Interorganisational - Supply Chain Management

Here we go again, another paper to review, another not-to-be-known author claiming to elaborate on his obviously own previously published framework. Why would authors want to compromise the double-blind review process? Even if it’s the case of a “guru”, what if the article is not up to the standard? In that case the only effect is a dent to the guru’s halo… Sure, more often than not, one can guess the author of an article just by looking at the citations used. Then again, authors have the option to omit citations to themselves and only insert them after the first review round.

More than these kinds of compromises, it upsets me again and again how editors (mostly those of special issues) and above all, conference organisers undermine the idea of double blind reviews. It is just too common for editors of special issues to publish their own papers (and select their own reviewers) in their special issue. Similarly, conference organisers love to send out their own papers and supervise the review process. It’s the worse if after some rejections they actually accept their own paper anyway… What ever happened to using other members of the scientific committee of a conference for the process?

Why use double blind review processes in the first place? It’s supposed to be a quality assurance process plus eliminate the bias towards gurus. Whether it works or not, can be disputed (I especially love the “blind leading the blind” discussion that can be found on this blog) - but in any case, journals and conferences cannot claim adherence to the process if they in fact only use a single blind version of it.

Maybe a triple blind review process would eliminate problems with editors? Or, if all of this doesn’t work, we could still go back to “zero blind” reviews and let the reader judge the quality of the article. This might have the advantage of a real debate…

Gyöngyi