Policies and peer review

Peer review process

OATCJ uses a double-anonymous peer-review protocol: authors and reviewers do not know each other's identities. Each submission is assessed by independent reviewers with relevant subject-matter expertise, drawn from the journal's peer-review committee and the broader case-research community.

1. Editorial screen. The editorial team verifies scope, completeness, format, and release-form status. Out-of-scope submissions are returned within two weeks.
2. Reviewer assignment. Independent reviewers are assigned based on subject expertise and absence of conflicts. Reviewers with any declared relationship to the authors, the focal organisation, or the submission topic are excluded.
3. Reviewer assessment. Reviewers evaluate the case and teaching note against published criteria (factual grounding, pedagogical clarity, quality of teaching-note analysis). Target turnaround is four weeks.
4. Decision. The handling editor synthesises reviews and issues one of: accept, minor revisions, major revisions, reject. Authors receive reviewer comments.
5. Revision rounds. Revised manuscripts are typically returned to at least one original reviewer.
6. Production. Accepted cases undergo copy-editing, metadata capture, and format review before assignment to an issue.

Publication ethics

Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to observe:

• Accuracy in factual claims, including organisation names, dates, quotations, and quantitative exhibits.
• Honest attribution of sources, including interviews, internal documents, and published material.
• Respect for confidentiality of organisational information not released for publication.
• Proper acknowledgement of everyone who contributed materially to the case or teaching note.

Authorship

All named authors must have contributed substantively to the case or teaching note. Substantive contribution means meaningful involvement in one or more of: conception and design, field research, drafting of the case or teaching note, or critical revision. Guest and gift authorship are not permitted. Changes to the author list after submission require written confirmation from all listed authors.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must disclose any relationship that could be perceived as a conflict of interest, including:

• Employment, consulting, or equity positions with the focal organisation.
• Familial or personal relationships with individuals named in the case.
• Research funding from the focal organisation, its competitors, or related parties.

Editor-submission cap. To protect editorial independence, cases authored or co-authored by a member of the editorial committee must collectively not exceed 25% of cases published in any given year. Editor-authored cases are reviewed with the author excluded from any editorial handling of their own submission.

Consent and release

Because OATCJ cases involve real organisations and identifiable individuals, authors must obtain a signed case release form from an authorised representative of the focal organisation before submission. The release confirms that the organisation has reviewed the case and consented to publication. A release form is not required if the case is built solely from publicly available sources; authors must state this clearly in the cover letter with full source documentation.

Where identifying details would put individuals or the organisation at risk, authors may disguise names, locations, or quantitative details with the consent of the focal organisation and a clear disclosure in the case.

Misconduct

Allegations of misconduct (plagiarism, data fabrication, undisclosed duplicate submission, undisclosed conflict of interest, authorship dispute) are investigated by the editorial team, following COPE-aligned procedures:

1. Written record of the concern raised.
2. Notice to the corresponding author with an opportunity to respond.
3. Consultation with independent reviewers where relevant.
4. Decision: no action, correction, retraction with notice, or further escalation to the author's institution where warranted.

Complaints and appeals

Authors or readers who wish to challenge an editorial decision or raise a complaint about the review process may do so in writing to the Editor-in-Chief. Appeals are reviewed by an editor not previously involved with the submission. The journal aims to acknowledge complaints within 10 business days and resolve them within 60 days.

Licensing and copyright

Authors retain copyright in their cases and teaching notes. Cases are released under a Creative Commons licence:

• CC BY-NC-ND (default). Free to share for non-commercial educational use, with attribution and without modification.
• CC BY-ND. On request, where broader reuse is desired while preserving integrity.

Teaching notes are not openly licensed; they are distributed only to verified instructors through The Case Centre.

Open access definition

OATCJ meets the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of open access. Readers have free, immediate, unrestricted online access to cases. Authors are not charged any fee for submission, processing, or publication. OATCJ is classified as a diamond (or platinum) open-access journal.

Preprints and prior publication

Cases that have been presented at a workshop or conference (for example, the CASE Association, the North American Case Research Association, or the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada) may be submitted to OATCJ, provided the author discloses the prior workshop presentation in the cover letter. Cases that have been published in a peer-reviewed case journal are not eligible. Authors are welcome to post a preprint of an OATCJ-accepted case to an institutional or personal repository, consistent with the Creative Commons licence.

Corrections and retractions

Minor factual errors are addressed through a formal erratum appended to the case record. Substantive errors, or confirmed misconduct that undermines the case's validity, are handled through a retraction notice that remains linked to the case record. Withdrawn cases are not removed from the historical record.

Editorial independence

OATCJ editors make decisions based on scholarly merit and fit with journal scope. Editorial decisions are independent of any commercial influence, including from the focal organisations of submitted cases, from distribution partners, or from any institutional sponsor of the journal.

Use of generative AI in case writing

Authors may use generative AI tools as writing aids (for example, for editing, summarising, or exploring prose alternatives). Authors must:

• Take full responsibility for the factual accuracy and originality of the submitted case and teaching note.
• Disclose material use of generative AI tools (beyond incidental editing) in the cover letter or methods note.
• Not list an AI system as an author.