Ethics III: The ethics of editing

Abstract

The editors of academic journals, and by editor I am referring to all people who serve in editorial roles, whether Editor in Chief, Senior or Associate Editor, have a duty of care for multiple stakeholders (Tarafdar & Davison, 2021). However, in enacting that duty, while they may refer to the ethical standards established for the specific journal and the professional society to which they belong, they will also be strongly influenced by their own, individual ethical sense. Ethics, in my view, are rarely absolute: what is appropriate in one context may not be appropriate in another, and so some nuanced reflection about the correct action to take is often warranted. However, more significant conflicts can arise between the various normative and personal influences and when this happens, editors may find themselves in a tricky situation that even mature reflection cannot easily address. Eckhardt and Breidbach (2024) offer a set of perspectives about ethical issues that editors may face. In this editorial, I offer a complementary set of thoughts that explore some more ethical issues that editors may encounter, and the consequences of these issues for different stakeholders. I recognise that ethics is, in its very nature, a complex topic. Any action taken by an editor might be seen as gross negligence by some yet only as a minor misdemeanour by others. Thus, in writing this editorial I have been mindful not to employ too many of my own values in evaluating these issues. I prefer to leave that to the readers. What I have done is to select examples, all of which are real (some disguised to preserve the modesty of the people involved) that cover a number of different situations.

Consider the example of an Associate Editor (AE) who is assigned a paper to handle. AEs typically know the identity of the author: this is necessary to ensure that authors are not inadvertently invited to review their own papers. AEs are also trusted to take care that the people they invite to be reviewers are not conflicted with the author in some way, for instance whether as recent colleagues, co-authors, or in some other role. Ascertaining the absence of a conflict of interest requires some care: it is not just a matter of finding the most suitable reviewers from a topic, method or epistemological perspective. A careful AE will not only shortlist a number of potential reviewers, but will also carefully check their suitability on ethical grounds. In practice, in a field as large as Information Systems, conflicts of interest don't happen that often since there are many potential reviewers for any given manuscript, but nevertheless when they do arise they can be spectacular. In a recent case, an AE invited (innocently, but perhaps carelessly) three reviewers, all of whom had a conflict of significant interest with an author: one was the spouse, one the supervisor and the last, a former student. Two of these worked in the same institution as the author, and thus had email addresses of the same @xxx.xxx format. All three invited reviewers had recently co-authored with the author, as well as with each other. The reviewers did not know the identity of each other or of the author: as it turned out, the supervisor declined to review, the former student recommended rejection and the spouse recommended major revisions. The AE in question claimed not to realise the existence of the conflicts of interest, having invited people to review purely based on their academic suitability.

In a more ominous case, however, an AE appeared to knowingly assign reviewers who, although not conflicted in the manner described above, had a less easily identifiable form of conflict: they had all been PhD students together on the same programme as the author over multiple years. At the time of the review, the author and the reviewers had all graduated for a number of years and were all working at different institutions, albeit in the same country. Here the outcome was quite different: all the reviewers recommended minor revisions on the first round of review, an opinion that was endorsed by the AE. The SE was troubled by this unusual situation and contacted me, in my capacity as Editor in Chief (EinC). My investigations revealed the conflicts of interest, which led to the need for a completely new review process, and the end of the AE's position at the journal.

The ethics of the above situations are of course open to interpretation: any AE, SE or EinC may behave in a way that is more or less similar to the behaviours described above. Moreover, any AE, SE and EinC may have a personal ethical basis for acting in a given manner.

These two examples were discovered internally, that is, without the author's knowledge. However, authors may also get involved, for instance when they raise a complaint about a review outcome. Such complaints are not common, I hope because even when a submission is given a decision that the authors did not expect or want, at least there is a compelling justification to support that decision. Indeed, at the ISJ we receive far more compliments about our constructive reviews (even in cases of rejection) than we do complaints.

Apart from conflicts of interest, a number of biases can readily be identified in the review process that can raise ethical concerns. While reviewers themselves can be biased for against topics, methods, epistemologies and research contexts (see Davison, 2013, 2014), editors too are not immune from biases. For instance, there are biases associated with which reviewers to invite, which papers to recommend that authors cite, and which (alternative) method or approach authors can be invited to take. Eckhardt and Breidbach (2024) helpfully deal with some of the issues and I will not repeat their arguments or suggestions.

However, what of the AE who assigns reviewers who either are unqualified (they may not be familiar with the method) or have a reputation (known to the AE) for rejecting each and every paper that crosses their desks? Alternatively, how should we feel about an SE who suggests that the authors will find an easier path to acceptance if they follow the SE's own preferred methodological approach (which implies new data collection/analysis), or the EinC who conditionally accepts a paper, with the one condition being that the authors should cite six specific articles (all authored by the EinC or his former PhD students), none of which are obviously related to the topic of the research? These latter examples are all real cases that have come to my attention (as author and as editor).

I suggest that each of these situations has an ethical aspect to it, though how seriously you regard it may vary. If you think that an SE or AE has acted unethically, you should probably approach the EinC first to explain the situation. Properly managed journals normally have robust procedures for handling complaints like these. If you are not satisfied with the outcome, or if you think that the EinC has acted unethically, then it is better to approach the publisher. Make sure that you keep all the evidence until a final resolution is achieved. The publisher can always be the focus of last resort, but in my own experience publishers are reluctant to intervene unless the situation is truly egregious. Unfortunately, you may just have to learn to avoid some journals, at least until the EinC changes.