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jm-review-process

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Use when understanding how Journal of Marketing (JM) review and decisions work — the double-anonymized process, the Coeditor structure, the substantive-and-relevance evaluation bar, and how to read a decision letter. Explains the process and reads the letter; it does not draft the response (jm-rebuttal).

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/Journal-of-Marketing-Skills/skills/jm-review-process/SKILL.md

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Review Process (jm-review-process)

When to trigger

  • Before submitting, to set realistic expectations about JM review
  • A decision letter arrived and you need to interpret it before responding
  • You are unsure who decides at JM and what reviewers are told to weigh
  • You want to know what "conditional acceptance" triggers (replication packet)

How JM review works

  • Double-anonymized: identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other. Keep all rounds anonymized; never reveal yourself in responses or revised files.
  • Decision authority: the handling Editor is the final decision authority. Under EiC Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp (UNC; term began July 1, 2025, three-year term — verified 2026-06-22), manuscripts are handled by one of four Coeditors — Marc Fischer (Cologne), Kelly L. Haws (Vanderbilt), Maura L. Scott (Arizona State), Rebecca J. Slotegraaf (Indiana). Your keyword/area choices influence routing. Re-verify the live roster before naming a Coeditor.
  • What reviewers weigh: JM's gatekeeping criterion is substantive impact — does the paper offer compelling new insight into an important real-world marketing question, with managerial/policy/societal relevance? Reviewers also screen for scope: general-management papers, methods-for-their-own-sake papers, and incremental/new-context replications are out of scope. Expect probes on identification, exact-statistic reporting, and whether the magnitude matters.
  • Integrity: manuscripts are screened with iThenticate; no concurrent submission.

Likely decisions

DecisionWhat it means
Desk rejectOut of scope, not substantive enough, or relevance absent
Reject (after review)Substantive contribution or identification judged insufficient
Major revision (R&R)Promising substantive core; significant work required
Minor revisionSubstantively sound; targeted fixes
Conditional acceptanceTriggers the JM Dataverse replication packet + Data Availability Statement

First-round acceptances are essentially unheard of; a well-run R&R is the realistic best case.

Reading the decision letter

  • Read the Coeditor letter first — it states the path to acceptance and which concerns are decisive ("must address") versus secondary.
  • Cluster reviewer comments by theme: substantive contribution, identification/analysis, managerial relevance, positioning, exposition.
  • Flag any comment touching the substantive-novelty or relevance bar as top priority — these are JM's gatekeeping criteria.
  • Note transparency expectations early: if you are near conditional acceptance, prepare the JM Dataverse packet (data + code, or qualitative materials) and confirm preregistration links/attestation.
  • Distinguish requests that need new data/analysis from those needing reframing — they have very different timelines.

At conditional acceptance

Deposit the replication packet to JM's Dataverse (raw data, analysis programs/scripts; qualitative materials for qualitative work), accessible to the processing Editor but not reviewers, and ensure the Data Availability Statement is on the title page. Some conditionally accepted JM manuscripts may go through a verification step: the Coeditor may assign a Data Editor to review the Dataverse materials and submit a ScholarOne report.

Checklist

  • Coeditor letter parsed: decisive vs. secondary concerns identified
  • Reviewer comments clustered by theme
  • Substantive-novelty and relevance comments flagged as top priority
  • New-data vs. reframing requests separated (timeline planning)
  • Conditional-acceptance transparency steps anticipated (JM Dataverse + DAS + possible verification)

Anti-patterns

  • Treating all reviewer comments as equal weight, ignoring the Coeditor's priorities.
  • De-anonymizing yourself in a response or revised file.
  • Reading a major R&R as a near-accept and doing superficial edits.
  • Deferring replication-packet prep until after conditional acceptance scrambles the timeline.

Output format

【Decision】desk reject / reject / major R&R / minor / conditional accept
【Coeditor priorities】must-address: [...]; secondary: [...]
【Comment clusters】substantive / identification / relevance / positioning / exposition
【Gatekeeper flags】novelty + relevance comments: [...]
【New data vs. reframing】[...]
【Transparency next】JM Dataverse + DAS readiness: [...]
【Next step】jm-rebuttal