Guidelines for reviewers

Gender in Management: An International Review publishes empirical and conceptual articles that are founded on a strong literature base and which provide a basis for theoretical development to advance the field papers relevant to all areas of gender and management. The main objectives are to focus on current research, practice, ideas, developments and news of major issues in the field of gender in management from an international perspective. Our editorial goal is to continually enhance the journal's reputation and contribution to the field.

The journal has no methodological preference and papers are equal welcomed from a quantitative or qualitative perspectives, or a mixture of both. However, the journal recognises also that the rigor and adequacy of qualitative/interpretive/critical research often needs to be evaluated by employing scholarly criteria that tend to be somewhat different from those conventionally used for evaluating quantitative research. The journal's focus is on the interpretation of research and how the results of research may be translated into practice not on the form that research takes.

We seek to provide authors with constructive, developmental reviews that will help them to produce publishable scholarship, in future manuscripts if not the current one. Reviews will be managed through manuscript central from 1 March and from an editorial perspective should typically:

• consist of one to three pages of single‐spaced text (an average being two pages);

• include a mix of major and minor points (please number each of your points so that authors can refer to them when resubmitting papers);

• addresses theory, method, and contribution to the field;

• identify both strengths and weaknesses; and

• provide citations to the current literature.

As a rule, reviewers will only be asked to review up to two manuscripts per year and we will assign one member of the Editorial Advisory Board and one member of the Editorial Review Board to review each submitted manuscript. We will also seek to ensure that this is the specialist area of at least one of the reviewers, although you may sometimes be asked to review a manuscript not in your area of specialization. Gender in Management: An International Review is a widely read journal and authors should write their articles in a way that makes their contribution to the management literature clear, even to readers outside their own specialty. Thus, for reviews that are outside of your specialist knowledge we ask that you still take a critical view and ask author(s) to clarify or explain issues where necessary in order to ensure that the paper is accessible to all readers.

One of our central aims is to maximize the theoretical contribution of the papers we publish. To do so, we need reviewers to evaluate the theoretical grounding of each manuscript very carefully to identify theoretical strengths as well as to provide guidance to authors on ways their theoretical arguments need to be improved. Whetten (1989) and Sutton and Staw (1995) identify a number of key factors in judging the theoretical contribution of a manuscript, they are as follows:

• Logical argument. Authors need to explicate which concepts and causal arguments are adopted from cited sources and how they are linked to the theory being developed or tested. Formal definitions should be provided for all of the key constructs referred to.

• Statement of assumptions. Authors should articulate the assumptions upon which their theoretical arguments are based. Assumptions provide the boundaries around the domain in which the theoretical arguments are thought to hold. Without a statement of assumptions, authors imply that their arguments are universally true.

• Grounding in extant theory. Authors should demonstrate how their theory alters our understanding of the phenomena and explain how their paper makes a significant value‐added contribution to current thinking. When authors develop their own new theory, they should build on a foundation of convincing argumentation and be grounded through their contrast with existing theories.

• Relationship to research practice. The purpose of the standard theoretical paper should be to alter research practice. Solutions to deficiencies in current theories should be given.

• Theoretical relevance. Is the topic of contemporary interest to scholars and practitioners in the area? Papers should advance current discussions, stimulate new discussions or revitalize previous debates in the light of new evidence.

An important component of methodological adequacy in quantitative research is the extent to which data are tightly aligned with theoretical arguments. Operational definitions and measures should be linked to formal construct definitions. Authors should clearly articulate the logic explaining why the hypothesized relationship is predicted – these arguments are the heart of a paper's theoretical contributions. Exactly why or how is the independent variable thought to affect the dependent variable? Exactly why or how is the moderator thought to impact the relationship between the independent and dependent variables? Also, statistical tests should be appropriate for hypotheses. Whenever possible, triangulation should be employed by obtaining data from multiple sources, multiple levels of analysis, multiple samples, and a variety of research designs.

Qualitative research papers should be well grounded epistemologically and demonstrate epistemological consistency from conceptualization to conclusions (e.g. a postmodern piece would make no claims to generalization). The author should demonstrate a thorough understanding of their approach and achieve a balance between “self indulgent” reflexivity (i.e. over emphasis on self) and explanatory reflexivity (i.e. how the researcher is positioned with respect to the analysis). This positioning should be clear from the outset of the paper to enable the reader to interpret the data.

There should be a guiding theoretical framework which informs the analysis and allows the author to make a theoretical contribution, with congruence between the theoretical problem and method/data analysis. This framework for analysis (whether meta‐theoretical, theoretical or ethodological/technical, e.g. coding) should lead to “coherence out of messiness.” There should be rich description and sophisticated analysis/interpretation, rather than (for example) descriptive lists of quotes. The author should contextualize the analysis and reflect on the significance of their interpretation. The author should provide a comprehensive rationale for why particular texts are selected for discussion in the paper and recognises problems of account (i.e. within a particular epistemological position). Overall, the paper must provide insight, re‐conceptualisation, and suggest new problems (Cassell et al., 2007).

A recent body of work debates the appropriateness of combining qualitative and quantitative methods within a single research project. Issues addressed in this debate include whether qualitative and quantitative methods investigate the same phenomena, are philosophically consistent, and are paradigms that can reasonably be integrated within a study (Sale et al., 2002; Yauch and Steudel, 2003). Based on Edmonson and McManus's (2007) work the journal takes the view that the two methods can be combined successfully in cases where the goal is to increase validity of new measures through triangulation (i.e. triangulation is a process by which the same phenomenon is assessed with different methods to determine whether convergence across methods exists) and/or to generate greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying quantitative results in at least partially new territory.

Research presented needs to provide implications of the work for both the scholar and the practitioner. In addition to presenting theoretical implications, papers need to provide a reader with implications for practice that are derived from the research.

These guidelines have been adapted from the review guidelines developed by Alison M. Konrad for Group & Organization Management, a Sage Journal.