In this section, we will first describe the practice of handling a manuscript by large publishers, following the editorial process from submission to the final decision of acceptance or rejection. Subsequently, we indicate how changes to this process may occur, commenting on the different roles of actors in the decision-making process leading to changes, the factors that influence whether a certain new initiative will be followed up, will be more widely adopted, or terminated. In this description, we will point to instances where different practices, roles and infrastructures meet and connect, commenting on how this affects the innovation process.
4.1. Following A Manuscript: The Editorial Process
Even though some differences exist in the way different publishers handle their manuscripts, the process is fairly similar in broad terms, at least among the large publishers (both the ones we visited as well as other large, commercial publishers). According to representatives at the publishers that previously worked for other, competing commercial publishers, the description of editorial procedures below is largely generalizable.
When a manuscript is submitted through the online editorial management system, it will be handled by various actors, each with their own highly differentiated task:
- The first stage of manuscript processing is typically handled by people usually referred to as manuscript editors. Commonly, those editors are based in low-wage countries. They might either be employed by the publisher or work for a vendor company. Manuscript editors perform basic checks on, for example, the manuscript’s structure, the plagiarism scan, declarations of ethical consent or issues, or compliance with reporting guidelines. They flag potential issues to the assistant editor and may send a bundled query to the author (the latter can typically be done only once in order not to slow down the process).
- The assistant editors or ‘editorial assistants’ (usually based in first-world head offices) consult the input from the manuscript editors and can perform some additional checks, for instance assessing compliance with ethical standards, third party rights, and duplication or overlap with other manuscripts. They might also send out queries to the author. In general, they try to balance several concerns: trying not to slow down the submission process, but also aiming for completeness and clarity before peer review. This was a common theme that was raised several times i.e. the importance of making necessary changes or requiring additional information so as not to inconvenience the peer reviewers, safeguarding them from instances of unclarity, poor language, or with manuscript structure issues. At publisher A, the assistant editors felt checking for ethical issues is the most important part of their job and maintains the company’s reputation: “We are very careful. We have to be very careful in order to protect the reputation of the publisher.” However, this also has a more formal side to it: “We make sure we’re not getting sued” (assistant editor).
The assistant editors have clear targets with a number of manuscripts they are expected to handle per day. Handling a single manuscript is a highly standardised practice, which takes them between five and 25 minutes (depending on the level of experience of the individual and the complexity of the manuscript; most editors reported needing on average about 10 minutes per manuscript).
The assistant editor then asks an associate editor whether s/he wants to handle the manuscript through the actual review process. In some cases, the assistant editor might be in charge of sourcing and inviting reviewers, for which they will commonly consult the publisher’s database, or external databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, or PubMed. Commonly, they will resort to keyword searches to find reviewers, while keeping track of the number of papers an academic has recently reviewed and how reviewers were rated by associate editors in the past. - The associate editors or editorial board members (who usually are external academics, i.e. not employed by the publisher, and sometimes called ‘academic editors’) receive the comments from the assistant editor. They source reviewers, when this is not already done, usually through their personal networks. In addition, they coordinate the review process and make a recommendation about acceptance/rejection to the executive editor. This work may be done on a voluntary, unpaid basis or editors may receive an honorarium. While some in the publishers’ offices argue these external editors are enrolled because of their expertise and connection with the research field and the community, others also point to a cost argument. They argue that publishers aim to have as many manuscripts handled by associate editors as possible: “ideally, all manuscripts are handled by external editors” (executive editor), for obvious reasons of lowering workloads for internal editors and hence reducing costs. This makes recruitment of external editors “an important part of journal development” done by executive editors (executive editor).
- The recommendations for acceptance or rejection are then passed on to the executive editor, or editor-in-chief, who makes the decision. Executive editors may also have several additional roles: (i) if no external editor can be found, they take up editorial tasks of sourcing reviewers and managing the review process; (ii) they recruit new associate editors for the editorial board; (iii) they keep in contact with / manage the editorial board; (iv) they undertake journal development (redefining the journal’s scope, introducing new sections, managing editorial processes, marketing, etc.), and (v) they commission specific content for the journal (reviews, commentaries, thematic issues, etc.).
- The executive editor then reports the decision back to the assistant editor, who communicates the decision to the author. In the case that the manuscript is accepted, some final checks (similar to the initial checks after submission, but now stricter) are carried out by the assistant editor. After some potential final revisions, the manuscript is sent to the production units, which may be located in other countries. The various steps of the editorial process explained above are schematically depicted in Fig. 1.
Insert here: Figure 1: Schematic overview of the editorial process
Besides many journals owned and operated by the publishers themselves, both publishers have a number of journals in their portfolio that are owned by professional or learned societies. For these journals the publisher might take on slightly different roles. Most commonly, the publisher and society negotiate a division of the tasks mentioned above, in which the publisher performs a subset of the tasks, while others are maintained by the society. Within such societies, the task differentiation is commonly far less pronounced than in the large publishers: usually many of the different tasks mentioned above are carried out by only one or very few people.
In addition to individuals in roles directly related to the handling of manuscripts, several other people are involved in the core business of daily journal management (i.e. apart from technical, maintenance, catering or safety processes).
- Managing editors or team leaders typically manage a group of assistant editors. They keep track of their performances (in terms of targets, which usually centre on the number of published/checked manuscripts), are an ‘escalation point’ for (difficult) issues with manuscripts, they provide training to new members, and they distribute new projects over the team members / journals. They might also have a say in decisions on the journals policy or peer review model.
- Journal managers manage the entire editorial process for a series or portfolio of journals. This person could be accountable for the process management of the journal, managing the editorial and peer review process, as well as for strategic management of the journal. This could include ensuring that journals are maintaining certain standards, for instance with respect to growth, author service, publishing integrity, etc. They can have a prominent role to play in journal policy and might be in contact with, and undertake negotiations with members of societies affiliated with the publisher.
- There are often various support teams, such as those that may help source reviewers in case a manuscript needs to be handled in-house or an associate editor cannot find reviewers. They do this based on bibliometric techniques, such as by using keyword searches, and use databases of academics doing reviews for similar journals. Another support team include for example those that manage editorial inboxes, by taking care of all author queries related to manuscripts ‘under review’.
The review process in the publishers’ journals is conducted pre-publication, mainly through either single-blind review (in which the reviewer knows the author’s identity, but not vice versa), or open review (in which both authors and reviewers know each other’s identity – in this case review reports may also be published online along with the published article). Some journals also uses the double-blind format (in which neither reviewers nor authors know each other’s identity). Text similarity scanners are used, but no other (semi-)automated digital tools (such as statistics or image manipulation scanners). Reviewers, who are selected by the editors, do not get the opportunity to communicate with each other in the review process. Some journals at both publishers now also offer the Registered Reports model for doing review (24). However, editors report that the uptake of this model is still low and hardly any manuscripts are reviewed in this way.
The publication process at the big publishers is clearly a very layered and hierarchical practice, organising the editorial process in a long procedural chain, with highly specialised division of labour. The process depends heavily on connections between, and coordination of the individual actors' practices. These consist of procedural solutions of providing and delivering information, but also of signalling potential issues that may need intervention of higher layers in the hierarchy. The material components of the practices, mainly embedded in the infrastructure of the electronic manuscript management system, play a key role in aligning and connecting the different tasks. This facilitates fast interaction between the different layers of the process and coordinates it by keeping track of a manuscript’s status and of internal and external actors involved. This is also reflected in the editorial process of some journals not directly related to large publishers. One of the managing editors of such a journal mentioned: “We use a very old-fashioned online system. It is very basic, it cannot do much, but it works.” In such smaller editorial teams, with less specialised division of labour, the online management system is less required to align the different actors in the editorial process.
Now that we understand the structure of and roles within the editorial process, we will turn our attention to how the process may change or transform. The hierarchical nature of the editorial process and the commercial logics that crucially inform its decisions will turn out to be essential factors to explain why and whether specific changes take place.
4.2. Innovating The Process: Getting Ideas
Editorial teams learn about the editorial innovations currently suggested or tried out in academic publishing in various ways, including some channels of particular interest for academic publishers.
Several of the ideas travel with people moving between publishers or units within the same publisher: “The idea for the project comes from [the new team leader], who was on [another journal] and now joined our team. He took the idea with him. He made people aware of the project.” (editor team leader). With people switching jobs between publishers, not only knowledge concerning (new) editorial practices is exchanged, but also competences required to perform such practices, hence allowing practices to spread. Other ideas might reach the team via professional contacts, such as software developers or academics, e.g.: “I got to know the people who are involved in establishing the platform” (executive editor). Similarly, editorial board members might suggest new approaches, or they might indicate issues with the current approach, thereby triggering discussion about how to solve such issues. This is one of the main information routes for suggestions to publishers from their community and the editorial board keeps the journal in touch with the community. Another editor mentioned the value of social media: “The main source would be Twitter, actually”, referring to online discussions and fast circulation of ideas on these platforms. Another occasion for new procedures or practices occurs when “the electronic management systems that we are using, enables something new. That is a major breakthrough for us” (publisher). Such software innovations give publishers the opportunity to quite easily implement something new, but they also show that other publishers are working on similar initiatives, creating pressure to keep up with competitors. What we thus see is that personal networks of people working for the publisher are important, especially for those working close the community of authors and reviewers. However, also publishing technology can be a conduit for innovations and can be crucial to their introduction to work processes.
In this discussion it is important to distinguish between larger and smaller projects, the larger projects being those either rolled out over many journals or those requiring large investments. Smaller projects may find their way to the project team via the above mentioned formal and informal networks. In contrast, larger initiatives will come “from very high up” (team leader of editors), referring to the top management of the company. One of the team members initiating many of the large new projects explained that projects arrive at their desk mainly in two ways: either the head of an innovation department suggests new initiatives after consulting with technology companies, which demonstrate novel opportunities, or “management makes contractual deals with other companies.” This might include external partners, usually commercial providers of automated tools or review services, which can assist in review and collaborate through large deals. A journal portfolio’s publisher added that, for the larger innovations: “We will take the same approach as any other company might take, by looking at the market and seeing where gaps appear. […] We will look at spots where growth may be realised […] or where we see an opportunity” (Publisher, referring to market analyses carried out by a dedicated team within the company). Therefore, information channels do not just pertain to knowledge about academic benefits of innovations, but also about business economics, in particular for larger innovations.
4.3. Innovating The Process: Decision Makers
The same factors mentioned earlier, the companies’ internal hierarchy and the distinction between smaller and larger projects, become evident when considering who can decide to start, continue or terminate new initiatives. Commonly, when ideas reach a publisher’s management team, they will first be implemented on a small number of journals, during pilot phases, before deciding to roll them out over a wider set of journals. Publishers hence opt for rather gradual transformation of the editorial practices, containing risks and creating learning opportunities. Currently, several trials involving smaller or larger modifications to the publication process are executed in journals managed by the publishers. These include the introduction of new checks carried out by the assistant editors, or more intrusive modifications, such as offering pre-print possibilities to authors; implementing some form of Registered Reports, in which research protocols or plans are reviewed before results or conclusions are known; and the introduction of variants of open peer review, in which peer review reports are published alongside the articles.
In the discussions about who can decide to implement innovations, the publisher’s internal hierarchy becomes very visible. Speaking to several members at the office, the phrase ‘people higher up’ was very common to describe where decision-making power lies: “These decisions come from many levels above me” (senior member of product development team). “But I am not the one making the decisions about this. That will happen higher up” (team leader of editors). This is mainly the case when decisions about larger projects have to be made: “The decisions about such large projects will be made on the very top level of the chief publishing director. In general, decisions about such large projects, enrolled [publisher]-wide, will be on this level. Smaller projects might be handled at a lower level. It depends on the potential impact that the project has, in terms of investment, required structural changes and potential of improvement” (publisher executive).
However, even in decisions about smaller projects, the hierarchical structure of large publishers’ organisation becomes evident: “[…] in this case it was the chief editor who decided it, but she had to get permission from her manager” (executive editor). Or similarly: “Management would then decide whether this is a good thing to do from a business perspective. If they decide to go for it, we would just do the implementation right away” (associate in policy team). In practice, decisions are made by managers (who manage portfolios of several dozen journals) and people above them in the hierarchy.
The situation is more nuanced for society journals, i.e. journals owned by professional or learned societies in which the publisher has a mainly supporting role. These journals are largely autonomous and the publishers have only limited involvement with their editorial policies and processes. Hence, decisions about how to organise the editorial and peer review process are largely made by these societies and their editorial managers, thereby creating additional layers next to the publisher’s internal hierarchy. Societies can frequently lead the way in particular community developments and be a source of inspiration for the publisher. Conversely, if decisions involve discussions over a longer time period it may be more quickly implemented in journals entirely owned by the publisher.
The decision-making structure both shows clear patterns of hierarchy and layering of the different editorial practices. Larger projects travel top-down through the company, driven by the decision power at the higher levels in light of what innovations mean for their concerns. What constitutes a convincing argument for change varies between different layers in the hierarchy. It is to these meanings and arguments for change that we will now turn our attention.
4.4. Innovating The Process: Convincing Arguments
Observing editorial transformation processes or asking about past transformations, we analysed reasons that convince decision makers to enrol or implement new initiatives. Not surprisingly, the commercial aspect of the publisher plays a crucial role in these decisions, with typical expressions such as: “At the end of the day we’re still a business.” However, on closer analysis, this commercial argument manifests itself in quite specific ways, related to the publishers’ business model and corporate strategy. It is not just that business interests play a role in innovation decisions, but how these business interests are understood.
First, the publishers seem to be particularly keen on protecting or strengthening their reputation, even at the expense of additional resources. This becomes clear in the following excerpt from my field notes, from a conversation with a staff member about new initiatives to detect misconduct cases:
'I bring up that, because there are only relatively few integrity cases, it might not be worth a huge investment. She responds that: “One case can bring a lot of reputation damage” explaining that even though they have a lot of papers published and only relatively few of those contain issues, these still can cause major harm to the reputation of the publisher. I reply that hence, even though they might need to set up systems that take a lot of resources and may only catch a few cases, this may still be worth it, because it may prevent reputational damage: “Yes, absolutely”, she confirms. “There needs to be a lot of trust in the system.”'
Another consideration for the publisher, that is related to commercial considerations, is how the publisher can add value for researchers. This usually comes in a drive to speed up the editorial process, improve handling of submissions, decreasing turnaround times etc. However, it was also apparent that a balance is needed with on the one hand improving efficiency without compromising on delivering quality. From conversations with a number of publishing colleagues - at all levels - it was clear that projects are introduced where the publisher believes they are doing the right thing by the community in upholding standards that the community supports and are not introducing changes or innovations that would not receive support from the community.
A second way in which the commercial argument manifests itself, is through a continuous push to balance a need to speed up the editorial process, decreasing turnaround times and thereby decreasing costs, within the quality standards of the editorial process and consideration of the research community’s needs. An executive editor responds to my question of what would be convincing arguments for her manager: “A lot of it will be time: we obviously don’t do things that increase our turnaround times. Other factors include concerns about whether it is not too labour intensive, and we balance time and benefits” (executive editor). A member of the product development team explains: “The biggest cost for the publisher is the editorial process. […] And we do not want to undo any of the efforts that we made via other means in speeding up the process.” She claims that “this [the increased cost due to more time-consuming editorial processes] will form the major barrier to enrol the project on a wider scale” (senior member of product development team).
A closely related third manifestation of the commercial argument concerns the number of submissions a journal expects. Short turnaround times are not only beneficial to reduced costs, they also indirectly lead to increased submissions and hence revenue potential: “Speeding up is required for authors, because they want quick turnaround times, and for the reputation of the journal” (executive editor). Another executive editor explains: “In general, when you want to convince people, you need to show that you have the backing of the field. […] In the end it all comes down to the number of submissions we get” (executive editor). Or a more direct claim: “We could never suggest anything to journals if it either makes the authors or the reviewers less likely to work with the journal” (Senior Manager, Publishing Team). Another senior staff member working alongside society owned journals, told me that: “We persuade people to get more and better content.” Referring directly to the business value and corporate strategy of the publisher by strengthening its reputation, an assistant editor team leader stated: “… we always think about how we can improve the turnaround time, since we may use that as a selling point.” However, this commercial logic has to be balanced with academic standards and this may involve measures that may conflict with individual researchers’ interests. As another staff member later commented: “We reject papers, we retract papers, we publish papers, and each of these might be an unhappy circumstance for an individual author or individual reviewer. But what we try to do is the right thing by the community, upholding the standards that the community supports (..)”
A fourth argument also refers to adding business value, through responding to the needs of researchers in their various roles as editors, authors and reviewers. Factors here involve costs of introducing a new project while maintaining appropriate legal considerations and the perceived benefits to all parties of making a change. This becomes clear in a conversation with a publishing associate in the publishing policy and strategy team:
Me: “So if I understand you correctly, there are two main pillars on which you base your decisions, being first of all the legal aspect: Are we allowed to do this? And secondly the commercial or business aspects: “Can we actually make money out of this?”
She: “Yes, yes, that is true. But usually we are not directly looking at how much money we can make with it, because obviously many of these projects, such as the […] project, are not directly making money. Instead, we usually ask how much money we can afford to put into this. Because it will just cost us money to build the system, but if reviewers like it, it will make the reviewers happier and they might be willing to review for us another time.”
Me: “And that might then make the review process go faster and hence lead to a more cost-effective process?”
She: “Yes, exactly. That is how it works” (publishing associate in the publishing policy, development and strategy team).
Another indication of what arguments are convincing can be observed in the monitoring and evaluation indicators for new project pilot phases. Several members of the editorial board explained how they would measure: “Turnaround times, the number of reviewers engaging, and the rate of reviewers accepting to review” (publisher executive), and: “The usual thing we would measure is the uptake by authors” [i.e. the number of authors opting for a newly offered service] (member of product team). Such performance indicators closely articulate the business concerns in operational terms and translate them into terms directly relevant to editorial innovations. As we noted earlier, these feedback and monitoring mechanisms are crucial mechanisms to maintain or transform practices. Specifying monitoring criteria that operationalise speed and uptake will increase the endurance likelihood of practices that align with business strategy.
This attempt to increase efficiency might have further consequences for specific scientific disciplines. As we noted earlier, there is an increasing desire to standardise editorial processes across journals within the same publisher, mainly driven by efficiency and economy-of-scale considerations. In this effort towards more standardisation, approaches are “commonly aligned with those of the largest set of journals that already use them or in which they naturally fit” (editor-in-chief). Hence approaches are typically modelled on disciplines in which the publisher holds most journals. This may decrease diversity in review procedures, potentially at the expense of approaches more suitable in other, smaller research fields in which the publisher holds only few journals.
However, commercial arguments are not the sole factor facilitating or hindering innovation. In the complex hierarchy of tasks within the publisher, a single group of people is particularly involved with the academic aspects of the editorial process. This group, consisting of executive editors or editors-in-chief, is fairly distanced from direct financial and business considerations. It is this group that seems to be particularly keen on improving research and for whom a publisher is clearly distinct from ‘any other company’. One of them claimed: “We are a company, but we are not a manuscript accepting machine. […] I really want to do it well.” He was positive about his colleague editors thinking about it the same way. “It needs to go well” he claimed, “else I do not want to work for the journal any longer” (executive editor). Other members of the company acknowledged this role, describing the executive editors as “the guardians of quality” (in-house editor).
Once again, we can hence observe how different meanings are attached to editorial practices at different levels of the organisation. Whereas to some, the practices are instrumental in facilitating company growth, fostering reputation or creating unique selling points, others attach more academically informed meanings to the process, aiming to improve science and dissemination of scientific results. It is in the interplay of those layers and meanings that decisions about transformations of the editorial process are made.
4.5. Innovating The Process: Potential Hurdles
Apart from analysing convincing arguments to implement or introduce new initiatives, the analysis of what constitute major hurdles to editorial transformations provides another interesting lens. Besides the legal restrictions mentioned above (such as privacy concerns or issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation), two main categories of impediments were foregrounded. These were explicitly articulated and summarised by one of our interviewees: “There are two main hurdles to innovation: People are very reluctant to change. In the end, we all want to keep things as they are. And there are the technical issues involved” (executive editor). Both impediments were expressed multiple times by members of the editorial team, which may indicate that either habits and conventions among certain actors, or the technical configuration of the electronic editorial system are indeed the main hurdles to innovation.
“Sometimes the reviewers have issues with that [new format of the review process], even though they accept to review in this way at the very start” (executive editor), implying that the instructions did not come across.
“I hope to see it being implemented soon. This will require some changes to the [name of the electronic editorial system]. That is always complicated. It will take a while” (team leader of assistant editors).
Especially the technical hurdle is closely related to the material aspects of editorial practices, whereas routines are tied to the competence aspects of practices. The preference to either fix the technology or improve the competences can depend on the level of configuration that is possible within a manuscript management system and the costs involved. It may also be constrained by whether technical change and “automated solutions” are considered preferable, because they require less behavioural change than individuals involved in the processes.
Hence some of the material and competence elements of (complexes of) practices, may provide barriers to transformation or innovation. As we discussed earlier, the infrastructural online manuscript management system plays a major role in connecting and coordinating the various editorial practices. However, while usually taken for granted and to some extent invisible, it gets foregrounded when transformations to the system have to be made. This aspect, common to, or even defining of, infrastructures (25), makes the system one of the major hurdles in innovating editorial practices. Interestingly, these infrastructural aspects are not fully determined by the publisher itself. Both the structure of the electronic manuscript management system, the developers of such systems, and the competences and habits of reviewers represent and originate in connections to the editorial practices at other journals or publishers, as well as the practices of grant review at funding institutes.