Management and Organization Review (MOR) aims to be the premier journal for advancing our knowledge of management and organizations in China and other transforming economies. It is a multidisciplinary journal rooted in the behavioral and social sciences underlying management research, broadly defined. MOR seeks to publish research from diverse social science disciplines, such as organization behavior, organization theory, strategic management, economics, economic geography, development studies, innovation theories, anthropology, political science, public administration, urban planning, cross-cultural and social psychology, international business, sociology, cognitive science, and institutional theory.
MOR aspires to attract papers that challenge themselves not only to be methodologically sound but substantively contributing to our understanding of phenomena that are new to the literature and relevant to China or transforming economies. Papers published in MOR can focus on all types of organizations, such as firms, academic, educational, and cultural institutions, not for profits, NGOs, governmental organizations, and State Owned Enterprises.
MOR has an inclusive disciplinary and methodological philosophy and welcomes research at all levels of analysis, such as individual, group, organization, industry, institution, economic systems, international business, and societal cultural studies. MOR Editors are especially interested in attracting and publishing forward-looking papers that break new ground, rather than papers that make incremental contributions, as well as papers that elucidate indigenous management theories. MOR is open to diverse and rigorously executed research methodologies, including qualitative research, surveys, archival and historical analyses, content analysis, laboratory experiments, simulations, and computational methods, as well as papers that synthesize or translate theories and empirical research that make research accessible to scholars outside of disciplinary sub-fields.
The Editors recognize that important new insights are often discovered at the intersection of established theories, research methods, and specific research questions. When considering papers submitted to MOR, the Editors consider these questions: Does it fall within the domain of MOR? Does it offer fresh insights? Does the empirical analysis and methods satisfy falsifiability, data transparency, and replication criteria? And does the evidence or logic substantiate the conclusions?
To enrich scholarly discourse and promote theoretical innovation, MOR will occasionally publish ‘Perspective’ papers that direct attention to new important phenomenon or that redirect or shut down a line of research. Perspective papers will be reviewed in the same way as all other papers published in MOR. All accepted Perspective papers are followed by two or three invited commentaries. In addition, the ‘Dialogue, Debate, and Discussion’ editorial area of MOR is intended to break ground for the future, revisit past debates, and capture and highlight important current issues in management and globalization. It features essays and interviews designed to stimulate and engage vibrant Dialogue, Debate, and Discussion in the scholarly community.
MOR REVIEWING POLICIES
The purpose of the review policies is to ensure that empirical research published in MOR satisfies falsifiability, data transparency, and replication criteria. For a comprehensive discussion of these goals please refer to Lewin et al. (2016).
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1. Hypothesis testing is not prerequisite. MOR welcomes papers that avoid framing research in the guise of hypothesis testing. MOR encourages and will consider exploratory research, meant to identify and describe phenomena. However, hypotheses testing are appropriate in studies involving confirmatory research, or replications meant to test hypotheses generated from theory or reported in prior research.
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2. The context of all papers published in MOR must be that of transforming economies, such as in Africa, Asia (China, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc.), India, Latin America, Russia and Ex-Soviet Republics, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. MOR welcomes comparative studies where comparison to non-transforming economies is done to highlight unique aspects of transforming economies.
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3. Any empirical study must motivate a research question by framing it within the extant literature, discuss the plan for investigating it, and describe the data for the study. All statistical analyses must present and discuss all findings, positive, negative, or null.
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4. MOR requires authors to report coefficient estimates alongside exact p-values or standard errors. When reporting statistical findings, authors should not report or refer to arbitrary cutoff points for statistical significance (p-values). Not all statistical effects are meaningful or important. However, in summary tables authors may include asterisks to visually indicate significance levels. Authors are expected to provide readers with a reasonable sense of how strongly an independent variable affects the dependent variable. Reviewers and editors may also require authors to discuss alternative theoretical explanations, which may be analyzed post hoc using the same data or new data. Further, authors must report and discuss null and negative findings. Complete and comprehensive reporting and discussion of findings including competing or alternative theoretical explanations is the basis for advancing understanding and knowledge creation
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5. Post hoc analysis is implicit if labeled as such. Hypothesizing after the results are known is an unacceptable practice. However, when justified appropriately, a post hoc analysis may be acceptable, including hypothesis testing that explores relationships that were not originally considered but which emerge from new insights during the analysis (e.g., because of unexpected null results, negative findings, or analysis of outlier data points). Post hoc analyses must be clearly identified and discussed as a separate section of presenting and discussing findings.
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6. Access to data may be required. During the review process, authors may be asked to provide the MOR Senior Editor and the reviewers with access to instruments and data, including survey instruments, field notes, variable definitions, transformations, and statistical procedures. Such materials will be kept confidential (as all submitted manuscripts are). Authors who foresee difficulty in complying with this policy must disclose it at the time of submission.
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7. Qualitative studies. MOR encourages the submission of qualitative studies. The review policies for qualitative case studies are under development. However, such studies must be clear about the research question of interest, methods, such as examination of archival documents, interviews, informants, triangulation, alternative or competing explanations for observed phenomena, etc. Qualitative studies will be guided by Senior Editors who are knowledgeable with the requirements and nuances of such studies.
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8. Replication. Publishing replication studies or null findings are foundational for building cumulative knowledge about any phenomenon. MOR encourages the submission of replication studies using the same data or new data. Replication studies must be identified at time of submission to alert the Editor prior to assigning a Senior Editor for guiding the review of the paper. A replication paper must provide sufficient detail of the purpose of the replication and the importance of the finding.
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9. Preapproval option.
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a. MOR is soliciting studies for preapproval. This option requires that authors submit a proposal for an empirical study, which consists of a statement of the research question or phenomena, theoretical foundation anchored in a review of the relevant literature, and proposing the source(s) of data, whether existing or new. However, the proposal should not include data collection or analysis and discussion of results (because they should not have been done yet). Each pre-approval will be reviewed by a MOR preapproval sub-group of editors and possibly reviewers specifically constituted for the proposed study by the Editor in Chief. If the proposal is preapproved and the author(s) undertake the study, the subsequent paper is conditionally accepted for publication in MOR regardless of whether findings are as hypothesized or not, whether positive or null. However, when the full study is completed and submitted, it will be sent out for review and additional analysis and changes may well be required. However, the article will not be rejected based on obtained results. The empirical part of a preapproved study is expected to consist of two parts: The first will report results of the study as approved, and the second part will present and discuss post hoc analyses, which arise in the course of the usual and customary analyses and reporting the originally approved study.
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b. MOR encourages scholars involved with qualitative studies to use the preapproval process. Although the approval and guidance process for presenting qualitative studies is not finalized, MOR is committed to work with authors in the preapproval stage to strengthen the study. MOR expects to finalize a preapproval process for qualitative studies following experience with the MOR Special Issue on qualitative studies.
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10. Recognition for authors who share their work. MOR would like to recognize authors who share more than a manuscript by featuring designated badges that recognize exemplary scientific practices. As detailed in Lewin et al. (2016), a paper published in MOR will be recognized with an Open Materials badge if the author(s) deposit their research materials in an open-access depository such as Open Science Framework [https://osf.io/] or As Predicted [https://aspredicted.org]). The deposited materials should be as complete as possible to allow an independent researcher to reproduce the reported methodology. MOR will grant an Open Data badge to authors who deposit their data in such an open-access repository.
AUTHOR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Online Submission
Please submit manuscripts online through the MOR ScholarOne Manuscripts site at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mor.
The manuscript is checked to ensure that it is appropriate for the journal, that it is formatted according to the MOR Style Guide, and that it is formatted for blind review. Every submission is also checked with state of the art online plagiarism software.
Manuscript Format
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1. The journal publishes articles in English only. Translation of abstracts in Chinese, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish are available online.
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2. The journal accepts original manuscripts that are not under review or consideration for publication in other journals or books.
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3. All papers will be blind reviewed by two qualified reviewers. MOR aims to provide timely feedback and will aim to make first editorial decision within 60 days after manuscript has been assigned to Senior Editor.
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4. Manuscripts must be double-spaced throughout (this includes notes and references) with all margins at least one inch and no more than 40 pages. The first page of the manuscript should include a title, an informative abstract of no more than 200 words, and three to five keywords or phrases. References must be listed alphabetically. All tables and figures should be at the end of the manuscript, after the references.
Editorial Review Process
Management and Organization Review has a decentralized editorial structure composed of Senior Editors and an Editorial Review Board committed to working with authors to develop interesting ideas into publishable papers. Each Senior Editor has the autonomy to accept or reject a paper for publication or to request that the author revise and resubmit the paper. The decisions of Senior Editors are binding on the journal.
MOR is committed to providing in-depth, constructive, and insightful reviews. Therefore, authors are invited to nominate two Senior Editors who are best suited to oversee the review of the paper. Prior to nominating two Senior Editors please review the list of Senior Editors and their research interests. Feel free to review their personal web sites. The Editor in Chief or Deputy Editors will make the assignment of the Senior Editor. In addition, authors are invited to nominate up to four reviewers (with suitable expertise and no conflict of interest with the author(s) (e.g., co-authors, mentors, past students, same faculty, family, etc.) as potential reviewers for the paper being reviewed). Management and Organization Review will make every effort to select one author-nominated reviewer. Manuscripts are reviewed in a double-blind process by at least two reviewers. The Senior Editor integrates his or her independent evaluation with those of the reviewers to provide guidelines for revising the paper when it is considered suitable for potential publication in MOR or reasons for why the paper is not suitable for publication in Management and Organization Review.
To maximize the match between the research reported in the paper, it is important that authors give careful thought to the nomination of the two Senior Editors and ad-hoc reviewers.
Questions: Please forward any questions regarding the submission or review process to Tina Minchella (MORManagingEditor@cambridge.org), the Managing Editor for Management and Organization Review.
