MIS Quarterly Submission Guide

Source: MIS Quarterly, Association for Information Systems, Clarivate JCR 2024, accessed April 2026.

This is the MISQ-specific structural detail authors most often miss:

MISQ is editorially housed at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management and operates under the AIS (Association for Information Systems) member-owned publishing model, distinct from commercial-publisher IS journals like ISR (INFORMS) or JMIS (Taylor & Francis).

The strategic implication: the publishing structure affects editorial culture (community-anchored, IS-society-driven), pricing, and open-access pathways. Authors should understand the AIS-anchored governance model when framing the contribution and considering open-access options.

Three operational signals govern editorial assessment:

1. IS centrality. Pure-CS or pure-management-without-IS-framing fits other venues.

2. Substantive contribution. Research Articles require substantive empirical or analytical contribution; Theory and Review papers require substantive theoretical advance or comprehensive integrative review.

3. Article-type fit. The manuscript must align with the chosen article type's editorial focus.

Recent MISQ issues span:

• Digital innovation and digital transformation

• AI/ML in organizations and IS-mediated decision-making

• Cybersecurity and information security

• Healthcare IS and IT-enabled health

• Social media, online communities, and platform IS

• IS economics and value of information systems

• Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding IS

• Emerging IS topics (generative AI, blockchain, semantic IS)

For specific recent papers and DOIs, see MISQ on Carlson. Representative recent papers:

• 10.25300/MISQ/2023/15947

• 10.25300/MISQ/2024/16234

• 10.25300/MISQ/2024/16456

• Initial decision: typically 8-12 weeks

• First decision after review: typically 16-24 weeks

• Revision rounds: typically 2-4 major revisions to acceptance

• Time to publication after acceptance: months (online first available)

Read the public instructions for mechanics, then pressure-test the package the way an editor will see it. The review tells you whether your paper clears the MIS Quarterly fit check before upload, especially around iS framing thin, wrong article type chosen, and wrong IS journal chosen. Paid Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we do not train models on submitted manuscripts.

Three patterns generate the most consistent rejections.

IS framing thin

MISQ requires IS centrality. Pure-CS or pure-management work without IS framing faces redirection. The fix is to articulate the IS contribution explicitly.

Check is framing thin before submitting to MIS Quarterly →

Wrong article type chosen

Research Articles submitted as Theory and Review face routing issues; Issues and Opinions essays submitted as Research Articles face desk-rejection. The fix is to identify the target article type explicitly.

Check wrong article type chosen before submitting to MIS Quarterly →

Wrong IS journal chosen

MISQ competes with ISR (INFORMS quantitative/economic), JMIS (managerial-IS), and JAIS (AIS open-access). The fix is to read recent papers from each and route based on contribution type. A MISQ manuscript readiness check can identify whether IS centrality, article-type fit, and substantive contribution align before submission.

Check wrong is journal chosen before submitting to MIS Quarterly →

MIS Quarterly requires these at first submission:

• main manuscript file fully anonymized for double-anonymous peer review (no author names, no institutional affiliations, no acknowledgements, self-citations suppressed or written in third person)

• separate title page with author names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, and contact information (uploaded separately so reviewers do not see it)

• cover letter establishing the IS research and practice contribution and the article-type fit (Research Articles, Theory and Review, Issues and Opinions, Special Issue)

• structured abstract per MISQ convention

• author CRediT contribution statement (uploaded with the title page, not the anonymized manuscript)

• competing-interests declaration

• ethics statement for human-subjects research (organizational case studies, survey data, experimental data, archival-with-identifiers, ethnographic, design-science fieldwork)

• data and code availability statements with deposit references

• Provenance Declaration covering the manuscript's relationship to any prior MISQ submissions, conference proceedings, dissertations, or working papers (mandatory per MISQ policy)

• Commitment to Service declaration acknowledging the up-to-3-papers-per-year review commitment (mandatory at submission)

• suggested reviewers with institutional affiliations

• $0 USD submission fee; subscription publication has no APC; MISQ offers an Open Access option at $3,500 USD APC (2026)

• declaration of generative AI use in the writing process

• for revised submissions, point-by-point reviewer response and marked-up manuscript

For MIS Quarterly submissions, the most common artifact-related issue is missing or perfunctory Provenance Declarations on submissions that draw on author dissertations, prior conference papers, or earlier MISQ submissions. MISQ's Provenance Declaration policy is strict: submissions where the relationship to prior work is not fully disclosed face routine technical-screen returns before the manuscript reaches the editor's desk, and significant undisclosed overlap with prior work can trigger 2-year submission bans similar to the JFE rejection-resubmission policy.

Run a MIS Quarterly pre-submission readiness check before clicking submit to verify the package meets the journal's IS-centrality-with-substantive-contribution bar and full anonymization standard.

MIS Quarterly manuscripts move through a four-stage editorial timeline shaped by the AIS member-owned editorial structure. The editorial triage pattern at MISQ favors submissions where the cover letter names a failure pattern in current IS research or practice that the manuscript addresses. Editors routinely reject pure-CS or pure-management submissions without IS centrality and consistently screen for cover letters that demonstrate awareness of the journal's recent editorial culture around IT-management-and-organizational-economics integration.

Day 0 to 7: ScholarOne intake and MISQ editorial-office technical check

The platform performs format and anonymization checks (separate title-page upload, declarations, ORCID linking, Provenance Declaration completeness, Commitment to Service declaration). Submissions missing the Provenance Declaration or Commitment to Service face return-for-revision.

Day 7 to 28: Editor-in-Chief and Senior Editor desk-screen

The Editor-in-Chief routes the manuscript to a Senior Editor matched to the IS subfield (digital innovation and entrepreneurship, IT and organization, IT and economics, AI and analytics, design science research, behavioral IS, or research methods). The Senior Editor desk-screen tests IS centrality and substantive contribution.

Week 5 to 16: External peer review (double-anonymous)

Manuscripts that pass desk-screen go to 2-3 reviewers under double-anonymous peer review. Reviewer turnaround on IS submissions is slower than laboratory science; 10-14 week peer-review windows are typical.

Week 16 to 32: Decision and revision rounds

First decisions arrive at the 3-4 month median, typically as major revision. Revision cycles add 4-8 months each. MISQ rarely accepts at first decision; 2-3 revision rounds are typical for accepted papers.

• Is MIS Quarterly a good journal?

• Information Systems Research Submission Guide

• Journal of Management Information Systems Submission Guide

Before the reviewer-invitation stage, read the MIS Quarterly package against the same risks this guide flags in the Manusights section. The practical question is whether the abstract, cover letter, figures or tables, methods, reporting statements, supplementary files, and references all make the journal choice obvious.

• If the abstract still points toward iS framing thin, revise the central claim before upload.

• If the evidence package leaves wrong article type chosen, strengthen the methods, controls, figures, or supplementary material rather than expecting reviewers to infer it.

• If the cover letter cannot resolve wrong IS journal chosen, compare the target journal against the adjacent venues named above before submitting.

Last verified: April 2026 against MISQ editorial pages.