Dear Colleagues,
At the beginning of the summer, Shiva Rajgopal, one of the two Accounting Department Editors decided to step down due to increased administrative commitment at his university. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Shiva, who together with Suraj Srinivasan, was able to move the department to the next level as evidenced by (i) the significant increase in submission volume, and (ii) the response to a recent survey of accounting faculty indicating the upward trajectory of the department and the quality of published papers.
To facilitate the change in the department leadership, I appointed a committee consisting of seven accounting scholars. The objective of the committee was to:
- Review the department position among top tier Accounting journals and suggest strategies for improvements;
- Identify ways to attract and motivate papers relevant to the broader Management Science community; and
- Highlight new and emerging areas in the field.
I am pleased to announce that after receiving the committee recommendations I appointed Brian Bushee from Wharton to serve as a DE, starting September 1st, 2018, together with Suraj Srinivasan, the current DE. The Department Editors have updated the department statement to reflect the committee's recommendations. This statement will appear in the next issue of the journal.
Below is a statement that Brian and Suraj are circulating among accounting faculty through email and a post on SSRN. This statement highlights some of the committee's findings and the changes to the department.
I would like to make sure that this "Press Release"-like format is also visible to the entire Management Science community. In particular, this may be of interest to data science, healthcare, risk-management or, in fact, any management science researcher whose work includes accounting-related issues. In these cases, the department can serve as an outlet for their papers.
Finally, I would like to thank the committee who reviewed the department and came up with important suggestions for the future of Accounting in Management Science. The committee consisted of Shiva Rajgopal (Columbia U., co-chair), Suraj Srinivasan (HBS, co-chair), Trevor Harris (Columbia U.), Mark Defond (USC), Brian Bushee (Wharton), Jeremy Bertomeu (UC San Diego) and Rodrigo Verdi (MIT).
David Simchi-Levi
Editor-in-Chief
Management Science
E-mail: mseic@mit.edu
A Statement about the Accounting Department from Brian and Suraj
Effective September 1, 2018, Brian Bushee will be joining Suraj Srinivasan as a co-departmental editor for the accounting track at Management Science (MS). We would like to thank Shiva Rajgopal, who is stepping down due to increased administrative commitments, for all of his work in increasing the number of submissions and quality of publications during the last three years.
We wanted to take this opportunity to encourage you to consider submitting your work to MS. Our goal is to position MS as a competitive top-tier outlet for accounting-related papers. In addition to mainstream work, we particularly welcome submissions of papers that fit into one or more of these categories:
- Examine issues important to managers and practitioners; i.e., would a manager, investor, consultant, regulator, etc. find the paper relevant and timely?
- Explore new data sets, new theories, and new phenomena, without an overriding concern about perfect identification strategies or eliminating all possible sources of endogeneity.
- Span the intersection of accounting and other fields, such as risk management, data science, strategy, operations, finance, entrepreneurship, healthcare, marketing, etc.
- Use whatever methodology is best suited to the research question, be it archival, big data, experimental, theoretical, field surveys, interviews, or clinical/small sample.
- Embrace multi-method approaches, such as integrating mathematical theory with archival data analysis or combining survey, interview, and experimental evidence.
We believe that MS provides the following benefits to authors submitting their work:
- MS is viewed as a top-tier journal at most schools. We surveyed 86 senior accounting faculty at 44 top schools that write over 480 tenure letters per year. Their answers indicated that MS is viewed as an "A" journal at the school level at a majority of institutions (68% said MS is perceived as an "A" journal). When writing tenure letters, 51% of the respondents said they would count MS as an A for Top 10 schools, increasing to 75% for Top 11‐25 and 85% for Top 26-50 schools (please contact us if you would like to see the full survey results). Our goal is to further improve these numbers.
- We require fewer rounds to reach a decision. While we strive to minimize the turnaround time on each round, the more important factor in speeding up the review process is to reduce the number of rounds. Our policy is to only use reviewers for two rounds. Thus, in almost all cases, authors will receive a minor revision or reject decision after submitting their first revision. We will also desk reject papers, providing a faster decision for papers that are unlikely to be published in MS.
- We aim to provide clear guidance in our R&R decision letters. Berk, Harvey and Hirshleifer (2015) (http://ssrn.com/abstract=2547191) suggest clearly separating review comments into (i) items that must be addressed to make the paper publishable; and (ii) items that don't impact the publishability of the paper but are just suggestions. We will emphasize (i) instead of (ii) in providing R&R guidance. Once we believe in the paper, we will work with you to make it a better product.
- We welcome authors' suggestions on reviewers and associate editors for their submissions. We recognize that authors often have a good sense for who might provide the best assessment and guidance on their specific papers. While we cannot always honor these suggestions due to workload or conflict issues, we try to use the suggestions whenever possible to provide expert advice on the paper.
- MS offers a Fast Track process for short papers with original, high-quality, and high-impact research. These papers should be no more than 5,000 words (about 16 double-spaced pages). They will undergo faster review, with decisions to accept with modest revisions or reject in no more than four weeks. Please feel free to contact us about whether a paper may be appropriate Fast Track before submitting.
We hope you will support our effort to provide a competitive top-tier alternative for accounting-related papers by submitting your work and by reviewing manuscripts for the journal.
Brian Bushee
Suraj Srinivasan
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David Simchi-Levi
Professor of Engineering Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge MA
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