorable opinion from the appropriate ethical committee in my university regarding my research methods. In the US, it is the institutional review board (IRB), “a committee that applies research ethics by reviewing the methods proposed for research to ensure that they are ethical.”

Plagiarism & Copyright

By checking the following box I certify that:

1) I acknowledge that in submitting this paper I am aware of INFORMS policy on plagiarism and copyright (http://pubsonline.informs.org/authorportal/copyright-plagiarism). Further I acknowledge that I will report to the editor(s) of the journal all of my manuscripts (e.g., prior publications, conference proceedings, book chapters, papers submitted to other journals) that have substantial overlap with the submitted paper. I also certify that the copyright for all portions of this paper can and will be transferred to INFORMS upon acceptance.

2) My cover letter included with this submission details whether this manuscript, or any similar version of it, (i) has appeared in or will appear in a non-refereed publication, conference proceeding, or book chapter; and/or (ii) was previously rejected by Management Science (and, if so, provides the justification for resubmission).

Prior Submission

Have you or any of your co-authors ever submitted any version of this manuscript or any paper related to this manuscript to Management Science? If so, please state this fact explicitly in your cover letter and include a one-page justification for resubmission. When in doubt, you should disclose all prior submissions that may be related to this manuscript. Management Science may withdraw your manuscript without further consideration if you fail to disclose.

Troubleshooting

For additional training and support for using the ScholarOne Manuscripts submission system, please visit ScholarOne’s Author Resources page.

Contact Your Managing Editor

Toni Riley
INFORMS
5521 Research Park Drive
Suite 200
Catonsville, Maryland 21228
[email protected]

The Review Process

Regular Manuscripts. The Department Editor (DE) and possibly an Associate Editor (AE) will first evaluate whether a manuscript is a good fit for their department and/or has sufficient merit to send to reviewers for further review. If not, the paper will be returned to the authors with an explanation of the editors’ reasoning.

Regular Manuscripts. If a manuscript passes the initial screening, the AE will recruit reviewers to assess the merits of the manuscript. Upon receipt of the reviews, the AE will provide a recommendation to the DE, who will decide whether the paper should be accepted as is, revised, or rejected. Our policy is to have a clear editorial decision by the end of the second review round. Each reviewer will assess a paper at most twice. Exceptions are rare.

Regular Manuscripts. Management Science strives to provide high-quality feedback to 90% of authors within 90 days. If a paper is sent out to reviewers, authors will receive a decision from the DE within 65 days on average.

Notification. Authors will receive an e-mail notification when the DE has made a final decision. The possible decisions for regular manuscripts are Desk Reject, Reject, Major Revision, Minor Revision, and Accept. The decision e-mail message will contain all reviews submitted as either text or as a file attachment.

Revisions. A revision decision will cause the manuscript to appear in the "Manuscripts Awaiting Revision" area of the submitting author’s Author Center. Regular manuscripts that are not revised within one year may be reclassified as "withdrawn", and revisions submitted after the one-year mark may be treated as new submissions. All revisions should be accompanied by a separate "Response to Reviewers" document, which provides a summary of the major changes made to the document and a point-by-point description how the issues raised by the reviewers and editors have been addressed.

Rejection. As a rule, Management Science does not allow resubmissions of rejected manuscripts. If a department editor makes an exception and explicitly invites a resubmission, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to disclose this during the submission process and to state clearly in the submission cover letter why resubmission is justified. Resubmission of rejected papers must be approved by the department editor who handled the original submission. Failure to disclose any related previous submission to Management Science is a violation of our ethical guidelines.

Management Science Appeal Process

Occasionally, the review team will make errors in their reviews and the Department Editor or the Editor-in-Chief handling the paper may fail to catch these errors. In such cases, authors may appeal the decision made by the journal.

Guidelines:

• Appeals are not for cases where the author(s) believe that the reviewers/editors did not sufficiently appreciate the paper.
• Similarly, appeals are not for cases where the authors feel the review team did not appreciate their standing in the field. We give all authors equal opportunity and maintain a double-anonymous review process.
• Every author is allowed at most one appeal per year. Identities of appealing authors will become part of the journal record and known to future editors.
• Authors can appeal a decision no later than 3 months after the date of the decision letter.
• In the event an author reaches out to a Department Editor questioning the decision, the Department Editor should inform the authors of the appeal process (link to the journal’s website or attach this document) and ask them to submit a formal appeal that follows the journal’s guidelines.
• The appeal process requires authors to document in detail the errors made by the review team. The document should quote each evaluator statement that is in error and explain why the statement is incorrect.
• Authors are requested to recommend up to three reviewers who could be consulted and provide additional feedback.

• Authors should submit their appeal to the Department Editor and copy the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor.
• The Department Editor will review the document and may consult with the Associate Editor, the referees and other experts.
• The Department Editor will either uphold the original decision or approve the appeal.
• If the appeal is approved, then the Department Editor has a few options:
  • Option 1: If the new comments from the original review team support the appeal arguments, the Department Editor will allow the authors to resubmit a revised version.
  • Option 2: The Department Editor solicits two additional reviewers. These reviewers will have access to all the prior reviews, the decision letter and the appeal document. If the new review team recommends a change in decision, the Department Editor will ask the authors to resubmit.
• In either option, once the new version is submitted, the Department Editor may change the original review team including the Associate Editor and referees.
• If the authors disagree with the decision made by the Department Editor during the appeal process, they can appeal to the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief will consult with a senior person in the field and will either uphold the decision by the Department Editor or invite the authors to resubmit. The new submission will be handled by a new team including a different Department Editor.

After Acceptance

We respectfully request that authors upload their final files to the submission site within 14 days from receipt of the acceptance decision letter. The decision of accept is not considered binding until final files have been received.

As a condition of final acceptance of a paper for publication in an INFORMS journal, the author must indicate if the paper is posted on a website other than the author’s personal website. The author is responsible for ensuring that, if any part of the paper has been copyrighted for prepublication, for example, as a working paper, the copyright can and will be transferred to INFORMS when the paper has been accepted. This includes both print and electronic forms of the paper. Authors may post their papers on websites after acceptance and prior to publication, as long as the sites are not copyrighted and/or do not serve as formal repositories. Authors may not post their page proofs on websites prior to publication. Contact [email protected] for further information.

Final Files

A decision of accept will cause the manuscript to appear in the “Manuscripts Accepted for First Look” section of the submitting author’s Author Center, where the author will submit the following files:

1. A source file of the manuscript in Microsoft Word, TeX,or LaTeX, with a cover page that includes full author contact information and keywords;
2. A PDF file of the main paper with a cover page that includes full author contact information and keywords;
3. A PDF file of the electronic companion(s), if applicable;
4. A replication file to be approved by the code and data editor (zipped) file, if applicable (see below);
5. A SIGNED copyright transfer form;
6. The completed editorial checklist (please do not convert to PDF); and
7. A media promotion form (optional).

Data and Code Disclosure

Effective June 1, 2019

To support the scientific process, Management Science now requires the disclosure of data and code associated with published manuscripts. To read about Management Science policy, please review here.

To disclose data, authors of accepted papers should upload the following materials (in a single zip file) during the First Look process in ScholarOne Manuscripts:

1. The data collected
   • For Laboratory and Experimental papers, see Guideline 1 here,
   • For Computational papers, see Guideline 2 here,
   • For Licensed data, see Guideline 3 here,
   • For Proprietary data covered by non-disclosure agreement, see Guideline 4 here,
   • For papers whose main contribution is theoretical, see Guideline 5 here.
2. A readme file with instructions on how to read the data and interpret variables.
3. Code used to analyze the data together with a readme file to help understand the code.
4. Any other materials the authors deem to be useful to others.

Authors are not required to provide user support for their data or to maintain and update their data.

Figures

Color figures will publish online in color but be converted to black and white for the print journal unless the authors agree to pay the additional expense associated with printing color.

Open Access

The INFORMS Open Option (IOO) provides an Open Access alternative for articles accepted in any INFORMS journals that would have otherwise been available only through subscriptions or pay per view. Please be advised there is a $3,000 (US) fee to make an article Open Access. If you would like to make your article Open Access, you do not need to complete the regular copyright transfer form. Additional details for IOO as well as other types of Open Access can be found here.

Publication Forms

• Copyright transfer agreement
• Editorial Checklist
• Media Promotion Form
• IOO Publication License (if you would like to make your paper Open Access)

Contact Your Production Editor

After receipt of final files from authors, manuscripts are sent to production for copy editing and layout. Questions about the publication status of an accepted manuscript should be directed to [email protected].