Publishing has become, in several respects, more challenging in recent years. Academics are faced with evolving ethics that appear to be more stringent in a bid to reduce scientific fraud, the emergence of science watchdogs that are now scrutinizing the published literature with critical eyes to hold academics, editors and publishers more accountable, and a barrage of checks and balances that are required between when a paper is submitted and eventually accepted, to ensure quality control. Scientists are often under increasing (...) pressure to produce papers in an increasingly stringent publishing environment. In such a climate, timing is everything, as is the efficiency of the process. Academics appreciate that rejections are part of the fabric of attempting to get a paper published, but they expect the reason to be clear, based on careful evaluation of their work, and not on superficial or unsubstantiated excuses. A desk rejection occurs when a paper gets rejected even before it has entered the peer review process. This paper examines the features of some desk rejections and offers some guidelines that would make desk rejections valid, fair and ethical. Academics who publish are under constant pressure to do so quickly, but effectively. They are dependent on the editors’ good judgment and the publisher’s procedures. Unfair, unsubstantiated, or tardy desk rejections disadvantage academics, and editors and publishers must be held accountable for wasting their time, resources, and patience. (shrink)

This article investigates whether editorial board members of selected economic journals publish their research papers in their ‘own’ journal. Journals were selected from the Journal Citation Report® from the categories Business; Business, Finance; and Economics. Only research articles published between 2012 and 2015 were included in the analysis. We recorded ratios concerning the share of articles authored by editorial board members, the share of editorial board members publishing in their own journals and ratios representing their publication output. The average share (...) of articles authored by editorial board members ranges from 0.6 to 17.5%. The average share of editorial board members publishing in their own journals ranges from 5.6 to 24.4%. Considering only editorial board members publishing in their own journals, the share of their articles in their journals ranges from 8.2 to 71.4%. While the share of board members publishing only in their own journals, to the number of board members publishing in their own journals, the ratio in a quarter of journals is equal to zero, with a maximum reach of 85.7%. All observed ratios are significantly positively correlated with the gap between impact factor and impact factor without Journal Self Cites; and negatively correlated with the Article Influence Score. A cluster of journals in which a high proportion of editorial board members publish and simultaneously these members publish in their own journal at a high rate was identified. (shrink)