Peer Review Policy

To enforce a strict, independent quality-control framework to preserve the integrity, validity, and accuracy of published scholarly work, all submitted manuscripts undergo a rigorous Double-Anonymous (Double-Blind) Peer Review process. Neither the authors nor the reviewers are aware of each other’s identities or institutional affiliations at any stage of the evaluation cycle to ensure complete objectivity and eliminate prestige or geographical bias.

Initial Editorial Triage (Desk Review)

Upon submission through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) portal, the Managing Editor conducts an initial internal evaluation. Manuscripts are screened for:

  • Basic formatting compliance and structural completeness.
  • Direct alignment with the journal's official focus and scope.
  • Automated plagiarism and academic integrity screening via a premium automated plagiarism and AI detection software (adhering to our strict 25% cumulative similarity threshold). Also see AI Policy and Plagiarism and Academic Integrity Policy for more details.

Manuscripts that exhibit significant plagiarism, fall completely outside the journal’s scope, or violate basic academic standards are issued an immediate Desk Rejection by the editorial office without being sent for external evaluation.

Independent External Peer Review

Manuscripts that pass the initial safety triage are sent out-of-house to two (2) independent external peer reviewers for formal evaluation.

  • Reviewer Independence: Reviewers must be active, recognized experts in the specific domain of the manuscript. Reviewers are selected globally to ensure geographic diversity and must be completely external to CamEd Business School.
  • Conflict of Interest Shielding: No external reviewer may possess any shared institutional ties, co-authorship history, or personal/professional conflicts of interest with the authors.

Review Criteria

External reviewers are allocated a standard window of 4 to 6 weeks to submit their formal, comprehensive evaluation reports. They provide critical, constructive feedback based on the JAFESS Peer Review Rubric, which essentially assesses the scholarly dimensions such as originality, methodological rigor, literature grounding, and structural clarity.

Operational Outcomes and Editorial Decisions

Based on the independent, written evaluation reports submitted by the two external reviewers, the Handling Editor will issue one of the following editorial decisions:

  • Acceptance with no revision: The manuscript fulfills all scientific and stylistic standards without modifications.
  • Acceptance with minor revisions: The author must address specific minor clarifications, such as data additions, or stylistic edits within a designated timeframe (typically 1 to 2 weeks).
  • Acceptance with major revisions: The manuscript requires significant structural, methodological, or analytical overhauls. The revised paper must undergo a second full loop of double-anonymous peer review before a final decision can be made (typically 4 - 6 weeks).
  • Rejection: The manuscript contains fundamental flaws in its methodology, analysis, or theoretical framing that cannot be resolved through revision.

Tie-Breaking and Ultimate Decision Authority

In the event of directly conflicting recommendations from the initial two reviewers (e.g., one recommendation for "Acceptance" and one for "Rejection"), the manuscript will be sent to a third independent external reviewer, who will serve as a blind tie-breaker.

The Editor-in-Chief holds the ultimate, final decision authority regarding the official acceptance or rejection of all research articles. Internal editorial board members and CamEd faculty are completely excluded from the evaluation and decision-making loop for any manuscripts where they possess an institutional or authorial conflict of interest, ensuring zero endogeny risk.