Peer Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to the AIMS Research Foundation are peer-reviewed according to the following procedure:

Initial review: The Editor-in-Chief evaluates each manuscript. Manuscripts that do not meet minimum criteria are returned to the authors within one month of receipt.

Peer review: Manuscripts that pass the initial review are assigned to expert reviewers in that particular field. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two reviewers under a double-blind peer review process, where both the reviewers and the authors are kept anonymous. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript based on its originality, soundness of methodology, impact, and relevance. To facilitate timely publication, reviewers are asked to complete their reviews within one month of receipt.

Recommendation: Based on the reviewers’ comments, the Editor-in-Chief makes a final decision on the acceptability of the manuscript and communicates the decision to the authors(s).  The final decision can be "Accept Submission", "Revisions Required", "Resubmit Elsewhere", or "Decline Submission." A revised manuscript will usually be returned to the original reviewers for re-evaluation.

Review Guidelines

Double-blind Review: The journal employs the double-blind peer review process, where both reviewers and authors remain anonymous throughout the review process.

Timely Review

Publication of manuscripts in a timely fashion benefits both the authors and the community at large, since few journals are available to serve as common platforms for sharing research results. Reviewers are therefore kindly asked to complete their reviews within one month of receipt. If more time is needed, reviewers should contact the editor promptly.

Honest and Polite

After each round of the review, reports are sent to the author(s) and all reviewers of the manuscript under consideration. It is important for a reviewer to be honest but not offensive when providing comments. Review reports with opinions expressed in a respectful and constructive manner, this will more effectively persuade the authors on the merit of the review.

Writing the Review

The purpose of the review is to provide the author with an expert’s opinion on the quality of the manuscript under consideration. A good review report should identify both the strengths and weaknesses of the paper and should also provide constructive and specific comments on how to improve the paper. If the reviewer believes that the paper is not suitable for publication in the journal, the review report should provide brief but sufficient information that enables the author(s) to understand the reasons for the decision.

Suggested Format for Reviews

Summary and Recommendation

Is the paper appropriate for publication in the journal? What are the main contributions of the paper? Are the contributions sufficiently significant? Are the results relevant to the field of management science? What are the major weaknesses of the paper? What is your recommendation for this paper and why? If the paper is unacceptable in its present form, does it show sufficient potential to ask the author(s) for resubmission?

Detailed Comments on Readability

Is the title appropriate? Is the abstract an accurate and useful summary of the paper? Is the paper clearly written? If not, how can it be improved? Can the paper be shortened? Are the tables and figures easy to understand? Does the paper contain typographical or grammatical errors?

It will be helpful to provide page numbers to the parts of the paper to which the comments apply.

Confidentiality

Reviewers should treat the contents of the manuscript under review as strictly confidential, not to be disclosed to others prior to publication. A reviewer should not use or share with others material from a manuscript he/she has reviewed. Nor should a reviewer distribute copies of a manuscript under review, unless it has been made public.

Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must inform the editor of any conflicts of interest in reviewing a manuscript. Such conflicts of interest can occur if the reviewer is asked to review a paper written by a colleague of the same organization, former or current student, former advisor, or closely-related person.  Another type of conflict occurs, for example, when the reviewer is a direct competitor of the author of the paper for a grant.