IMPORTANT--ATTENTION AMLE REVIEWERS:
If you are a reviewer for Academy of Management Learning & Education, please take a moment to update your contact information in the Manuscript Central system. The Manuscript Central system is not linked to the Academy’s database. Changes made to your “MY AOM” account are not automatically transferred to Manuscript Central. Therefore, in order for the editorial team to effectively communicate with you, we need your correct email address. We ask that you do not create duplicate accounts in the system.
You can access your AMLE/Manuscript Central account via the following link: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amle
After logging in to the system, click on the “Edit Account” feature located on the upper-right corner of the home page. Please scroll through the pages, updating your contact information and/or keywords as necessary. Be sure to click on the “Finish” button to save your updates. You may contact the AMLE Managing Editor, Michael Malgrande (mmalgrande@pace.edu), with any questions.
General Procedure
Comments to Authors
- ALWAYS maintain a polite, professional, constructive tone.
- DO try to make your revisions developmental. We are trying to develop authors as well as evaluate their work. We would not want to lose someone who might subsequently contribute greatly to management learning and education research but was dissuaded by a caustic or overly critical review process as they are beginning to learn to conduct research in this area.
- PLEASE remember that you’ve not been asked to be a copy editor. An increasing number of authors submitting to AMLE are non-native English speakers. From time to time you may get a manuscript that has room for improvement in writing style, grammar, etc. Try to differentiate between the quality of the ideas and the quality of the writing. Your role is to make suggestions where needed in terms of improving the quality of writing, not to correct each and every typo. Stay focused on the big picture (the ideas) to the degree possible.
- Be open to considering various types of potential contributions for Research and Reviews manuscripts. Papers can make theoretical, empirical, and/or practical contributions. Regardless of the nature of the contribution, papers should make connections with prior published research. If the work is empirical, then full information regarding statistical tests and effect sizes should be reported. For more detail on effect sizes, please review the revised guide for submitters.
- Please remember that essays are different from research and reviews articles and therefore should be reviewed differently.Essays are to be strongly argued, provocative critical commentaries or critiques relevant to management education and learning. As such, theoretical contributions are not necessary to essays, but arguments should be sound, logically coherent, and well-supported.
- Be consistent. One of the worst things a reviewer can do is pile praise upon the authors and then recommend the action editor reject the manuscript. Such reviews place the Action Editor in the very awkward position of having to reject articles despite seemingly positive reviews that are not, in reality, positive. Please make sure that your comments to the authors are consistent with any comments you provide for the editor.
- DO NOT give an editorial opinion about publication in your comments to the authors (e.g., "this is a fine paper that should definitely be published"). Reviewers often disagree about the bottom line decision. The Editor must weigh all considerations voiced and then write an editorial decision.
- DO separate and number your comments, rather than writing them in straight narrative style. Then in communicating with authors, the editor can say things like "pay particular attention to points 2 and 5 raised by Reviewer #9999."
- DO cite page numbers and line numbers when referring to specific sections of the manuscript.
- There is no clearly preferred strategy for organizing comments to the authors. Some reviewers organize their comments in terms of the rating dimensions. Others address points sequentially, as they appear in the paper. Still others organize their comments by importance: Most critical concerns first, followed by relatively minor points. Use the approach that best suits you.
Manuscript Evaluation Form, with Comments for Editor
Use this section sparingly. My preference is for you to communicate the same information to authors as you do the Editor. Occasionally, however, additional comments are appropriate, e.g.:
- A clarification of your recommendation, e.g., "If it were up to me, I'd publish this if the author successfully deals with the concerns raised in point 3 of my Comments to Authors."
- Contextual information, e.g., "Please interpret my comments in light of the fact that I have a strong bias against this general approach to the topic..."
- Issues about which you are uncertain, e.g. "I think there's a relatively large literature on this topic in sociology that the author is ignoring, but..."
