Strategies for revising and resubmitting papers to refereed journals

We explored what authors allegedly do and why, when invited to revise and resubmit manuscripts to refereed journals. Based on responses from 249 business and management scholars from the UK and USA, we found that authors preferred to resubmit to the original journal, whether the required revision was minor or major, and that under certain circumstances other options would be considered: submitting to alternative journals, sometimes without revising at all; discarding the paper; or challenging the editor. Experience in publishing was found to be an important moderator. As to 'why' they purport to do so, a classification of qualitative responses yielded a matrix of four optional strategies, grouped along two axes: rationale (instrumental reasoning versus ethical reasoning) and agency (individually centred reasoning versus community-centred reasoning). Most responses were located in the instrumental/self-centred quadrant.