Publication Process

In a recent article in which they analyze the contribution of eight international journals in the industrial relations field, Quinlan and Bohle* consider that RI/IR’s particular strength is that a greater number of its articles are devoted to substantive working conditions, in particular wages (including social benefits, pension plans), work intensity and workload, schedules and hours of work, job insecurity, and occupational health and safety.

RI/IR presents the main characteristics of a major research journal: its executive and editorial committees are composed of internationally recognized specialists; its authors and reviewers are often internationally renowned; the process of selecting and evaluating articles is rigorously supervised in compliance with the journal’s publication rules. Lastly, it is internationally recognized for its contribution to research and development in industrial relations. Thus, in 2013, it was classified in Category ‘A’ of the ABDC Journal Quality List, published every three years by the prestigious Australian Business Dean Council.

Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations is one of the very few academic journals that do not require the full transfer of authors’ rights. Its practice is to allow authors to reproduce all or part of the content of their article in a book or publication in the institutional repository of their choice.

Some 50% of scientific articles are now published by journals belonging to five major publishing companies. The field of industrial relations is no exception to this rule. However, RI/IR remains the only one of the eight major industrial relations journals not to be published by a commercial publisher. It is thus the only journal of international stature dedicated to work and employment that maintains complete independence with regard to the policies of major commercial publishers.

There is strong pressure for the results stemming from scientific research, especially when the research is financed through public funds, to be made available as widely as possible and as early as possible. RI/IR shares this view of knowledge as a public good, and one of its mandates involves making its content widely accessible to academics, students, researchers and interested persons in governments, trade unions and companies, both in Canada and abroad.

^{*Quinlan, M., Bohle, P. (2014) “Re-invigorating Industrial Relations as a Field of Study: Changes at Work, Substantive Working Conditions and the Case of OHS”, New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38 (3), 1-24.}

A manuscript submitted to RI/IR is firstly subjected to a preliminary evaluation by the editor, who considers its compliance with the editorial policy of the journal, its relevance to the industrial relations field and its conformance with the publication criteria for a scientific journal (theoretical or analytical framework, methodology, original results presented and discussed). If the manuscript is of interest, but it does not respect one or more of the criteria, the author will be invited to resubmit a text that does meet the criteria. If the revised manuscript meets the requirements, it will subsequently be transmitted to the scientific evaluation process (3 blind reviews).

The choice of evaluators is made according to several criteria, including the language of the manuscript submitted, the country that the research focuses upon, the problematic addressed, and the methodology utilised. Each reviewer evaluates the article based on the following criteria: originality, research problem, theoretical approach, methodology, analysis, conclusions and the overall quality of the presentation. Each reviewer will make one of the following recommendations: publication without changes; publication with minor changes; publication with major changes or a refusal. The evaluations of the reviewers must be justified in a written text and is often accompanied by suggestions for improvement.

After receiving the reports of the three evaluators, the editor transmits a consolidated report to the author, incorporating the comments and suggestions of the reviewers, as well as those of the editor. In cases where revisions are required, the author must provide a letter along with the revised article explaining how this new version responds to the comments and suggestions included in the consolidated report. Upon return of the revised version, the editor checks the changes made and produces a new evaluation. If necessary, the editor will ask the author to take further account of the reading committee’s suggestions and, if required, other changes that will improve the quality of the paper.

Generally, this process takes around one year.

Articles accepted at the end of this process will go to the publication stage.