Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Scholarly conversation through a review response document

2022; Wiley; Volume: 32; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/isj.12376

1365-2575

Angsana A. Techatassanasoontorn, Robert M. Davison,

Academic Writing and Publishing

In this editorial, we reflect on the review response document that is crafted by authors in parallel to the revision that they undertake on their paper following a 'revise and resubmit' decision. We draw from our cumulative experiences as authors and editors to offer our view on how authors can construct a review response document that effectively addresses the concerns of the review team. We understand that from an author's perspective, writing a review response document may entail a mix of thoughts and feelings. This is because, as authors, we may view review comments in a number of ways: as an obstacle to getting our work published; as supportive critique to help us improve our work; as a scholarly obligation to engage with other scholars on topics of mutual interest; or even as the opportunity to engage with the review team in a scholarly conversation, albeit mediated by the review 'system' and the editors. Given these various views, it is not surprising that authors approach the writing of a review response document in different ways. Some authors may view the writing of this document as a chore, something that needs to be done to include as a supplement to a revised manuscript in a review process. Others may view the document as an opportunity both to inform the review team and, more importantly, to have a respectful, constructive conversation with scholars who have an interest in their work. Some may view the document as a useful reminder of all the tasks that need to be done during the revision process. Others may be quite annoyed by the need to write this document, since they may feel that the review team does not trust the author(s) to do a good job of the revision and therefore need to micromanage the process. At the ISJ, we advocate for reflective, respectful, and engaged intellectual conversation between authors and the review team. Overall, a review response document is considered as both a communication and an assessment tool in the publication process. In the following paragraphs, we elaborate on those characteristics that we consider the hallmark of healthy and productive interactions between authors and the review team. At the ISJ, we expect reviewers to be humane, competent, open-minded, unbiased, and ethical (Davison, 2014, 2015). However, it is sometimes the case that the reviewers and authors do not share the same epistemological values or worldview. This can certainly cause difficulties for authors who may feel that (some members of) the review team are either unsympathetic or simply ignorant about the research. Nevertheless, we do expect that reviewers should provide constructive and helpful comments, in essence behaving like discussants, engaging with the author in an intellectual conversation (Davison, 2003), listening to the author, identifying alternative perspectives, and constructively critiquing the paper, all with the objective of helping the author to ameliorate the paper. Of course, there will be rare cases where reviewer comments may seem to be narrow-minded, biased or, in the worst case, inaccurate according to the theoretical or methodological approach that the author has used. Nevertheless, we expect that authors will reflect on review comments and compose thoughtful responses as they engage in the intellectual conversation with the review team. One way to respond to a difficult or opaque set of comments is to develop a revision strategy document and to share this with the Senior Editor, requesting feedback. In this document, the authors can explain both their understanding of the reviews and their planned actions. If the Senior Editor is comfortable with the direction and scope of these planned changes, this can be very reassuring to the author team. Thus, conversations between the authors and the review team do not have to be monologues or one-sided affairs. It may be that the reviewers and the author disagree, in which case the author in particular should not hesitate to express that disagreement supported by well-reasoned arguments along with appropriate references, data from the study and authors' interpretations of results, if relevant. This disagreement often occurs when authors and reviewers do not share the same worldview or epistemological assumptions. Respect is an important value that we expect from both reviewers and authors. Therefore, we expect authors always to respond to review comments in a respectful manner. What does this mean in practice? It implies that responses should be polite and void of an accusatory tone or arrogant attitude. It also means that responses should be complete. Authors should not ignore the comments that they do not like, cut corners, or otherwise make it hard for the review team to understand their perspective. However, it is not necessary to preface every response with 'Thank you for your kind opinion/constructive advice'! This fawning style, especially when repeated for every response, is unnecessary and is likely to annoy the review team because it unnecessarily lengthens the response document. Instead, it is in authors' best interest to use valuable space to craft thoughtful responses to help reviewers understand how authors have addressed their concerns. We suggest that authors express their gratitude once (if they wish to do so) but do not offer that gratitude repetitively. In addition to its role to assist decision-making in the publication process, the review process allows authors to engage in an intellectual conversation with members of the review team as a way to learn from each other. From our experience as authors, we find that crafting responses allows us to see our work from a different perspective. It invites us to engage in thought experiments to identify how best to improve the current paper and acquire some learning that can be useful for future papers. Therefore, we expect authors to write an engaging response that succinctly summarises the interpretation of a comment, if necessary, and actions that have been taken to address that comment. As a Senior Editor at a different journal remarked to one of us (as author) recently, 'I actually don't expect that you agree with all these comments, but please don't just ignore them. Instead, engage with them. Tell me what you think. Explain why you prefer not to make these changes. Justify your position'. We think that this is an excellent advice! Naturally, we hope that authors will not reject and rebut every reviewer comment made, but we do hope that careful engagement can help both the author to construct a better paper (perhaps the arguments need to be refined or the presentation clarified) and the reviewers to understand the author's perspective more clearly. A concise and precise response document helps the author to effectively communicate with the review team. We understand that response documents can be quite lengthy, especially when the review team has made many comments. Nevertheless, we encourage authors to respond precisely and concisely to those review comments. One way to do this is to summarise the author's understanding of the issues, how the author addresses them and indicate changes in the manuscript (page, paragraph, lines) for each response. In particular, we discourage authors from including in the response document sections of text copied from the revised paper that have been amended based on a review comment. The authors need to submit a detailed response document that addresses each SE, AE, and reviewer comment for both the last round and this round. Please structure your response in a table that clearly indicates how you are responding to each of the different people reviewing your manuscript (SE, AE, and Reviewer). The revisions table needs to have three columns. Column 1 is for the comment reference numbers. You create this. Column 2 is for the comments from the review team members. Column 3 is for your response to those comments. Do not group your responses to the comments made by different review team members together. Addressing each member of the review team's concerns separately is common practice at top journals, and one the authors would be wise to follow in this case, as well as in the future. Obviously, you have done some of the work for the last round already so it should be a relatively straightforward process to complete this task. The suggestion to format responses in a table is by no means a novel one, yet many authors do not do this. To ensure that this point is clear, here is a (fictitious) example of part of such a table: It is our sincere hope that this short editorial will raise awareness of the importance of the scholarly conversation that takes place in the communications between the review team and authors. In this issue of the ISJ, we present six papers. In the first paper, Gong, Cheung, Liu, Zhang, and Lee (2022) examine the impacts of contextual network effect (ie, network structure, technology complementarity, and institutional mechanism) and contextual network type (ie, consumer- and service-oriented networks) on mobile payment consumer loyalty. The authors find that network structure, technology complementarity, and institutional mechanism positively influence mobile payment consumer loyalty through reinforcing perceived benefits and switching costs. Furthermore, the impacts of network effect on mobile payment consumer loyalty differ between the consumer- and service-oriented networks. Their results enrich the IS literature by problematising the core assumption underlying the mobile payment adoption and use research and offering a contextual explanation of mobile payment consumer loyalty. The findings also provide practitioners with insights into how to better leverage network effect on mobile payment consumer loyalty. In the second paper, Tamm, Hallikainen, and Tim (2022) report that organisations are increasingly adopting business analytics to support evidence-based decision-making. However, there is currently limited understanding on how data-driven decision approaches can be effectively integrated into creative organisations that are often highly intuition-based. In this practitioner paper the authors seek to understand how organisations can make their creative decision processes more evidence-based, while retaining the best features of artistic intuition and human creativity. Based on an in-depth case study of the analytics-oriented transformation of creative decisions at Rovio, a leading game development company and the creator of Angry Birds, this paper offers five principles for realising 'creative analytics' in organisations. In the third paper, Dolata, Feuerriegel, and Schwabe (2022) use a systematic review of 310 articles to identify and question assumptions underpinning the current discourse on algorithmic fairness. The authors show that computer science sees fairness as a technical metric to be adapted to a system's performance. However, the discourse in the social sciences seeks someone to blame for the bias without attending to the technological variety of algorithmic decision-making. Both accounts fail to acknowledge the complex interaction between humans and algorithms, which, as claimed by the authors, is the source of and the solution to the problem of algorithmic discrimination. They conceptualise algorithmic fairness as a sociotechnical phenomenon linking it to the IS tradition. They use this notion to address the assumptions and propose directions for sociotechnical research to reduce the negative impact of algorithmic discrimination. This commentary empowers IS researchers to produce a unique contribution to solve this urgent issue. In the fourth paper, Addo (2022) considers the persistent and important challenge of reforming the public administration in developing countries through IT and associated modernisation reforms. Focusing on the puzzle of why paper-based processes exist in Ghana's customs clearance despite decades of 'paperless' IT modernisation initiatives, the author explains that in certain developing country contexts, the endurance of patrimonial logics in the state and broader society, as well as organisational factors like administrative discretion and weak compliance pressure, constrain expected outcomes of IT interventions. The author makes a contribution toward richer understanding of how the historical, organisational, and broader context of IT driven change shape outcomes in certain developing countries, and what might be needed for IT to contribute more meaningfully to improving life in such societies. In the fifth paper, Karanasios (2022) reviews the state of the immediate research and scholarly discussion in the information systems field in 2020 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seventy one journal papers are reviewed. The contributions are discussed, future research directions are outlined, and a model is proposed that traces the pathway from initiation of research/generation of new knowledge to practice impact. A further model is proposed to help information systems scholars clearly establish the link between the study of information systems phenomena and COVID-19. The paper acts as a checkpoint for information systems scholars interested in understanding approaches to rapid-response research, discussion, and contribution of the field. In the sixth paper, Kam, Ormond, Menard, and Crossler (2022) focus on how to close the gap that reflects the critical shortage of trained cybersecurity professionals in Government and industry through interest cultivation and self-determined motivation. Situational interest in cybersecurity, along with situational motivational determinants (ie, perceived learning autonomy and perceived relatedness), engendered participants' self-determined motivation towards cybersecurity training. Consequently, self-determined motivation facilitated participants' ability to learn. Meanwhile, participant's general interest in cybersecurity positively moderated key relationships in the research model. The authors provide theoretical linkages between interest and self-determination within the cybersecurity training context and point towards future work involving similar theories, such as the knowledge-belief gap, persuasion theory, and hierarchical motivation. The results indicate that security managers should develop training that fosters interest rather than repurposing existing modules for efficiency and scalability. Doing so would increase the effectiveness of cybersecurity training. We acknowledge the insights from our colleagues in crafting this editorial: Frank Chan, Federico Iannacci, Bill Doolin, and Harminder Singh.