Author Guidelines (in detail)

The mission of the Journal of Operations Management (JOM) is to publish original, empirical, operations management (OM) research that demonstrates both academic and practical relevance.

Manuscript Requirements

Manuscripts submitted to JOM must:

1. Be well grounded in the scholarly literature, including the appropriate OM literature. Authors interested in contributing to JOM should know the audience they are writing for, and the extant body of knowledge that that audience is already familiar with. Contributions must involve meaningful theoretical argumentation relevant to that literature (see “Holding North” for discussions on OM relevance, and “Meaningful Pathways” discussions on theory).

2. Use empirical research methods. JOM does not publish purely analytical models or optimization techniques: These belong in operations research, industrial engineering, or analytical OM journals. Science can be defined as learning from observation: It is the observation that renders the research empirical. As you prepare your manuscript, describe precisely what has been observed and what is learned from it. Use rigorous methodology in both data collection and analysis, and explain this methodology clearly and transparently. Use this checklist to prevent methods concerns from interdicting your submission.

3. Apart from recognizing the overall mission of the Journal, submissions must designate a specific Department of interest, or targetted Special Issue. Authors unfamiliar with the specific missions and editorial statements of Departments, or Special Issues, are expected to fully acquaint themselves prior to any submission, and should be able to articulate their rationale for fit within the cover letter (to accompany any submission).

4. Manuscript guidelines must be followed for each submission. This includes avoiding any AI usage that is strictly prohibited by Journal policy. Further, as a matter of course, authors are expected to cite all sources supporting the research. Use quotation marks or otherwise indicate clearly any strings of words drawn from other sources. JOM is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and uses iThenticate's CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley's Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors here. Wiley's Publication Ethics Guidelines can be found here. Accordingly, authors should pre-check manuscripts with plagiarism detection software (e.g., Turnitin.com) prior to submitting to JOM. In most cases, no other single source should account for more than 1% of the wording in your manuscript, unless those words are in quotation marks or otherwise clearly delineated as not your own. If a manuscript’s overall similarity score is greater than 15%, then you must explain the reason for this in your cover letter.  Otherwise, the manuscript will be returned to you for similarity reduction before it can enter the evaluation process. [For additional guidance on document structure and support see Documents & Support]

5. Submit your best work using the publisher portal, only after you have attended to points 1-4. Submissions that do not fulfil each of these criteria will be returned to the authors and if the missing information persist may be immediately rejected from consideration. 

Submission Process

Submission materials must include (a) a separate document title page with author contact information (b) a manuscript free of author-identifiers (see how to remove from file details), and (c) a cover letter (outlining the specific departmental or SI fit). All submissions must also provide (d) a clear identification of recommended AEs and ERB reviewers. In the case of revised work, (e) a response document free of author-identifiers must also be included and authors must ensure that the combined system PDF file contains both the manuscript and that response document. Supporting information, if submitted, should be supplied as separate files.  If your article includes any Videos and/or other Supplementary material, these should be included in your initial submission for peer review purposes. Missing any of these items can result in an administrative rejection of a submission. 

Cover letters are viewed only by the EiC and Department or SI Editors. They can disclose details regarding any dissertation and/or conference papers upon which the manuscript is based, and/or prior use of the data in other publications. Be sure to mention if the manuscript is being resubmitted after a previous “reject and resubmit” decision. Expectations regarding conflict of interest and the 

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the above author guidelines, new submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal: https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/JOOM.

• You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission.wiley.com and clicking the "My Submissions" button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact submissionhelp@wiley.com.

For editorial enquiries, please contact the Journal of Operations Management Editorial Office at jom@ascm-jom.org.

The Review Process

All authors are expected to respond in a reasonable timeframe to any inquiries made by JOM before, during, and after the review process and to meet the revision deadline if offered. JOM uses a double-blind review process. Author identities will be shared with the Editors-in-Chief (EICs) and Department Editors (DEs), but not with reviewers or Associate Editors (AEs), and vice versa. When a manuscript is first received, the Managing Editor will assign it to one of the co-EICs to perform a preliminary screening. The EiCS/he asks three questions: (1) Is the study empirical? (2)  Is the contribution about OM? Is the contribution significant enough to warrant publication? (3) If one or more answers to these questions is no, then the EIC may return the manuscript to the authors as an immediate desk rejection or, under special circumstances, to ask the authors to better align the submissions to the journals expectations. Otherwise, the EIC will assign the manuscript to a DE.

The DE will then assemble a review team typically consisting of two or three reviewers and an AE. Once a reviewers accepts the invitation, they are he/she is given four weeks to return the review. The AE will receive and review the manuscript concurrently, and will then have an additional two weeks to complete his/her report to the DE. The DE will recommend a decision based on the reviewers' and AE's reports. The EIC makes the final decision and informs the authors about the outcome of the review process, including whether the manuscript is being rejected, accepted, or invited for a revision and resubmission.

For further details about the review process, read this editorial and our process overview.

Response Document

A response document is required with any resubmission of a new or revised manuscript after a “reject and resubmit” or “major revision” decision.  This response document should detail the authors’ responses to each of the review team’s comments on a point-by-point basis.  These responses may highlight particular aspects of the revised manuscript and/or rebut some of the criticisms.  Response documents should be completely anonymous (to maintain double-blind review) and well-written in a respectful and collegial way.