Cultivating a more equitable, inclusive and credible peer-review process: reducing asymmetrical relationships of power via procedural justice

Purpose The purpose of our article is to move the field of management toward a more equitable, inclusive and credible peer-review process. We accomplish this by conceptualizing the asymmetrical relationships of power in the peer-review process as a research–research gap, which can be alleviated via the application of procedural justice. Design/methodology/approach Our study targets six high-quality journals to illustrate how various journals operate similar to district courts and examine similarities within and across these journals in an effort to demonstrate res judicata being applied to research design and methods. Findings Despite not being bound to follow the decisions of another journal, we find that there is wide agreement and multiple occurrences in (1) testing moderated-mediation models with a single study and (2) evaluating RMSEA cutoff values. Practical implications This application of procedural justice can be applied to other matters such as sampling procedures, sample size calculations and experimental manipulations. Originality/value Our study enhances our understanding of how the application of procedural justice principles can improve the equity, inclusivity and credibility of the peer-review process.