The MBR was established specifically to support the needs of three distinct constituencies: the academic community, DBA students, and the community of practicing managers. We recognize, however, that these communities often have different needs. Of particular interest: the importance of speed in the review process and the need for formality of that process. For example, DBA students and practicing managers can easily lose interest if the process is drawn out for too long. On the other hand, many academics will find that a publication will not count unless it has undergone a strict, double-blind peer review process. In order to make the MBR responsive to all our potential stakeholders, we need to be adaptable. We therefore allow authors to specify the form of review that will be applied to each manuscript that they submit. They will have three alternatives to choose from:
- Editorial review. The manuscript will be screened by one or more editors. An “accept” or “reject” decision should be rendered within two weeks of submission, along with feedback in either case. Except in very unusual cases, acceptance be accompanied by required and recommended changes that the editor specifies. Targeted turnaround time is no more than 60 days to publication, assuming that all required changes are made promptly by the authors.
- Constructive Peer Review. After passing a screening by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, the manuscript will undergo an initial round of anonymous peer review. In assigning reviewers, the editor will place greater emphasis on reviewer expertise than on potential conflict of interest, and prior co-authors or members of the author’s institution will not necessarily be eliminated from consideration. Prior expert reviews—for example, from an author’s dissertation committee—would also be considered. An “accept” or “reject” decision will normally be made after the first round of review, within 30 days of submission, but this decision will normally be accompanied by a development letter summarizing reviewer comments and offering constructive suggestions for improving the manuscript as well as changes that would be required in order for the manuscript to be published. Typically, targeted time from submission to final publication would be under 120 days.
- Strict Peer Review. After passing a screening by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, the manuscript will undergo an initial round of anonymous peer review. Reviewers would be assigned in accordance with prevailing practices at top business academic journal and care would be taken to avoid detectable conflicts of interest, such as prior co-authorship or common institutional affiliations. Initial peer reviews would be expected within 60 days and multiple rounds of review may be required prior to acceptance. Authors will be provided with raw reviews after each round, along with an editorial summary. Targeted time from submission to publication for an accepted article would be 1 year.
In each published article, the form of review selected by the author will be noted. In this way, academic authors can demonstrate MBR’s adherence to widely accepted formal peer review standards (for the sake of their institution), while practitioners can see their high quality submissions published quickly.