Recently, the editorial board of Management Science introduced Fast Track, a submission process designed to attract shorter papers with high quality, original and high-impact research that is of broader interest, analogous to what might appear in Science, Nature, or PNAS. We are looking for empirical, modeling, or theoretical papers with significant contributions and concise presentations.
The primary motivation for the new submission process is to serve as a platform for the most innovative and impactful papers and to disseminate them in a timely manner. Indeed, some of the most influential papers in our community have been quite short. For instance, Nash's seminal paper on the existence of equilibrium in non-cooperative games published in 1950 in Annals of Mathematics is a short nine-page paper. Similarly, a five-page article published in 1961 in Operations Research by John D. Little and entitled "A Proof for the Queuing Formula " has been one of the most cited papers in our field. Examples of past Management Science papers that if shortened illustrate the editorial board vision for Fast Track papers include the early papers on the "bullwhip effect" (by Hau Lee, V. Padmanabhan and Seungjin Whang, 1997) or on process flexibility (by William C. Jordan and Stephen C. Graves, 1995).
Importantly, a review of papers published in Management Science in the last forty years suggests that a few decades ago papers published in the journal were significantly shorter, with a 10 page limit. So, if there are ample examples that illustrate that short, concise papers can make a big impact, why have we seen in the last few decades a steady increase in the length of papers published by our community? My intuition, motivated by discussions with senior and junior academics in the community, is that authors are concerned that the review team will say their paper does not contain enough results to justify publication! Thus, my objective in Fast Track is to change the emphasis and the writing style of the Management Science community in a way that allows us to go back to our roots.
Fast Track is not about speed; speed is a reward that comes with papers that present an idea that can solve real and interesting problems in the science of management, without the unnecessary bells and whistles that come with most Management Science articles these days.
My objective in this blog is to clarify what Fast Track papers are, provide details on the length and the review process as well as offer guidelines to authors and reviewers about the new submission process.
Fast Track papers are not Research Notes. Specifically, a Fast Track paper is a full academic paper that succinctly makes an important contribution. By contrast, a research note is a short communication that, for example, clarifies previous research or describes work in progress but does not stand on its own as a full paper.
Length and Review Process: Fast Track papers should be no more than 5,000 words (including references and anything else not provided in a separate supplementary appendix). These papers will undergo faster review, with initial decisions being returned to the authors within no more than four weeks. Papers will either be accepted with potentially modest revisions, or rejected. Authors invited to revise their work should do so within a matter of weeks; the final decision will follow within two weeks. Papers accepted through this track will be made available in "articles in advance" within weeks after acceptance and will have the same look and feel as regular papers. Only the submission and acceptance dates will indicate that the paper was processed as a Fast Track paper.
For Authors: If you have a project that may be a good fit, please do not hesitate to contact any of the Management Science Department Editors to seek feedback on whether it may be an appropriate Fast Track submission. If you decide to submit a paper to Fast Track, please keep in mind that the price authors pay for the short review cycle time is limited feedback on submitted papers. Authors will receive mostly an up-or-down decision with a potential request for a minor revision if the paper is on a path for acceptance. A rejected Fast Track paper cannot be re-submitted as a regular paper unless the Department Editor specifically invites such a resubmission. In this case, it is the responsibility of the authors to reveal this in their cover letter.
For the Review Team: Department and Associate Editors should be focusing on whether or not the contribution claimed in the paper is worthy of a Fast Track publication. Reviewers should mostly focus on whether the analysis justifies the findings and not whether the findings are worthy of publication. The review team should be able to evaluate the main contribution of the paper without the need to review the supplementary appendix.
When deciding whether a paper is worthy of publication as a Fast Track, editors should focus on its main contribution and ask the following questions:
- Had the paper been a regular length submission, would the paper be likely to be accepted? The objective of the question is to find out whether a full version of the paper is likely to meet the publication standards of the journal;
- Will this paper open up a new research field or direction? Will it encourage new follow-up research? Or, will the paper have immediate applicability to some managerial problem or issue of interest? The objective of these questions are to characterize the distinctive features of Fast Track papers.
Ramping up and learning: In order to generate an initial set of Fast Track papers, Department Editors are encouraged to reach out to top scholars in their fields and invite them to submit work in the Fast Track format. Department and Associate Editors may look at ongoing work that such scholars have presented at recent conferences or seminars, and ask them to consider Fast Track when they write up their results
This is a new format for Management Science. We will all have to learn about the criteria and the process as we go along. For this purpose, I would like to encourage the entire community to share their thoughts, observations, concerns and questions with the EIC as you gain more experience with Fast Track. I hope that this collective experience will help us evolve and improve the Fast Track review process.
Finally, many people have been involved in the development of this exciting new addition to Management Science. In particular, I would like to thank the previous editors of the Operations Management department of the journal who introduced the Fast Track submission process. It is now time to apply Fast Track across the entire journal.
David Simchi-Levi
Editor-in-Chief
Management Science
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David Simchi-Levi
Professor of Engineering Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge MA
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