Reasons accounting case/instructional resource papers are rejected for publication

Abstract

The authors of this manuscript served as immediate past editors of Issues in Accounting Education , a six-year period that has seen a significant increase in the number of case/instructional resource submissions to the journal. Similar to their research-manuscript counterparts (documented in Stout, D. E., Rebele, J. E., & Howard, T. P. (2006). Reasons research papers are rejected at accounting education journals. Issues in Accounting Education , 21 (2), 81–98.), the rejection rate for case/instructional resource submissions is relatively high. Why do such manuscripts get rejected for publication? To answer this question, we performed a content-analysis of the files of all case/instructional resource submissions ( n = 156) that were rejected during the combined term of our editorships. A total of 342 “primary” and 156 “secondary” reasons for rejection were noted for this set of manuscripts. In decreasing order of importance, we find the following primary reasons for manuscript rejection: failure to provide evidence regarding the educational value of the case; case material judged not to be “rich” enough; failure to provide adequate implementation guidance (based on actual case usage); and, poor writing – specifically, incompleteness/lack of sufficient detail in the case itself. Weak/poorly constructed Teaching Notes stood out as the most important secondary reason for rejection of case submissions. These results were generally consistent between the two editors/time periods. To complement the quantitative results reported in the paper, we include selected quotes from reviewers and associate editors. These comments, and the related quantitative analysis, should be of interest to authors as they prepare cases and instructional resource papers for submission to accounting education journals.