The paper is based a total of 457 reviews across 378 papers in one journal, European Scientific Journal (ESJ). The study compares the review reports and decisions of reviewers who are members of the editorial board of the journalm with those reviewers suggested by the authors and who are not affiliated with the journal.
Results indicated that editor-suggested reviewers were less favourable towards the papers and were more likely to give negative (or less positive) critique. The authors of this study also concluded that factors such as time and country of the reviewers influence their decisions. In this regard, the editors should avoid relying their decisions solely on review reports received from reviewers suggested by the authors.
Shopovski, J., Bolek, C. & Bolek, M. Sci Eng Ethics (2019).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00118-y
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