Background

This is a guide for people invited to review papers for Journal of Marketing Management and should be read in conjunction with Guidance for Reviewers from the Editor, Professor Mark Tadajewski.

JMM operates a double-blind peer review process via the ScholarOne Manuscripts System.

Accepting the Review Invitation

The Editor Desk Rejects approximately 80% of submissions. JMM does not underestimate the academic labour that goes into providing a good peer review, and reviewers face many demands on their time, particularly those that are considered expert referees in their topic area. Therefore, JMM aims to only send papers for review which are considered to be good candidates to make it through the review process to publication. If you are invited to review and are not sure that the paper is within your area of expertise, please contact the Associate Editor who issued the review invitation.

If you accept the Review Invitation, please ensure that you return your review on time. If you are unable to complete your review within the given timescale, please contact the JMM Editorial Office.

JMM Review Standards

There are a number of reasons why a review may not meet JMM’s standards, including:

• Generic comments with a lack of actionable suggestions
• Criticism without accompanying constructive advice on how to resolve identified issues
• Excessive self-citation by the reviewer
• Suspected use of AI in the review
• Inappropriate remarks

Reviews may be returned to reviewers if editing is required.

Please note, if the Editorial Office deems that a review does not meet the journal’s standards, that review will not be used, and we will notify the reviewer accordingly. Peer reviewers who do not meet the journal’s standards may be removed from consideration for future peer reviews.

AI and Reviewing

T&F have clear policies on the use of AI in reviewing:

‘Editors’ and peer reviewers’ use of manuscripts in Generative AI systems may pose a risk to confidentiality, proprietary rights and data, including personally identifiable information. Therefore, editors and peer reviewers must not upload files, images or information from unpublished manuscripts into Generative AI tools. Failure to comply with this policy may infringe upon the rightsholder’s intellectual property.’ https://taylorandfrancis.com/our-policies/ai-policy/

Self Citation in Reviews

Whilst guiding authors to work which directly speaks to their article is welcomed, a high level of recommended citations to the reviewer’s own work can be problematic.

Requesting citations to your own work may be misconstrued by an author as an attempt at coercive citation (see more on this on Taylor & Francis’s page here https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/editorial-policies/misconduct/).

Whilst the line between encouraging authors to engage with the journal (or the work of an author) and encouraging citations is not always a clear one, we must also consider the perception of such activity within the community and the impact this could have on JMM’s reputation. 

The JMM Review Form

Reviewers will be asked to score the paper from 0 (Poor) to 10 (Excellent), or N/A, on each of the following aspects:

• Originality
• Contribution/Significance
• Presentation – clear and logical
• Scholarship – synthesis of relevant literature
• Conceptualisation – theoretical development
• Methodology – appropriate and justified
• Data – relevance and validity
• Analysis – logical and evidence based
• Discussion – objective evaluation of findings
• Implications – academic and managerial
• Conclusions – plausible and realistic

They will be invited to make one of the following recommendations:

• Accept in Current Form
• Accept with Minor Revisions
• Accept with Major Revisions
• Reject

They will also be invited to provide

• Confidential Comments to the Editor
• Comments for the Author(s) – Reviewers may upload a file but should ensure that any personal information is removed from the file so that the author(s) will not be able to identify the reviewer.

Note, reviewers should check that the author(s) have provided information about the ethical procedures followed, and that they give proper attribution for use of any third-party content.

Dos and Don’ts in Reviews

• DO provide a very brief summary of the paper and your consideration of its contribution – this indicates to the Editor (and the Authors) what the key takeaways of the paper appear to be.
• DO provide constructive feedback with actionable advice.
• DO give positive feedback where it is warranted.
• DO be careful with language – be polite and professional, and avoid personal comments or statements that could be considered inappropriate.
• DO be organized in your feedback , e.g. by numbering your comments, and prioritizing them as important or optional – this will help both the authors in revising the paper and responding to reviewer comments, thus making it easier for you to review a revised version of the paper. 

• DON’T  make generic comments like ‘the discussion needs to be improved’ without providing specific guidance.
• DON’T give criticism without a specific suggestion of how to improve that aspect of the paper.
• DON’T just summarise the content of the paper.
• DON’T refer authors excessively or exclusively to the reviewer’s own work.
• DON’T ask the author(s) to write a completely different paper – the reviewer’s role is to improve the existing paper, not change it beyond recognition.
• DON’T say anything in your review that you would not say to an author in person.
• DON’T give a completely different impression in the feedback to the author(s) compared to the confidential feedback to the Editor(s)

What if…?

If you think you identify any of the following, please immediately contact the JMM Editorial Office:

• Potential knowledge of the identity of the author(s)
• Potential conflict of interest
• Potential ethical concerns
• Possible similarities to previously published works – the Editorial Office has access to appropriate tools to assess this, reviewers should not upload papers into their own systems to check for similarities with other published works.
• Excessive self-citation in papers – Whilst an author’s previous work may be relevant to the current article, excessive self-citation can be problematic. For a journal, excessive self-citation might lead to de-listing from the SSCI.

If reviewers think that there is an excessive level of citation to a particular author or group of authors, they should flag this in their review. If reviewers think they can identify the author(s) this should be communicated to the editorial office.

Please see T&F’s and COPE’s guidelines here: https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/editorial-policies/citations/ and
https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/editorial-policies/misconduct/

• Possible improper use  of AI – T&F have clear policies on the use of AI in paper authorship, the latest information is at https://taylorandfrancis.com/our-policies/ai-policy/

‘Taylor & Francis supports the responsible use of Generative AI tools that respect high standards of data security, confidentiality, and copyright protection in cases such as: 

• Idea generation and idea exploration 
• Language improvement 
• Interactive online search with LLM-enhanced search engines 
• Literature classification 
• Coding assistance 

Authors are responsible for ensuring that the content of their submissions meets the required standards of rigorous scientific and scholarly assessment, research and validation, and is created by the author. 

 Authors must clearly acknowledge within the article or book any use of Generative AI tools through a statement which includes: the full name of the tool used (with version number), how it was used, and the reason for use. For article submissions, this statement must be included in the Methods or Acknowledgments section.’

Reviewing Revised Papers

Please note that JMM does not provide a tracked changes version of the revised paper to reviewers. This is to ensure that papers are reviewed holistically. When asked to review a revised paper, reviewers do not need to fill out the scoring matrix again, but are asked to comment on whether they consider the paper is now suitable for publication, and are able to make comments to both the editor and the author(s).

Any More Questions?

If you have any questions at any time during the review process, please contact the JMM Editorial Office

Useful Additional Resources

https://publicationethics.org/guidance/guideline/ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers