Editorial: Why should we care about preparing referee reports?

Abstract

It is undeniable that the whole academic publication universe depends on the fundamental, but not necessarily enough recognized and rewarded, reviewers' role. The fact is that without the reviewers, even if we consider the new open science practices, there is no way to guarantee the quality of the published research in journals worldwide (Bedeian, 2003;Gerhardt, Dal Pai, Gouveia & Azzolin, 2014).Although authors have praised the role of anonymous reviewers in academic life (Hamermesh, 1992(Hamermesh, , 1994McAfee, 2010;Taylor, 2009), there seem to be very few defined and consensual reasons for scholars to prepare referee reports promptly (Tosi, 2009). In fact, according to some studies, delays and missed deadlines are often a common feature of academic publishing today (Ellison