Accounting and the Public Interest Editor's Report

Abstract

Accounting and the Public Interest is a completely electronic journal published by the Public Interest Section of the AAA. There is one editor and two associate editors; the associate editors are selected by the editor as are the members of the editorial board. All submissions are electronic and go to the editor. The editor reads each submission to determine whether the paper is of sufficient substance to be sent to reviewers. It is the unusual case that the editor ends the process at this stage, but it has occurred during my tenure as editor. Based on the subject matter of the paper, the editor selects two reviewers based on their qualifications to review the paper. Each reviewer is sent a copy of the paper, a reviewer form for providing his or her recommendation and an email requesting the review (no paper copies of anything are exchanged among authors, editor or reviewers). When the reviews are returned, the editor considers the comments and recommendations and decides whether the review process should continue. If so, the editor provides an email to the author(s) describing the revisions that seem appropriate along with the comments of the reviewers. This process proceeds iteratively through successive revisions until either an acceptable paper is produced or the decision is made that progress toward producing a publishable paper is not occurring and the review process is ended. The role of the associate editors is twofold. The first responsibility of the associate editors is to advise the editor on problematic cases, which may include being a third reviewer. The second responsibility is to act as the editor in those cases where the editor deems it appropriate to recuse himself from the process, e.g., if the author is a close colleague. In this circumstance it is the associate editor that makes the decision regarding the disposition of the paper. This has been the process during my term as editor. Starting January 1, 2010, Professor Robin Roberts of the University of Central Florida assumed the editor position. He may very well make some changes to the process just described, particularly since he will be using the automated submission process recently made available to all AAA publications.