Conflict of Interest (COI) Policies*

Authors are expected to outline any conflict of interest during the submission process. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise, that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission all pertinent commercial and other relationships. 

Further, to ensure an objective and fair review process, it is important to avoid conflicts of interest between authors and evaluators. Conflict of interest can arise when an evaluator is associated with the author(s) in a way that could weigh upon the rendering of an impartial recommendation on the manuscript.

Such relationships include

1. PhD Adviser or Advisee

2. Co‐author over the past five years

3. Collaborator on a current research project

4. Co‐located at the same institution (at time of submission)

Authors should not nominate editors or reviewers who fall into one of these categories, except in unusual circumstances in which case the relationship and reason for nomination must be disclosed to the editors. If prospective evaluators are invited to be part of the editorial team, and they feel they cannot be impartial in reviewing the manuscript, then they should recuse themselves from handling the paper.

Reviewers and Editors at JOM may never attempt to insert themselves into author positions for articles that they are currently serving to review. Such action constitutes a breach of the conflict of interest policy, and will be met with disciplinary action.

*Note: We acknowledge the compilation of these guidelines by the Production and Operations Management (POM) community, which enjoys considerable overlap with JOM authors and editorial communities