Editorial Policy and Style Information

Editorial Policy

Editorial Policy

According to the policies set by the Publications Committee (which were endorsed by the Executive Committee and were published in the Accounting Education News, June 1987), The Accounting Review “should be viewed as the premier journal for publishing articles reporting the results of accounting research and explaining and illustrating related research methodology. The scope of acceptable articles should embrace any research methodology and any accounting-related subject, as long as the articles meet the standards established for publication in the journal... no special sections should be necessary. The primary, but not exclusive, audience should be—as it is now—academicians, graduate students, and others interested in accounting research.”The primary criterion for publication in The Accounting Review (TAR) is the significance of the contribution an article makes to the literature. Topical areas of interest to the journal include accounting information systems, auditing and assurance services, financial accounting, management accounting, taxation, and all other areas of accounting, broadly defined. The journal is also open to all rigorous research methods.The efficiency and effectiveness of the editorial review process is critically dependent upon the actions of both the authors submitting papers and the reviewers. Authors accept the responsibility of preparing research papers at a level suitable for evaluation by independent reviewers. Such preparation, therefore, should include subjecting the manuscript to critique by colleagues and others and revising it accordingly prior to submission. The review process is not to be used as a means of obtaining feedback at early stages of developing the research.Reviewers and editors are responsible for providing constructive and prompt evaluations of submitted research papers based on the significance of their contribution and on the rigor of analysis and presentation.The following guidelines should be followed for submitting manuscripts: New manuscripts are submitted using the Manuscript Submission and Peer Review System, at https://www.editorialmanager.com/accr. Revisions with a manuscript number less than TAR- 2019-1000 are resubmitted at http://accr.allentrack.net. Both sites contain detailed instructions regarding the preparation of files for submission. To ensure anonymous review, the title page is submitted as a separate file from the manuscript text.Manuscripts under consideration by another journal or other publisher should not be submitted. The submitting author will be asked to verify this during the web-based submission process.For manuscripts reporting on field surveys or experiments: Please ensure that reporting of descriptive statistics and of models and tests of hypotheses is complete. For experimental papers, this would generally include: (1) reporting standard deviation and cell sizes in any tables of means, (2) including degrees of freedom along with any reported test statistics that have degrees of freedom, whether in the tables, footnotes, or text, and (3) ensuring ANOVA, MANOVA, ANCOVA, etc. tables are complete, including all estimated terms, including the error term, along with the associated degrees of freedom. Note that if test statistics and associated degrees of freedom are reported in the tables, authors need not repeat this material in the text. For example, authors could provide only the p- values for effects (tests) of interest in the text, if desired. If the additional documentation (e.g., questionnaire, case, interview schedule) is sent as a separate file, then all information that might identify the author(s) must be deleted from the instrument.Manuscripts that report surveys or experiments utilizing human subjects must verify approval by the institution at which the experiment took place. Notation of approval should be made within the manuscript. In addition, the submitting author will be asked to verify approval during the web- based submission process. Before submission, please refer to TAR’s disclosure on human subject research below in Additional Information.Authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing any conflict of interest that could be perceived to bias their work. Conflict of interest disclosures include, but are not limited to, grants or research funding, employment, affiliations, patents, inventions, honoraria, stock options/ownership, royalties, and consultancies. Authors will be asked to provide any potential conflicts of interest during manuscript submission.The nonrefundable submission fee is $250.00 for members and $500.00 for nonmembers of the AAA payable by credit card (VISA, MasterCard, or American Express only). The payment form is available online at: http://aaahq.org/AAA-Journals/TAR/Payment. If you are unable to pay by credit card or have any questions, please contact the AAA Member Services Team at (941) 921- 7747 or info@aaahq.org.Revisions should be submitted within 12 months from the request, otherwise they will be considered new submissions.The review process consists of the following: The senior editor reviews the submitted manuscript for proper format and consistency with the mission of the journal. The author(s) is notified if the manuscript is deemed inappropriate for further consideration.Manuscripts that pass the initial review are sent to an editor and a minimum of two reviewers for formal review.The editor evaluates comments and recommendations of the reviewers and informs the author(s) of the decision regarding the publication of the manuscript (reject, accept, or revise/resubmit). The editor’s decision and comments, without identifying information, are forwarded to the reviewers. The senior editor reviews and approves all editor decisions.Requested revisions are returned to the same reviewers. In addition to the revised manuscript, the author(s) should submit responses to the reviewer comments that restate the comments and identify how and where the comment is addressed in the revision.The process will continue as described above until a final publication decision is made.Consistent with our Publications Ethics policy on plagiarism (for the full version, please see: Policy on Publication Ethics: Plagiarism) all articles are automatically processed through Crosscheck prior to publication to identify text taken from published and unpublished works, print or digital, that is not properly cited or quoted.The review, as outlined above, is an overview of the actual process. The senior editor may, in some circumstances, vary this process at his or her discretion. Through its constructive and responsive editorial procedures, the journal aims to render research efforts relevant and rewarding for all concerned.To promote the objective handling of papers under review, TAR prohibits Editors, and takes steps to prevent reviewers, from handling papers by authors with whom they have a conflict of interest. Because a variety of circumstances can result in a loss of objectivity with respect to a particular paper, judgment is necessary to identify conflicts of interest. However, a conflict of interest is presumed to exist when an Editor or reviewer: (1) is an author of the paper; (2) has a personal relationship with an author that prevents the Editor or reviewer from being objective; (3) chaired an author’s dissertation committee or an author chaired the dissertation committee of the Editor or reviewer; (4) works at the same institution as an author, or worked at the same institution within the last five years; or (5) has co-authored a paper with an author. An Editor also is presumed to have a conflict of interest with a paper when that Editor had editorial decision rights on a previous version of the paper at another journal.TAR Editors have editorial decision rights for papers they handle. When an Editor has a conflict of interest with a paper, the Senior Editor will assign a non-conflicted Editor to handle the paper unless the Senior Editor is an author of the paper, in which case a non-conflicted Editor will assign a non-conflicted Editor to handle the paper. If necessary, an ad hoc Editor will be assigned to handle the paper. The conflicted Editor will have no access to TAR information about the paper.Because of the double-blind review process, it is primarily the responsibility of the Senior Editor and other Editors to identify conflicts of interest. Should a reviewer suspect a conflict of interest, it is the reviewer’s responsibility to alert the Senior Editor or another Editor to the potential conflict. If a conflict arises during the review process, the Senior Editor will oversee a change in Editor or reviewers, as appropriate.TAR's overall policy is that the Editor’s editorial decision on a paper is final. The only exception is when the editorial decision was based on a factual mistake, or there was a breach in the review process. Importantly, disagreements in judgment are not grounds for reinstating a previously rejected a paper. Thus, appeals should be rare and the large majority of appeals for reinstatement are denied.Only the Senior Editor can authorize the reinstatement of a rejected manuscript. Thus, all communication between TAR and the authors regarding appeals comes directly from the Senior Editor. The Senior Editor will ask the original Editor, or another Editor, to revisit the original rejection decision based on the reasons for the appeal as articulated by the author(s) in the appeal request. The Editor may ask the original reviewers to provide their assessment of the validity of reasons for the appeal. The Editor then recommends to the Senior Editor whether the appeal should be granted, or whether the original decision should stand. If the Senior Editor denies the appeal, the file is closed. If the Senior Editor grants the appeal, the Senior Editor will, with input from the Editor, send the authors a new decision letter based on input from the appeal process.In some cases, authors may wish to resubmit a previously rejected manuscript because they believe the revised version essentially constitutes a new paper.To qualify for resubmission to TAR, a previously rejected manuscript must be a genuinely new paper. An extensive revision of the originally rejected paper does not meet this criterion and is not permitted to be resubmitted. If authors were allowed to submit revisions without being invited to do so, papers effectively would never be rejected. The paper asking a new research question or employing a substantially new dataset or methodology could be evidence that the paper is “genuinely new.” The large majority of these resubmission requests are not granted.The Senior Editor usually asks the original Editor to evaluate the newness of the paper. The original Editor is likely an expert in the area and is familiar with the original paper. If the original Editor is unavailable, the Senior Editor asks another Editor, or ad hoc Editor, to evaluate the newness of the paper. If the new paper is evaluated to be genuinely new, it continues through the review process. If not, it is rejected by the Senior Editor.TAR requires the printed version of all papers and all submissions to conform to TAR’s page length guidelines. An Online Appendix will only be offered when the Editor concludes that there is specific material that is an appropriate part of the paper but tangential enough to not be part of the printed version and instructs the authors to place that material in an online appendix. This typically occurs near the end of the review process. This policy ensures material published in an online appendix has been scrutinized during the review process by the reviewers and Editor. TAR does not view online appendices as a repository for supporting material that has not been part of the reviewed manuscript or for material the authors simply want to make available online. For example, TAR does not routinely published survey instruments or tables relating to empirical analyses the summaries of which appear in footnotes in the printed version of the paper.The Accounting Review welcomes submissions of comments on previous TAR articles. Comments on articles previously published in The Accounting Review will generally be reviewed by two reviewers usually including an author of the original article (to assist the editor in evaluating whether the submitted comment represents the prior article accurately) and an additional reviewer who is independent of the original article. If a comment is accepted for publication, the original author will generally be invited to reply. All other editorial requirements, as enumerated above, apply to proposed comments.Many approaches to accounting research involve interactions with, and about, human beings. Given the general rise in hybrid, multi-method, and blended research projects, many accounting research projects are now subject to human participant review. Broadly speaking, any research projects that involve interactions with human participants, even tangentially, are subject to government rules and regulations. Under rules promulgated by the FDA of the US government (HRP-001), the definitions of human subjects and research are as follows: 2.16Human subject means a living individual about whom an investigator (whether professional or student) conducting research:Obtains information or biospecimens through intervention or interaction with the individual, and uses, studies, or analyzes the information or biospecimens; orObtains, uses, studies, analyzes, or generates identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens2.16.1Intervention: Physical procedures by which data are gathered (for example, venipuncture) and manipulations of the subject or the subject’s environment that are performed for research purposes.2.16.2Interaction: Communication or interpersonal contact between investigator and subject.2.16.3.Private Information: Information about behavior that occurs in a context in which an individual can reasonably expect that no observation or recording is taking place, and information which has been provided for specific purposes by an individual and which the individual can reasonably expect will not be made public (for example, a medical record)2.28Research means a systematic investigation, including research development, testing, and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.Universities are generally responsible for enforcing these rules and regulations for all researchers affiliated with the university, and researchers are often required to obtain training on IRB regulations. Researchers are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the appropriate rules and regulations before undertaking a research project. If human subjects are involved in any way—as a participant in a lab experiment, a respondent to a survey, a focus of an interview, or as the result of an intervention associated with a field experiment-it is highly likely that the project will require review by the researcher’s university-based Institutional Review Board (IRB). Projects by accounting researchers may be exempt from IRB review or eligible for an expedited review process. However, the decision to obtain an IRB review is not the researcher’s, and it is always best, when in doubt, to obtain an assessment from the local IRB.Failure to obtain appropriate clearance from the IRB of an author’s university is grounds for a desk reject of a submitted paper. Personal assurance from an author is not adequate support for waiving this policy. Authors should also be aware that special conditions may apply when a project involves researchers from different universities or different countries, or when the human participants are in different countries or legal jurisdictions. This policy statement does not substitute for an assessment by the local IRB, and, if in doubt, always obtain clearance from your local IRB.

Editorial Policy and Style Information

Editorial Policy

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

Editorial Policy and Style Information

Editorial Policy

Peer Review: The Best of the Blemished?

The Australian Occupational Therapy Journal (AOTJ) is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), an organisation that supports editors, editorial boards, and publishers to ensure a culture of ethical practices. In accordance, the publication arrangements and policies of the journal must be ethically sound and transparent. It is particularly important that AOTJ, a society journal working with both Occupational Therapy Australia and the publisher Wiley, establish governance practices that are clear and transparent. The editorials within this volume of AOTJ have spoken to quality and research integrity, and it is time to take an inward view. The introduction of a publicly advertised expression of interest for board membership in late 2019 was a first step in creating transparent processes. A new structure was created within the editorial board: the Associate Editors continue to assist the Editor-in-Chief with the management of submitted manuscripts; and the Editorial Board Members (EBM) provide support for initiatives and reviews. The role of EBM supports new members to learn the business of the journal, including governance and publishing ethics, prior to their entry into role of Associate Editor and manuscript management. All members of the editorial board now have terms of appointment to support a regular turnover of members while ensuring continuity of knowledge and succession planning. The members of the editorial board are volunteers for Occupational Therapy Australia, and we are building a system of governance while recognising the importance of editorial independence. We are introducing an induction process for all new members to clearly outline journal policies and processes, code of conduct expectations, confidentiality statements, etc. The induction process includes a conflict of interest declaration and the board is examining how to manage conflicts of interest within meetings, management of manuscripts, and publishing. An upcoming, independently facilitated session will further develop our understanding of conflicts of interest in the context of a journal editorial board. As incoming Editor-in-Chief, I gave due consideration to perceived or actual conflicts of interest and implemented the following approaches early in 2020. Firstly, I consider that I have a conflict of interest during editorial and review processes for other occupational therapy journals. I have therefore made myself unavailable for the duration of my term with AOTJ. Secondly, I have identified a perceived conflict of interest for manuscripts submitted to the journal with a current colleague or collaborator as an author. It is now editorial policy to allocate these manuscripts to an Associate Editor for management, removing the potential for any perceived influence, and ensuring confidence in the rigorous review process and final editorial decision. The more difficult issue, for all members of the editorial board and myself as Editor-in-Chief, relates to publication within the journal. As leaders in the profession, the editorial board have collaborators and research students who wish to publish in their professional association journal. COPE advice that there are examples of when an editor may publish in their own journal but that every effort must be made to minimise bias (COPE, 2005). This advice has been applied across all members of the editorial board with the following processes. Any manuscript submitted by a member of the editorial board is managed by the Editor-in-Chief and the manuscript is reviewed by experts external to the board. Any manuscript submitted with the Editor-in-Chief listed as a co-author is automatically allocated by the publishing assistant at Wiley to an Associate Editor. The Editor-in-Chief has no access to the manuscript during any stage of the review process or the editorial decision. Finally, we are introducing a policy that any manuscript authored by members of the editorial board will include a conflict of interest statement that clearly outlines their association with the journal and how this conflict was managed during the review process. To be clear, the pursuit of ethical practices in publishing have always been a focus of the AOTJ Editorial Board. This year, with the support of Occupational Therapy Australia and Wiley, we are formalising existing policies and processes and enhancing governance practices. The AOTJ has a strong commitment to ethical and transparent practices that maintain the highest standards in publication ethics.

The Red Journal's Outstanding Reviewer Awards for 2012

Information for authors and editorial policies

It gives us great pleasure to introduce this special section on outstanding papers from the ACM MobiSys 2012 conference, for which we were honored to be the program committee cochairs. The conference was held in June 2012 and included 32 high-quality papers selected from 182 submissions, a record high for both paper submissions and paper acceptances. The conference's call-for-papers informed authors that a few outstanding papers would be considered for a fast-tracked special section in the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC). The selection process for the papers included in this special section was a byproduct of the selection process for the MobiSys 2012 Best Paper Award. Immediately after the MobiSys 2012 program committee meeting, we asked the committee members to nominate accepted papers for the Best Paper Award. Based on the responses we received, five papers with the most nominations were selected as candidates for the award. Their nominations were kept confidential until the opening of the conference. We then asked the program committee and external reviewer panel members to volunteer for the Best Paper Award committee to determine the final best paper and select three out of the five nominated papers for this special section. Based on the responses and conflicts of interest, four members of the program committee and one member of the external reviewer panel formed the Best Paper Award committee. At the conference, this committee selected the best paper and the three papers to be fast-tracked for this special section. The paper review process for the selected papers followed the standard procedure for fast-tracked TMC special sections. The authors were asked to submit a journal version with an explanation of how they addressed the reviews and feedback received at the conference. Note that each of these three papers received five or more conference reviews and had gone through a shepherding process to address reviewer comments for the final, camera-ready version. As required by the TMC fast-tracking procedure, we invited at least two reviewers for each submission. At least one reviewer was a MobiSys program committee member who reviewed the corresponding conference submission and another was not a member of program committee. In the end, the review process produced three very highquality papers that we are proud to present to the readers of TMC.

Conflict of interest in medical publishing exists when a participant’s private interests compete with his or her responsibilities to the scientific community, readers, and society. While conflict of interest is common, it reaches the level of concern when “a reasonable observer might wonder if the individual’s behavior or judgment was motivated by his or her competing interests”1. Having a competing interest does not, in itself, imply wrongdoing. But it can undermine the credibility of research results and damage public trust in medical journals. 
 In recent years, the extent of conflict of interest in medical journal articles has been increasingly recognized. Medical journals and the popular media have published numerous examples of competing interests that seemed to have biased published reports 2,3,4. Organizations have expressed concern for the effects of conflicts of interest on research 5, publication 1,6,7 teaching8 and continuing medical and nursing education9.
 The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) is one of the institutions engaged in this discussion. WAME was established in 1995 10, 11 to facilitate worldwide cooperation and communication among editors of peer-reviewed journals, improve editorial standards, and promote professionalism in medical editing 12. Membership in WAME is open to all editors of peer-reviewed biomedical journals worldwide; small journals in resource-poor countries are well represented. As of December 2009, WAME had 1595 individual members representing 965 journals in 92 countries. WAME has broad participation as there are no dues and WAME activities are largely carried out through the member list serve and the member password-protected website.
 In March 2009, WAME released an updated policy statement, “Conflict of Interest in Peer-Reviewed Medical Journals” 1. It details the issues WAME believes journals should address when establishing their own policies for conflict of interest. The editors of this journal thought that the issues were important enough to share with its readers. A summary of the statement is presented in the Table and the full statement 1 can be found on WAME’s website 12.
 How Does This Statement Differ From Earlier Conflict–of-Interest Statements?
 First, WAME expands the scope of competing interests. Other statements have been concerned almost exclusively with conflicts of interest related to financial ties to industry – companies that sell healthcare products. The assumption is that financial incentives are especially powerful and are not readily recognized without special efforts to make them apparent. WAME has extended the concept of financial conflict of interest to include the effects of clinical income. For example, physicians who earn their livelihood by reading mammograms or performing colonoscopies may be biased in favor of these technologies. WAME has also included non-financial conflicts of interest (or the appearance of one) related to scholarly commitment: “intellectual passion,” (the tendency to favor positions that one has already espoused or perhaps even established); personal relationships (the tendency to judge the works of friends/colleagues or competitors/foes differently because of the relationship); political or religious beliefs (the tendency to favor or reject positions because it affirms or challenges one’s political or religious beliefs); and institutional affiliations (the tendency to favor or reject results of research because of one’s institutional affiliations).
 Second, WAME did not prescribe a universal standard for when meaningful conflict of interest exists. Rather, it defined and recommended elements of conflict of interest policies and encouraged journals to establish their own standards. WAME left operational definitions and standards on the basic issues to member journals, recognizing that journals exist in very different contexts across the globe, standards for conflict of interest are evolving, and some journals already have well-established policies and standards. WAME does not presume to judge which conflicts require action and what the appropriate action may be, although its policy does offer factors to consider 1. Obviously, excessive concern for these and more comprehensive lists of possible competing interests could paralyze the peer review and publication process and is not feasible. Editors must make judgments as to the strength of the conflict, but to do so must have uncensored information. Similarly, readers need transparency about conflicts, and therefore editors should publish with every article all relevant author disclosures 1. 
 Third, WAME confirms the seriousness of failure to disclose conflict of interest by indicating that editors have a responsibility for investigating, and if relevant acting, if competing interests surface after a manuscript is submitted or published. The intent is that allegations of failure to declare conflicts of interest must be taken seriously by journals.
 Finally, WAME has addressed in a single statement the conflicts of interests threatening all participants in the research and publication continuum, including authors, peer reviewers, and editors. Conflicts between editors and journal owners, which might affect both the accuracy of articles and the credibility of journals, have been addressed in another WAME policy statement 13.
 What Can Be Done About Conflict of Interest in Medical Journals?
 Conflicts of interest cannot be eliminated altogether but it can be managed so that it has the smallest possible effects on journal content and credibility. The backbone of managing conflicts of interest is full written disclosure; without it, nothing else is possible. Currently, authors may not reveal all of their competing interests and even if they do, journals too often do not publish them 14, so there is plenty of room for improvement. Even so, disclosure alone is an imperfect remedy; editors still must determine whether a conflict has sufficient potential to impair an individual’s objectivity such that the article should not be published. Even more work may be needed on reviewers’ and editors competing interests, given their critical role as gatekeepers for the medical literature.
 No statement will solve the conflict of interest problem, nor will it ever be solved altogether. As understanding of the problem and its management evolves, journals should be given latitude to establish their own standards, matching their policies to the best standards of their discipline and culture. WAME believes journals should make these policies readily accessible to everyone. All of us—editors, authors, reviewers, and readers--should be paying more attention to conflict of interest than we have been. We hope this statement serves that purpose.
 
 Acknowledgment
 The authors wish to warmly thank the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Officers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this editorial. Many thanks to President Margaret Winker (USA); Past President Michael Callaham (USA); Vice-President John Overbeke (Netherlands); Treasurer Tom Lang (USA); and Secretary Farrokh Habibzadeh (Iran). 
 The WAME Statement on Conflict of Interest in Peer-Reviewed Medical Journals was approved by the WAME Board in March 2009. Many thanks to the members of the WAME Ethics Committee and to the WAME Editorial Policy Committee for their insightful and helpful comments on an earlier version of the statement. Warm thanks to the WAME Board for their input and comments: Margaret Winker; Michael Callaham; John Overbeke; Tom Lang; Farrokh Habibzadeh; Adamson Muula (Malawi) and Rob Siebers (New Zealand).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Editorial.