Q: What is the interpretation of my manuscript status on ScholarOne?

Detailed Question -

I submitted my manuscript to Management Science. After a couple of days, the status changed from "Awaiting AE assignment" to "Under Review". Then after a week or so, it changed to "Awaiting Reviewer Score(s)" and same day it changed back to "Under Review". What does this mean? Please help.

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Thank you for your question! It is very unlikely that the review would have been completed within 2 weeks. The manuscript status was changing back to “Under Review” perhaps due to one of following reasons:

  1. Some of the reviewers that initially accepted to review the manuscript have now declined to review it due to their unavailability. Therefore, the Assigned Editor (AE) has now sent the manuscript back for peer review with a new set of reviewers.
  2. Some of the reviewers possibly sent the manuscript back with their comments (may be the comments were incomplete, superficial, lacked any scientific rigor, or were inappropriate) and therefore the AE not being satisfied with the reviewers’ comments, has now sent the manuscript back for peer review with a different set of reviewers.
  3. There could have been a technical problem with the submission system as well (very rare to see these though).

You may also refer to the following resources for added clarity:

Please do not worry, peer review usually takes a few weeks to be complete. We hope you receive a positive response from the journal!

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