The Peer-review Process: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Extraordinary

Abstract

A review of any social science journal reveals that journals seek to publish path-breaking, original research, involving major (nontrivial) research questions.Research that tests theoretically grounded hypotheses utilizing suitable data and context, that engages appropriate state-of-the art empirical methods, and that reports interesting findings with useful implications.The peer-review process is intended both to ascertain that the research represents an original contribution to knowledge and that it meets criteria of originality, rigor, and relevance (Daft & Lewin, 2008).In reality, however, journals in the social sciences, regardless of their impact factor, publish midrange or minor theorizing and incremental empirical results, and in general explain a small fraction of variance.Overall, the average unexplained variance for a random sample of major journals deploying statistical regression bs_bs_banner

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