Abstract
As a community of HRD scholars it is important to acknowledge that manuscript reviewers are the gatekeepers of our discipline. The term ‘gatekeeper’ has been used routinely to describe reviewers with the authority over the knowledge base, scope, and direction of disciplines. Ultimately, reviewers are asked to confirm or reject the new knowledge that is submitted to journals. With this power reviewers are able to influence the trajectory of disciplines, affirm privileged or marginal status to ideas, and make decisions that impact careers.
While the power of editors and editorial teams has been discussed elsewhere (for example, see Cabanac’s (2011) study), I am focused here on understanding HRDR reviewers and how they impact the future of HRDR and the discipline of HRD. I wonder about how reviewers have impacted HRDR in the past, and I wonder about what types of knowledge and new ideas we
This question is not a reviewer’s challenge; it is
One way to think about how we could move forward is to understand more about the scholars who currently make the decisions about new HRD ideas. Our current reviewers are recognized for this important service at the end of this issue, and we are indebted to their dedication to HRD and HRDR. Without this service we would not have a journal. The Editorial Team and I are deeply appreciative of their efforts.
We identified that, as of November 2015, 94 scholars completed reviews for HRDR. To understand more about these scholars, information available on the internet (including SageTrack) was used to determine each reviewer’s country of origin, professional affiliation, professional level, and gender. Online sources reviewed included school or university faculty pages, LinkedIn, online CVs, professional associations, FaceBook, and other pages containing relevant biographical information.
Of the 94 reviewers who served in volume 14, information about the country of origin, affiliation, and gender was identified for 88 reviewers (93.6%). Information about the country of origin of 6 (6.3%) reviewers was not identified. Note: we did not examine the quality or timeliness of the reviews. These characteristics are critically important to author development and journal quality and will be addressed in a future editorial.
The resulting analysis of these reviewers suggests that a general homogeneity in our reviewer pool exists. More than half of issue 14 reviewers were scholars born in the U.S.: 56 of the 94 (59.5%) reviewers were born in the U.S., and in this group 32 (57.1%) were women and 24 (42.9%) were men. Reviewers born outside the U.S. comprised 40.4% (38) of the reviewers, and the gender mix was remarkably similar in this group (57% women and 42% men). The country of origin of 32 of these 38 reviewers was identified, and all continents except South America were represented. Specifically, 5 reviewers were from India, 5 from South Korea, 5 from the UK, 3 from China, 3 from Malaysia, and 2 from Canada.
In terms of professional affiliation, 74 (77.8%) of HRDR reviewers worked at U.S. based institutions, and 21 (22.1%) worked at institutions outside of the U.S. Of the 74 scholars working at U.S. institutions, 19 (25.6%) were born outside the U.S. and 55 (74.3%) were born inside the U.S. The HRDR reviewers from countries usually recognized as ‘western’ totaled 68, or 72.3% of the total.
As described above, this scholarly community of HRDR reviewers is represented by these characteristics:
Approximately three out of four reviewers work at U.S. institutions.
The gender ratio is constant when comparing U.S. born with the aggregate non-U.S. born reviewers: both groups contain 57% women and 42% men. Notably, however, 100% (5 out of 5) of reviewers from India were women.
Approximately three out of four reviewers were from countries typically classified as ‘western.’
These characteristics collectively paint an unsurprising picture of a reviewer pool dominated by Western scholars. Western-influenced perspectives shape the literature published in HRDR, elevate certain ideas about what HRD should be, and inform the research scope of the journal. Influence over what gets published in HRDR clearly resides in the group of scholars born and/or educated in western educational systems.
The scholarly literature about reviewers and the review process offers perspectives about how these HRDR reviewers may be influencing the journal and, by extension, the future trajectory of HRD. While it has been suggested that the influence of reviewers over the scope and direction of new knowledge in disciplines is an under researched area (Hojat, Gonnella & Caelleigh, 2003), scholarly journals remain guided by standards of objectivity and neutrality for minimizing human bias (Crane, 1967). Journals implement practices to enhance reviewer objectivity and neutrality, such as double blind reviews, diverse editorial boards, and adopting technological innovations to facilitate the review process. These practices are designed to minimize human error and to confirm legitimate status on the articles worthy of publication.
On another level, however, scholars have pointed out that these types of practices are not foolproof and the quest for objectivity and neutrality is fraught with problems. For example, gatekeepers can have “a bias against new ideas” (Fogarty & Liao, 2009, p. 302) and can affirmatively respond to “methodology, theoretical orientation and mode of expression in the writings of those who have received similar training” (Crane, 1967, p. 200). In addition, another study found that “reviewers tend to more favorably evaluate the manuscripts submitted by famous investigators from prestigious institutions regardless of the manuscripts’ scientific and technical merit” (Hojat et al, 2003, p. 79). Other issues impacting peer review impartiality include confirmatory bias, ideological orientation or theoretical persuasion, and political correctness. Research on gender and the peer review process has generated inconsistent findings: some results suggest that gender matters (Borsuk, Aarssen, Budden, Koricheva, Leimu, Tregenza, & Lortie, 2009). while others suggest gender does not influence the peer review process (Wing, Benner, Peterson, Newcomb, & Scott, 2010).
In addition to these challenges, multiple epistemological and methodological critiques from critically minded scholars have questioned the value and relevance of the standards of objectivity and neutrality. From this view, knowledge is situated, relational, political, and these scholars oppose the inherited view of knowledge as “universal, monolithic, disembodied, and unlocated” (Berg, 2001, p. 520). Scholars have de-centered objectivity and neutrality as foundational anchors for research and scholarship by illustrating the complex relationship between knowledge and power. This view argues that it is folly to believe personal interests do not weigh heavily on the publication process in terms of the authors, the editors, the reviewers, and the publishers.
Final Thoughts
If one agrees that western science carries the torch for the standards of objectivity and neutrality, and that western educated scholars are more likely to aspire to those standards, then more of HRDR’s reviewer pool will be guided by these standards than are not. A minority of reviewers if any at all will use the standards of other ways of knowing (e.g, indigenous knowing or women’s ways of knowing). This is a problem if one believes that these “reigning orthodoxies (are) capable of interfering for a time with the progress of the discipline” (Crane, 1967, p. 201).
I believe the implicit acceptance of objectivity and neutrality as foundational standards for evaluating knowledge is a challenge for the discipline of HRD and for HRDR. If HRD is a discipline that aspires to transformational change in its vision for who it serves, how it serves, and why it serves, then it is critical for all of us to examine the relationship between knowledge and power. Without developing this critical awareness, HRD will be stuck in the post-positivist paradigm and unable to attend to the grand problems facing the world.
A core contradiction exists within the production of 21st century social science and new knowledge. On the one hand, we have inherited a knowledge production process based upon the idea of scientific progress removed from human values and interests. This process guides scientific inquiry, scientific publication, the dissemination of scientific discoveries, and requires adherence to the standards of objectivity and neutrality. On the other hand, and more recently, we have inherited an opposing way to think about knowledge production. This perspective suggests that all knowledge production is situated and should be considered tentative. This perspective argues that the aspiration for objectivity and neutrality is misplaced and that there are multiple ways to generate new knowledge. This is the contradiction I see HRDR and other journals working to balance or integrate in some way.
I would like to see more scholars within HRD willing to engage with alternative knowledge claims and different ways of knowing. We need to wrestle with the uncertainty and contradictions of new knowledge generation processes, and we need to find alternative ways to support, cultivate, and publish these ideas. One way to start this new day is by thinking about the role of reviewers in the publication process; there are multiple other ways yet to be imagined. What can you imagine?