Announcement: IJPDLM Early Career Reviewer Board (ECRB)

Statement of Purpose:

The Early Career Reviewer Board (ECRB) is a professional development initiative of the International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management (IJPDLM) designed to enhance the success of the next generation of logistics and supply chain scholars. The ECRB aims to enhance ECRB members’ scholarship by improving the quality of their research, promote higher quality manuscript submissions, and foster a global academic community. This follows organically from the “Our Polestars” editorial published in IJPDLM in early 2025 where the editors laid out their vision for such an initiative (Russo and Rao, 2025).

Goals of the Initiative:

1. Editorial Review Training:
   Provide junior scholars with structured opportunities to develop high-quality peer review skills through active involvement in the IJPDLM editorial process.
2. Scholarly Development and Publication:
   Assist participants in enhancing their own research by encouraging ECRB members to participate in IJPDLM-sponsored paper review workshops. At these workshops, senior and younger scholars will discuss and provide feedback on advanced-stage working papers. ECRB participants will be encouraged to improve the quality of their manuscripts before entering into the journal’s peer-review system with the goal of eventual publication in IJPDLM.
3. Professional Networking and Mentorship:
   Facilitate meaningful professional relationships among young scholars and senior faculty through structured mentoring, developmental feedback, and community-building activities.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Early Career Reviewer Board (ECRB) Members (Advanced Doctoral Students / Early Career Faculty):

• Review 1–2 regular IJPDLM submissions annually, providing thoughtful, constructive, and comprehensive feedback.
• Submit one working paper for formal developmental review. The working paper has a clear research question, literature review, hypotheses, and initial methodology/results, but may still be refining its analysis, interpretations, or structure.
• Serve as peer reviewers for other ECRB participants’ manuscripts.
• Participate in two to three annual webinars for onboarding, training, feedback sharing on the review process and advanced-stage development papers, and community building.
• Contribute insights on emerging literature, novel methodologies, and field advancements.

Associate Editors and Advisory Board Members:

• Nominate qualified candidates for participation in the ECRB (nominating anyone that the AE believes would benefit from the program).
• Encourage ECRB members to submit a working paper to the journal’s paper developmental workshop.
• Oversee the review process for submitted ECRB papers and mentor junior reviewers.
• Provide feedback to ECRB members on the quality and depth of their reviews.
• Champion the program’s success and ensure alignment with IJPDLM’s standards and goals.

Editorial Review Board (ERB) Members:

• Nominate qualified candidates for participation in the ECRB (nominating anyone that ERB members believe would benefit from the program).
• Participate in the review process for ECRB working papers.
• Serve as co-reviewers alongside AEs and ECRB participants.
• Support the development of junior scholars through mentoring and constructive feedback.

Review and Publication Process for ECRB Papers:

The aim of the ECRB is not just to cultivate high quality reviewers, but also high quality scholars. To support this goal, it is envisioned that in addition to reviewing:

• Each ECRB participant will submit one advanced-stage working paper (e.g., full draft manuscript) into the IJPDLM paper review workshops. While we do not necessarily expect "fully developed” papers, the papers must be sufficiently advanced to merit an “external review". Simply put, we expect that submitted papers will be at least of the quality needed to make it into top-tier academic conferences as “full papers” (i.e., not just as abstracts). We encourage interested participants to consult the “navigating Excellence” editorial published in IJPDLM to understand the common flaws that they must avoid in submissions (Russo and Wong, 2024).
• Each ECRB participant will receive formal feedback consisting of reviews by:
  • One Associate Editor (AE);
  • One regular IJDPLM Editorial Review Board member;
  • Two ECRB peer reviewers.
• After the first round of reviews are received, the ECRB participant will be encouraged to revise their working paper before receiving an invitation to the IJPDLM-sponsored workshop. The invitation decision will be made by the ECRB Senior Editor.
• Papers that reach an advanced stage of readiness will be invited for presentation in an IJPDLM-sponsored workshop, providing an opportunity for feedback from the broader ECRB community.
• At the journal’s paper development online workshop, additional feedback will be provided at the workshop. The workshop will consist of both a general meeting session and smaller break-outs sessions. The smaller break-outs will be designed to encourage conversations on specific papers.
• The workshop review process is developmental in nature but aligned with the standards of IJPDLM. The goal is to elevate the manuscript to a publishable level.

Overall Timeline:

• July 2025 – Overall launch of the ECRB.
• August 2025 – First orientation webinar: 1) paper development expectations, process & policy, 2) training on IJDPLM review practices, 3) community engagement, and 4) overall program expectations. Discussion of paper development submission dates.
• January 2026 – Second webinar: discussion of manuscript review best practices, progress updates, and participant feedback.
• March 2026 – Third webinar: paper development workshop.
• July 2026 – First set of ECRB paper development submissions into IJPDLM review process.

Paper Submission Timeline:

• The ECRB program will accept paper submissions from ECRB members until December 1, 2025 (e.g., advanced stage submission).
• The ECRB Senior Editor will evaluate the submission and then make the decision on submitting the paper to the ECRB program.
• Feedback will be provided to the authors by February 20, 2026.
• Authors will be provided resubmission by May 22, 2026.
• The ECRB Senior Decision will reach authors by June 12, 2026. If accepted, the paper will proceed into the IJPDLM review process.

Future Pathways:

ECRB participants who demonstrate excellence in reviewing and scholarship may be appointed to the regular IJPDLM Editorial Review Board, supporting their continued growth as scholars and contributors to the field.

References:

Russo, I., & Rao, S. (2025). Our polestars: articulating the vision and future of IJPDLM. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 55(2), 121-129.

Russo, I., & Wong, C. Y. (2024). Navigating excellence: understanding and overcoming common causes of manuscript rejections in logistics and supply chain management research. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 54(2), 211-228.