Use when you need to understand how Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) evaluates a manuscript — triage by the joint Editors-in-Chief, double-anonymized review by interdisciplinary referees, the meaning of each decision type, and how to read the editor's letter. Explains the process; it does not draft the revision response (aos-rebuttal).
SkillScore100Maintained
Automatic
◆Research pack
Last verified 8/15/2026
What it changes
Passed 22 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 16 of 22 without it.
Without skill73%
With skill100%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
The response classifies writing and communication issues under category (a).
The response classifies writing and presentation misunderstandings as category (a).
The response recommends conducting an internal dry-run review before submitting formally.
and 3 more in the full report
6 fixed16 passed either way0 still failing0 broke
Pass-rate lift
+27 pp
Tokens
+13%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-35%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/15/2026v122 of 22 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 6 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 6
Prompt
I am preparing a manuscript for Accounting, Organizations and Society that uses institutional theory to analyze field interviews in a healthcare setting. I want to evaluate our submission readiness before sending it in. Please analyze our manuscript setup according to the journal's review process workflow, organizing your assessment into sections for: current stage, anticipated referee archetypes and their standard critiques, the editor's contribution frame, how feedback points are classified, diagnosis of potential rejection grounds, and the appropriate immediate next step.
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
The response identifies interpretive field specialists as an anticipated referee archetype for this qualitative field study.
Passed
Passed
The response recommends conducting an internal dry-run review before submitting formally.
Missed
Passed
case-01 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/15/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md69 linessingle file
Review Process (aos-review-process)
When to trigger
Calibrating expectations before or just after submitting to AOS
A decision letter arrived and its signals need decoding
You want to anticipate the reviewer mix an interdisciplinary journal will assemble
You are deciding whether a rejected paper should be reworked for AOS or rerouted
How AOS handles a submission
Triage by the joint EiCs. Three Editors-in-Chief share the desk (verified 2026-07-16: Marcia Annisette, Martin Messner, Hun-Tong Tan), with profiles spanning the journal's traditions — critical/interpretive, management accounting/qualitative, and experimental/JDM. Your paper will be read first by an editor fluent in its tradition; scope misfits are desk-rejected quickly, and the capital-markets-without-theory genre is the most frequent casualty.
Double-anonymized refereeing. Reviewers are chosen for the paper's tradition and its theory: a field study using institutional theory may draw one accounting-field-study specialist and one reader closer to organization theory; an experiment draws JDM expertise. Expect referees who know the imported theory's primary sources.
Decision types. Desk reject (scope/quality triage); reject after review; revise-and-resubmit in major or minor form; conditional accept. As across elite journals, acceptance is normally reached through one or more substantive revision rounds.
Timelines vary with reviewer availability; the portal shows status. Re-check any process fact on the official Elsevier pages — this pack records durable structure, not current queue speeds.
What each referee archetype presses on
Archetype
Standard objections
Interpretive/field specialist
Depth of engagement; traceability of interpretation; theory doing work
Social-theory reader
Fidelity to the imported tradition; primary sources misread or thinned
Experimental/JDM reader
Confounds, process evidence, participant-pool fit, effect inflation
Generalist accounting reader
Why accounting is central; what the field's conversation gains
Write and revise anticipating two archetypes at once — the classic AOS tension is satisfying the theory reader without losing the accounting reader.
Reading the decision letter
The editor's own paragraphs outrank the reports: where the editor restates your contribution, that restatement is the target the revision must hit; where the editor selects among conflicting reviewer demands, follow the selection rather than averaging.
Classify every reviewer point: (a) misunderstanding you caused — fix the writing; (b) substantive gap — new analysis or fieldwork returns; (c) paradigm disagreement — argue it respectfully once, with sources.
A "reject with encouragement to submit new work" is not an invitation to resubmit the same paper lightly edited; AOS editors remember manuscripts.
If the decision is negative
Diagnose which bar failed: scope (wrong journal), theory (lens decorative), or evidence (thin engagement/underpowered design). Reroute scope failures to a sibling venue (MAR, AAAJ, CPA, BRIA, CAR) rather than re-arguing AOS's mission.
Salvageable theory/evidence failures may return to AOS as genuinely new papers after substantial rework — flag the history honestly in the cover letter.