Peer Review Process
Submissions for review are welcome at all times (no submission or processing fees). All manuscripts submitted to the journal will be peer reviewed. The peer review process is double blind. The editors make every effort to complete the review process of a manuscript within three months following its date of submission.
Editors initially assess submitted manuscripts for their suitability for the journal and quality. Manuscripts that are found to be suitable for the journal and meet the quality expectations of the journal are assigned to two reviewers. The reviewers are selected from external reviewers who have expertise in the topical and/or methodological area of the manuscript.
The reviewers are asked to judge the merits of the manuscript on the following criteria:
- Significance of the topic/problem investigated
- Clarity of the purpose, research question, and/or theoretical/conceptual framework
- Relevance and adequacy of the theoretical/conceptual framework and the literature cited for the topic/problem investigated
- Appropriateness of the methods used for the topic/problem investigated and the theoretical/conceptual framework and clarity of the description of methods
- Accuracy and adequacy of the analyses and clarity in the presentation of results
- Consistency of the conclusions with the analytical results and the theoretical/conceptual framework espoused
- Novelty of the empirical findings or theoretical arguments presented in the manuscript
- Clarity, coherence, and conciseness of the writing style
The reviewers make one of the following recommendations for the manuscript:
- Accept the manuscript as it is ("accept")
- Accept the manuscript with minor revisions, such as revisions in writing style or clarification of concepts or methods ("minor revisions")
- Revise and resubmit the manuscript ("major revisions")
- Reject the manuscript ("reject")
If there is a conflict between the recommendations of the two reviewers, particularly if one of them recommends that the manuscript should be rejected, the editors ask a third reviewer to judge it independently. Editors-in-charge make the final decision on whether to publish a manuscript.
For authors who are requested by reviewers or editors to revise and resubmit their article it is mandatory to resubmit the article together with a documentation of the changes made according to the recommendations of reviewers or editors and to explain these changes. This statement will be provided to the reviewer together with the resubmitted article. Reviewers will receive all previous reviews in order to re-review resubmitted papers.
Reviewers should not accept reviews if anonymity is breached or in case of conflicting interests. Exceptions to this policy may apply in cases where articles are based on conference contributions or previous publications. Review results will be made available to the authors anonymously. Decisions on the acceptance of papers, revision of contributions, additional reviews or re-reviews and copy editing are solely the responsibility of the editor-in-chief in agreement with the whole editorial board, and are final.
