Letter from the Editor: Why Are Papers Desk Rejected at European Accounting Review?

Abstract

The aim of this note is to present desk rejections made by EAR in 2016 and also to provide some suggestions to authors in order to avoid these desk rejections.

(Partial reproduction of the Letter published in the EAA Newsletter No. 57, March 2017)

Desk rejection is often feared by authors and generates a lot of disappointment. As explained by Craig (2010, p. 306), ‘the stories of woe are commonplace in conference hotel bars, campus coffee shops, and faculty photocopy room conversations, and reactions are shared in colorful language in various post rejection emails and phone calls among disenchanted authors’.

In a previous newsletter,¹ Salvador Carmona, Past Editor of EAR, had written a text on ‘Avoiding desk rejections’. In the present text, I would like to extend my predecessor’s view by adding some new insights, based on statistics drawn from my first year of editorship at EAR. These statistics will also highlight the unfortunate development of ethical issues.

The aim of the present letter is not only to provide some suggestions to authors in order to avoid these desk rejections but also to explain the functioning of our journal in full transparency.

Principle and Definition

The increase of submissions to our journal (more than 300 submissions per year since 2015) is of course an excellent piece of news. However, given that reviewers represent a scarce resource, the Editor must identify among submitted papers those which have little chance to pass the hurdle of the first-round review and eventually move forward to acceptance.

To do so, the Editor answers the following questions which represent a first screening:

1. Does the topic fit within the journal’s scope?

2. Is the content (literature review, conceptual development, methodology, analysis, conclusions) adequate (i.e. it does not reflect major flaws or gaps) and indicative of a potential contribution to the literature?

3. Are the format, syntax and grammar consistent with the journal’s policies and expectations?

Such an exercise aims to minimize the use of reviewers’ time and to provide authors with a quick turnaround when the potential for publication appears low or minimal.

The papers with at least one negative answer to the first two questions² are ‘desk rejected’ by the Editor (or the Associate Editors – see below), i.e. they are rejected without being sent to reviewers. The concept is called ‘desk rejection’ or ‘desk reject’. One reason for this choice is that, because of a lower likelihood of eventual acceptance, it gives the author the chance to pursue a more promising outlet for publication sooner.

Significance at EAR

In 2016, 107 papers have been desk rejected, representing 32% of the 334 papers which have been submitted in 2016. Among the 107 papers, I have personally rejected 85 papers and my Associated Editors have rejected 22 papers. As can be seen from these figures, in EAR’s organization, Associate Editors have the right to desk reject papers at their level, given their high level of expertise.

Descriptive Statistics

The following table presents an analysis of the different causes of desk rejections, classified by decreasing order of importance.

Table

Causes of desk rejections	Number of cases
Contribution	48
Length	34
Scope	19
Methodology	16
Self-plagiarism	10
Style	10
Age of the sample	7
Plagiarism	5
Resubmission of a paper previously rejected by EAR	5
No respect of a ban	1
Co-author not informed	1
Duplicate submission	1
Total	157

The total number is greater than 107, because several papers are desk rejected for multiple causes.

Analysis of Desk Rejections

Several journal editors have written articles which explain the major causes of desk rejection (e.g. Jones & Gatrell, 2014). It is interesting to note that the reasons for desk rejection are very similar in fields different from management (and accounting) (see, e.g. Hierons, 2016; Volmer & Stokes, 2016). We analyze in this section the different reasons for desk rejection as identified in the above table.

Contribution

The contribution of the paper to the existing literature is an important element in the success of the submission/publication process. Contribution is consequently a major cause of desk rejection (see also Bradbury, 2012). However, if the lack of contribution is often real, it can also be poorly expressed. ‘It is unclear how this paper contributes to the prior literature’ is a comment often made by editors at the time of desk rejection. It is often referred to as a lack of motivation.

Replications raise a specific concern. If we can acknowledge that it is important to replicate prior literature in different settings to better understand accounting phenomena, the overall findings rarely challenge the prior literature, which further limits the potential contribution.

Length of the Paper

Even if the length is not perfectly synonymous with quality and if it is difficult to define an optimal length for a submitted paper,³ we can say that length raises concerns that the research is not completed but is still at a preliminary stage and that important or critical aspects are underdeveloped. For instance, a short introduction might not really develop arguments as to why we need the paper and what is its potential contribution to the field. In a similar fashion, a short analysis might look rather descriptive and might not expand on robustness issues or alternative stories.

Scope

We desk reject several submissions as being out of the scope (or domain, as called by Billsberry (2014)). The notion of scope is always delicate. EAR is by its very nature a journal with a very broad scope. In a previous letter (Stolowy, 2016), I insisted on the respect of diversity in research topics and methods and mentioned the different sub-fields: financial reporting, financial analysis, auditing, governance, managerial accounting and control, taxation, social and environmental reporting, accounting and information systems, public sector accounting, accounting education, international accounting, empirical archival research, analytical research, experimental research, behavioral accounting, critical and interdisciplinary accounting, online and XBRL reporting, gender issues, etc.

However, every field has its limits. How do I know if an item is in the field or out of scope? With my Associate Editors, we try to have a pragmatic approach based on a very simple idea: does the article concern a problem of information (accounting, financial or even non-financial), control (management, internal), auditing or taxation? If the answer is negative, the article is generally considered out of scope.

In practice, we have considered as out of scope papers related to economics (e.g. wage inequality), banking industry with no accounting issue, finance with no accounting issue (e.g. dividend expectations management), operational research, health-care industry with no accounting issue, public sector with no accounting issue, corruption, etc.

To conclude on this topic, it should be noted that we measure how much the articles are ‘out of scope’ when searching for qualified reviewers. Indeed, for all cases of desk rejection based on this criterion, we found, at the time of our reflection on the decision to be taken, that even if we wanted to put the article in the reviewing process, we could not easily find competent reviewers in the EAR/accounting community.

Methodology

Problems in methodology are often a cause for desk rejection. The methodology can be too simple, e.g. purely descriptive with only simple correlations to test the hypotheses. This is not sufficient especially if the sample size is reasonably large.

But methodology can also be flawed, for example, if the empirical model is poorly specified, because of a clear lack of control variables. There might also be a ‘classical’ problem of endogeneity.

For case studies, we also had problems with the empirical material on which the study is based which was rather thin. For a case study, we could expect that the researcher did participant observation, examined documents over an extended period of time (i.e. longitudinally) or, at the very least, conducted a significant number of interviews.

Sample size (i.e. a small sample) is also a problem which reduces the quality of the methodology for empirical archival research.

Finally, although it is not a problem strictly related to methodology, some papers fail to provide convincing conceptual argument to support their hypotheses.

Self-plagiarism

As announced in the EAA Newsletter⁴ and reproduced in Stolowy (2016), all papers submitted to EAR are screened through Urkund, an anti-plagiarism system. In several cases, Urkund had identified many similarities with articles authored by one or more authors and published in other journals. This situation can be called ‘duplicate publication’ or ‘self-plagiarism’.⁵ It is very serious because it represents a severe violation of publication ethics and breaches the trust between authors and journal staff.

May we remind the EAA community that the instructions for authors (http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rear20&page=instructions) state the following:

Authors should submit, together with the paper being submitted for consideration, a copy of any other paper (published or not) that shares data or a substantially similar research question with the submitted paper. The cover letter accompanying the submission should clearly describe the unique contribution of the paper submitted for consideration given the other paper(s).

So, as stated above, one way to avoid this situation to be considered as an ethical problem is to clearly mention the other published paper as a ‘related’ paper in the cover letter at the time of submission.

The cover letter should answer the following questions: Is there overlap in data? In analyses? In findings? What are the distinctions between the papers? Of course, mentioning the related paper in the cover letter, with some explanation, does not guarantee the absence of desk rejection for lack of contribution but it will surely decrease the risk of sanction adopted by the Editor for a lack of declaration of related papers.

Style

Reviewers often complain that the paper which they have to evaluate is extremely difficult to read, sometimes with several sentences that are completely unintelligible. Authors should not think that the writing problems can be solved in a later round. A poor style has several consequences:

• It prevents reviewers from concentrating on the substance of the paper;

• It conveys an image of the authors’ lack of professionalism;

• It gives the impression to the reviewers and the editors that they are the ones who must ‘take charge’ of the inability of the authors to express themselves correctly.

Authors should remember that the first impression given to reviewers is very important.

I can mention another point: some papers submitted give the impression that the authors have actually never seen or read an article published in EAR with the result that the instructions given to the authors are not respected.

To conclude on the style, I should say that a paper is rarely desk rejected for that sole reason. However, a poor style contributes to the negative image the Editor will have of the paper.

Age of the Sample

It is difficult to define when the ‘age’ of a sample within a given paper is too ‘old’. I know from experience that it takes a few years to do the research and present it at congresses/workshops. However, some papers are submitted with a sample period that ended a long time ago (e.g. 10 years ago). Such a time lapse could lead reviewers to believe that the paper was prepared some time ago and has not been updated since, although data were publicly available and could have been updated.

However, an ‘old’ sample would be considered acceptable if the phenomenon studied is particularly ‘old’ or if the paper is based on private/specific/original data that date from several years ago but for which the phenomenon being studied is still of current interest. Of course, papers using an historical approach are not concerned by this cause for desk rejection.

Plagiarism

I have had to manage several cases of pure ‘plagiarism’ where Urkund found similarities with the work of other authors, unpublished (working papers) or published. In most of cases, these ‘borrowings’ were not even acknowledged nor cited properly with references and quotes.⁶ I am sorry to add that, in a few cases, the pattern of plagiarism was the same: a tenured/experienced author copied the work of students’ master theses available on the internet.

Resubmission of Papers Previously Rejected by EAR

There have been several cases of submissions of papers previously rejected by EAR. Some of these took place during a change of editorship, with certain authors apparently taking advantage of this window of opportunity. Fortunately, with the use of Urkund, these cases can easily be spotted, as the software can store all paper submissions and compare new ones to former submissions.

Such resubmissions clearly violate the rule stating that a previously rejected paper cannot be resubmitted without the explicit approval of the Editor (see http://www.eaa-online.org/r/default.asp?iId=GJGMJM):

Unless the decision letter explicitly mentions differently, European Accounting Review does not accept resubmissions of previously rejected papers. In some cases, a paper may have changed to such an extent that the manuscript is substantively a new paper. In those circumstances, authors should inform the editor that their submission concerns a previously rejected paper (and include that paper’s manuscript ID). As a general policy, the new paper will be assigned to the same editor who rejected the original submission.

No Respect of a Ban

To underline the commitment of EAR to ethical standards and to clearly communicate how much importance EAR attaches to an author’s conduct in this regard, I have decided in some instances (e.g. plagiarism, self-plagiarism), following EAR’s past practice, not to accept any papers from any member of the current author team for consideration at EAR for a given period of time.

I had to desk reject a paper because the author was subject to this ban for self-plagiarism and did not respect it by submitting the paper anyway. (I must add that, in the new submission, Urkund also identified some instances of self-plagiarism.)

Co-author Not Informed

All co-authors must be included at the time of submission with valid e-mail addresses. In one case of a submitted paper, one of the co-authors was not informed of the submission and discovered it by receiving an e-mail generated by the ScholarOne submission system. The author contacted me to explain the situation and told me that he fully disagreed with the submission because he thought the paper was absolutely not ready. (This did not come as a surprise to me since I would have desk rejected this paper anyhow due to a lack of contribution and development.)

Duplicate Submission

A paper has been submitted to EAR and, simultaneously, to another journal. We discovered this case because the reviewer we solicited at EAR was also the reviewer solicited by the other journal.

Simultaneity of Causes

It is rare for desk rejection to be based on a single cause and our experience shows that in many cases several problems were found.

Suggestions to Avoid (or Reduce the Probability of) Desk Rejections

Several suggestions can be made to help the authors.⁷ Sun and Linton (2014) even compare the structure between highly cited articles and desk-rejected papers.

Contribution

The paper, at least in the introduction, should answer the following questions:

• What is the research question?

• What is the paper’s incremental contribution?

• What are the gaps in the literature(s) that the paper is attempting to address?

• What explicit insights or additions to our existing knowledge does the paper bring?

• What is the relevant literature in the field of the paper?

In other words, the author must clearly delineate why and how the paper contributes to accounting knowledge.

Many believe that the introduction is the most important section of the paper. In the introduction it is important to discuss what problem or issue the manuscript will address, why that problem or issue is important, how the authors are going to address that issue and what they found.

Sometimes, the contribution may appear to be limited because of the existence of a competing paper. It is very important to see this acknowledged in the paper, from the introduction which must answer the following questions: How does the competing paper’s evidence fit with the submitted paper? Can the authors show in their paper that it is their approach which is correct?

Methodology

Regarding the method, proxies used to measure some variables need significant discussion. What do they measure? How are they expected to fluctuate? Why are these proxies chosen?

Improve the Style Before Submission

Non-native English speakers/writers should not hesitate to hire a professional language copy editor. (The use of Google translate is not sufficient.) They should also respect the instructions to authors when submitting their papers. Once again, if a paper will not be desk rejected because it does not respect the instructions to authors, the issue at stake is the image of professionalism given by authors and the first impression made on the editor.

Cover Letter

Authors should not hesitate to use the cover letter to convey some important messages, such as the existence of related papers or explaining the real and main contribution of the paper. Simply copying the abstract in the cover letter is not necessary. They should make sure that the cover letter is addressed to EAR and not to another journal (real case I had some time ago).

Conclusion

I would like to conclude this letter by recalling the importance of the introduction of the article submitted. In most cases, it must begin by highlighting a research question and then continue by presenting the means used to respond to it.

The research question must be a real question, with a question mark at the end, if possible. In addition, it is necessary that the authors justify the interest of such a question (theoretical interest in management sciences, practice for managers, methodology for the social sciences, epistemology for all sciences, etc.).

Authors must then ensure that they clearly present the means used to answer the research question. First, it is necessary to present, even briefly, the methodology. For example, it will be said that it was considered relevant to answer the research question, what other sources were available (databases, archives, various second-hand documents, etc.), and how questionnaires and readings were processed.

We hope that the implementation of these recommendations will make it much easier for authors to prepare their submitted work, and for reviewers and editors to judge the relevance and rigor of the authors’ scientific work. The quality of the articles, and therefore of the journal, will greatly benefit from it.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks his associate editors Michel Magnan, Beatriz García Osma and Thomas Jeanjean for sharing their views on desk rejection. Some of the ideas expressed in this letter are based on an Editorial the author wrote in 2010 (Nikitin, Stolowy, Pezet, & Piot, 2010). Of course, all errors and misunderstandings remain his own responsibility.

Notes

1 http://www.eaa-online.org/userfiles/file/EAA-Newsletter-Nr39-2012(3).pdf.

2 If a negative answer to the third question is not necessarily a cause of desk rejection, we know from experience that format, syntax and grammar are of great importance to reviewers (see developments on the writing style of the paper at the end of this text).

3 We know from some accounting scandals such as Enron that rules based on thresholds can be easily overcome.

4 https://gallery.mailchimp.com/ffab1869b934ebf881c40649e/files/News_from_EAR_NL_4_2015_Stolowy_Editors_letter.pdf.

5 We wish to recall that the publication in two different languages of the same text can also constitute a case of self-plagiarism (or plagiarism).

6 Citing and inserting quotes might reduce the problem but does not make the plagiarism disappear.

7 Please refer to http://www.eaa-online.org/userfiles/file/EAA-Newsletter-Nr39-2012(3).pdf. Billsberry (2014) provides a list of 10 ways to avoid a desk rejection.