The problems, limitations and challenges in peer reviewing

The peer-review plays a central role in academic life, sitting at the juncture where scientific research is accepted or rejected for publication. At its heart, the peer-review ensures excellence in research; however, critics have questioned its overall effectiveness, alleging arbitrariness and diminishing quality. The peer-review is a major practice in the publication of research; however, the limitations of peer-review are not particularly well understood, nor have they been systematically examined in the accounting literature. Through informed analyses of published research in the business and non-business literature, this editorial explores the tensions that have entered the system of peer-review and its impact on the quality of peer-review assessments and the partiality of reviewers and editors. This editorial does not attempt to condemn the system of peer-review but to encourage debate on this very important topic to better understand the implications of a system under stress.