Editorial Procedures

The procedures described below follow good practice by some of the best journals in the social sciences and are designed to achieve four things: (a) to improve the efficiency of the journal through the creation of a central office that will deal with administration and coordination; (b) to operate in a distributed fashion in order to maximise the pool of expertise upon which the journal may draw; (c) to give ample administrative assistance to the Senior Editors so that they may concentrate on the purely intellectual aspect of the reviewing process; and (d) to provide authors with speedy, professional and transparent procedures that will facilitate the review of their submissions to Organization Studies.

* Papers must be submitted to the Editorial Office (osofficer@gmail.com). You will receive an acknowledgment within five (5) working days.

Manuscript Submission and Preparation

Papers must be submitted electronically and their length should not exceed 12000 words (including references), although in some cases, involving mainly the reporting of qualitative data, longer versions may be accepted. Ideally, each submission should be made in a Microsoft Word file and a PDF file (the latter must be anonymized). However, for authors who are not able to send a PDF file, a Microsoft Word file is acceptable.

Manuscripts original in style and content (not under review, accepted and/or published elsewhere), are welcome. Please attach to every submission a letter confirming that all authors have agreed to the submission and that the article is not currently being considered for publication by any other journal. Manuscripts should be accompanied by biographies of no more than 100 words on each author's personal history and current interests, by an abstract of the article, and by four or five key words or phrases.

Tables and figures should be on separate pages (at the end of the paper), and a note should be placed in the text to indicate their approximate position, e.g. Table X about here. All tables, figures, plates, etc., should be numbered separately: Tables 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. and Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Figures should be suitable for direct reproduction in black and white. Please keep tints to a minimum.

Footnotes

Footnotes other than acknowledgements should be eliminated by incorporating them in the text or tables, based on the principle: 'If it's worth saying, say it in the text where it can be seen; if it's not worth saying, don't say it.'

References in the Text

Cite all references at the appropriate point in the text by the surname of the author(s), year of publication, and pagination where necessary. Identify subsequent references to the same source in the same way as the first citation, i.e. do not use ibid., op. cit., or loc. cit.

* Examples:

1. If an author's name is in the text, follow it with the year of publication in parentheses [ Woodward (1965) ].

2. If an author's name is not in the text, insert, in parentheses, the author's surname and the year of publication without punctuation [ (Luhmann 1975) ].

3. Multiple citations should be separated by semicolons [ (Argyris 1973; Van Doorn 1973) ].

4. Give both authors' surnames in the case of dual authorship; for three or more authors, give only the first author's surname followed by 'et al.' [ (Misumi and Takasaki 1965) ][ (Guigni et al. 1976) ].

5. For institutional authorship, supply minimum information [ US Commission on Industrial Relations 1967 ].

6. Pagination (without 'p.' or 'pp.') to give the source of a quotation or to indicate a passage of special relevance, follows the year of publication and is preceded by a colon [ Parsons 1974: 238 ]. Page numbers should be given in full, i.e. 248-253 not 248-53.

List of References as Appendix

List all references cited in the text at the end of the article in a separate appendix entitled 'References'. Alphabetize by author; multiple entries by one author in the same year should be postscripted a,b,c [1978a, 1978b, 1978c]; multiple entries by one author should be listed separately, repeating the author's name each time, from earliest to most recent publication [1958, 1965, 1978]. In multiple author entries, the first author's name should be inverted; however, all following authors' names should be given in 'normal' order [Jones, Robert, and James Smith or Jones, Robert, James Smith, and Edward Brown]. Use no abbreviations. Give publisher's names in as brief a form as possible [Wiley not John A. Wiley and Sons]. Titles of articles should be typed in single quotes with only the initial word and proper nouns capitalized. Titles of books should be given in italics with only the initial word and proper nouns capitalized. Titles of journals and other periodicals should be italicized with each major word capitalized.

* Examples:

Crozier, Michel

1964 The bureaucratic phenomenon, 2nd edn. London: Tavistock.

Crozier, Michel

1973 'The problem of power'. Social Research 40/2: 211-228.

Crozier, Michel

1976 'Comparing structures and comparing games' in European contributions to organization theory. G. Hofstede and M. S. Kassem (eds), 135-156. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum.

Erez, Miriam, and Christopher Earley

1993 Culture, self-identity, and work. New York: Oxford University Press.

Parsons, Talcott

1963a 'On the concept of influence'. Public Opinion Quarterly 27: 37-62.

Parsons, Talcott

1963b 'On the concept of political power'. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 107: 232-262.

Weinshall, Theodore D., editor

1977 Culture and management. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Book reviews should be sent to one of the Book Review Editors:

Guido Mollering, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Germany. Email: gm@mpifg.de, or

Kim Boal, Texas Tech University, USA, Email: kim.boal@ttu.edu

Submitting a Special Issue proposal to Organization Studies

Organization Studies invites proposals for Special Issues that focus on a specific area of research that has broad appeal and falls within the aims and scope of the journal. Special Issues provide an excellent opportunity to review a topic, examine previously unaddressed aspects of it, propose and develop new approaches, exchange perspectives and encourage new lines of research.

These instructions have been designed in order to help potential Guest Editors to prepare Special Issue proposals, and the Organization Studies Editorial Team to evaluate them.

Selection of Special Issues will be made by the Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the Co-Editors, based on the elements presented below. During the evaluation process, the Organization Studies Editorial Team may ask experts in the area of the Special Issue topic to give their opinions on the proposal.

Special Issue proposals must contain the following elements:

1. Name and affiliation of proposed Guest Editors.

2. Short CV of proposed Guest Editors, including a list of major publications and editorial experience.

3. Call for papers for the Special Issue. The call for papers must include:

a. A provisional title of the Special Issue.

b. Justification for dedicating an entire issue of Organization Studies to this Special Issue topic: what is its broad appeal and what are its projected theoretical, practical and policy implications for the field?

c. The Special Issue's objective.

d. The Special Issue's scope, including potential themes to be addressed in the Special Issue.

e. Examples of questions that would meet the objective of the Special Issue.

(For examples of previous calls for papers, please refer to past issues of the journal)

4. Potential Guest Editors should list any other Special Issues or special sections that they are aware of that have been published, or will be published, by other journals and which are devoted to the proposed or a closely related topic. In such cases, potential Guest Editors should show how their proposed Special Issue is unique and innovative in comparison, and explain how it will add to existing literatures.

5. A plan explaining how the call for papers will be advertised (web sites, distribution lists, conferences, associations, etc.). Potential Guest Editors should be aware of the requirement that Special Issues must be truly open to any researcher working on the addressed topic. This requirement means that Special Issues cannot be restricted to researchers participating in specific workshops, symposia or small group meetings.

6. Potential Guest Editors should make an effort to attract contributors from around the world. This will help enhance the Special Issue content by providing a variety of perspectives. Potential Guest Editors are therefore asked to explain in their proposal how they plan to attract researchers internationally.

7. Potential Guest Editors' are required to adhere to Organization Studies editorial processes and turnaround times (please see below), using the online submission and manuscript tracking system Manuscript Central (http:/mc.manuscriptcentral.com/os) for which training and support will be provided. These editorial procedures include a rigorous peer-review process which ensures that only the highest quality manuscripts will be selected for inclusion in the Special Issue. Guest Editors are also asked to include a list of potential reviewers in their proposal. It is important for both reviewers and Guest Editors to adhere to the timing standards set by the journal.

8. Potential Guest Editors' should normally select up to five papers to be included in the Special Issue and also write an introduction to the Special Issue. If too few papers reach the required high standard for publication, the Editor-in-Chief may publish a themed issue also containing regular papers or cancel the Special Issue entirely.

9. More generally, the editorial team of Organization Studies is particularly keen to support special issues that resonate with the signature statement of the journal (see OS, 2008, Courpasson, Arellano-Gault, Brown and Lounsbury. 'Organization Studies on the Look-Out? Being read, being listened to'. 29/11: 1383-1391). Special Issues are unique occasions for pushing the perspectives and objectives highlighted in the statement.

Nature and format of Special Issue submissions

Manuscripts submitted to a Special Issue should to adhere to Organization Studies' Aims and Scope and contributor guidelines for submitting a paper (http:/www.sagepub.com/journalsProdManSub.nav?prodId=Journal201657).

The Guest Editors will screen initial submissions for their general adherence to the above guidelines. Good quality submissions that meet the journal's aims and scope, but which do not meet the specifications of the Special Issue call for papers, may be recommended to the Editor-in-Chief for consideration for publication as a regular paper. Guest Editors should be aware of page length restrictions, appropriate use of footnotes, endnotes, figures and tables as they manage manuscripts through the review process. Although formal copy editing occurs after manuscripts are accepted, Guest Editors should not accept manuscripts with a poor standard of English or which include terms that might be unfamiliar to the journal's international interdisciplinary readership.

Editorial process

The process for handling submissions to a Special Issue is almost identical to that for regular submissions to Organization Studies. The use of a guest editorial team and selected reviewers allows for highly focused expert feedback and considerable development of the submitted manuscripts. All manuscripts are submitted to Manuscript Central, our online submission system. Guest Editors should assign suitable reviewers to each manuscript to be sent out for review. The Guest Editor will receive the reviews for each manuscript, make a decision about its status (reject, revise or accept), and communicate that decision to the corresponding author. All correspondence, including review invitations, review comments and decision letters, is channeled through the Manuscript Central Web-based system. This process should be completed for every submission until all manuscripts are ready for final editorial decision (accept or reject). Authors are notified of decisions as they are made by the Guest Editors. Guest Editors see all submissions to the Special Issue through to final decision, and recommend up to five papers for inclusion in the Special Issue to the Editor-in-Chief. In the event that more manuscripts are considered acceptable than can be accommodated in the Special Issue, the Guest Editors may recommend to the Editor-in-Chief that they be published in regular issues of the journal. Ultimately, the Editor-in-Chief decides which manuscripts to include in the Special Issue.

Turnaround times

Naturally, authors wish to receive both timely and constructive reviews and decisions for their submissions. Therefore, reviewers are asked to comment within one month and reminders are sent to reviewers once their review becomes overdue. Guest Editors are also given a one week deadline for suggesting reviewers or drafting a decision letter after all the reviews have been received. The editorial process seeks to secure the same timely performance for Special Issue submissions as that provided for regularly submitted manuscripts.

Guest Editors' introductory editorial review

The Guest Editors will typically write an editorial review of up to 8000 words, introducing the Special Issue and its content and providing a synopsis and integrative analysis of the collective contributions of the Special Issue articles. This article is subject to review by the Editor-in-Chief and/or Co-Editors.

It is Organization Studies' policy that Guest Editors will not submit their own papers for consideration/publication in the Special Issue.

* The Editor in Chief, or one of the Co-Editors or Senior Editors will oversee the paper and make an Initial Editorial Decision (IED), regarding whether the manuscript is eligible to be sent out for review. The IED will be communicated to authors by the Editor-in-Chief within 3 weeks of submission. Articles that deviate significantly from the OS style guidelines that do not fit with Organization Studies' editorial policy or are clearly not of sufficient quality to be potentially publishable in OS will not be sent out for review and their authors will be accordingly notified.

* Papers that are considered eligible for review will be sent out to up to 4 (usually 3) reviewers selected by the LET member handling the paper

* Papers will be reviewed by members of the Editorial Board and other expert reviewers.

* The LET member is responsible for reading the paper in the light of reviewers' reports and making an Editorial Decision (ED) in the form of a written letter addressed to the authors. The letter is emailed to the Editor-in-Chief, who will formally advise the authors of the decision and forward the reviewers' reports and the ED letter.

* The entire review process should be completed within 16 weeks.

* If the LET member's editorial decision is "revise and resubmit", the paper will need to be revised and resubmitted within 6 months of the decision being communicated to authors. In exceptional cases, an extension may be granted.

* Revised papers should be emailed as Microsoft Word attachments to the Editor-in-Chief. Acknowledgement of receipt will be made within 5 working days.

* The Editor-in-Chief will forward the revised paper to the same Senior Editor and reviewers for a second review.

* At the end of