Reviewer Benefits and Guidelines

Benefits of Reviewing for the AOM Responsible Leadership Conference

  • Reviewing is a way to learn about what constitutes excellent, innovative, and interesting work.
  • Reviewers gain visibility for themselves and their institutions.
  • Reviewing offers opportunities to contribute to the program planning process.
  • Reviewing is a way to give back to your professional community.

We encourage volunteers to review submissions based on topics in which they have the most expertise.


Reviewer Guidelines

We offer these reviewing guidelines to provide guidance on the type of feedback to provide to submitters in your review comments. Your constructive feedback is essential to support submitters as well as your colleagues attending the AOM Responsible Leadership Conference. The quality of the program is strongly influenced by your reviews.


General Areas to Cover

In addition to commenting on the theoretical development of a proposal and the technical correctness of the methodology, you should also consider the overall value-added contribution the proposal offers. Does the proposal pass the “so what” test? Consider if the proposal has practical value, and comment on its implications for the practice community.

  • Does the proposal reflect the overall level of quality an audience would expect?
  • Is the proposal of interest to a sufficient number of conference attendees?
  • Does the proposal offer sufficient innovation and contribution?


Setting the Tone of the Review

  • Authors must be treated with respect, regardless of your evaluation of their work.
  • Keep your comments constructive. Provide the authors with constructive ideas to improve their proposal as they develop their research.
  • Identify the strengths of a proposal.
  • Help authors further develop their research by identifying areas of weakness in a proposal but also provide specific guidance on how the authors might address the limitations you have noted. The more specificity you provide in your review, the more likely it is that the authors will benefit from your efforts.
  • Be open-minded to different authors using different theoretical frameworks. Judge proposals based on how well they stimulate thinking and discussion. Also, keep in mind that submitters come from varying disciplinary backgrounds and research traditions with diverse theoretical and methodological orientations.

Review Format

  • To protect the integrity of the “double-blind” review process, do NOT provide information in your review that reveals your identity and do NOT seek to discover the identity of the authors.
  • Provide a structured review by separating and numbering comments. Where appropriate, cite specific page numbers, passages, tables, and figures in your review.
  • If you are uncertain about your comments in terms of some aspects of your review, please do your best to determine the accuracy of your position. Remember the quality of your review will help determine if the proposal is accepted or rejected for the program.