Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes: Scopus, Scope & Submission Guide

Quick Answer: What Is Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes?

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes is a peer-reviewed research journal published on Elsevier's ScienceDirect platform under the Academic Press imprint. It publishes empirical and conceptual work in organizational behavior, organizational psychology, and human cognition, judgment, and decision-making, with an emphasis on fundamental psychological processes relevant to organizations.

The journal is indexed in Scopus and Elsevier's official insights page also lists the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). It supports a hybrid publishing model: authors may publish through the subscription route without a publication fee, or choose open access and pay the applicable article publishing charge if accepted.

A manuscript is most likely to fit when its contribution is theoretically important, methodologically rigorous, psychologically informative, and clearly relevant to organizational phenomena. Authors should compare their paper with recent OBHDP articles and the current Guide for Authors before treating indexing or metrics as a reason to submit.

Key Takeaways

• Publisher and platform: Elsevier / Academic Press on ScienceDirect.
• Core scope: organizational behavior, organizational psychology, cognition, judgment and decision-making in organizational contexts.
• Scopus: the journal is listed in Scopus; the supplied Scopus Source ID is 22326.
• Current values displayed by Elsevier: CiteScore 7.7 and Impact Factor 3.8; verify the reporting year in the latest database release.
• Peer review: double-anonymized; suitable papers are typically sent to at least two independent reviewers.
• Open access: hybrid. Elsevier currently displays an OA APC of USD 3,350 excluding taxes; the subscription route has no publication fee.
• Empirical submissions: OBHDP requires an Open Practices Disclosure Form and a Research Transparency Statement covering preregistration, materials/data/code availability, selective reporting, AI use, conflicts and funding.
• Submission fit: strong papers do more than report an effect; the journal asks empirical work to identify and test underlying psychological mechanisms and connect findings to organizational implications.

Journal Information at a Glance

Metric note: journal indicators change by reporting cycle and may differ across Scopus, SCImago and Clarivate categories. Treat the values above as verified snapshots, not permanent attributes.

What This Page Covers

• the journal's aims, scope and subject focus
• Scopus and other verified indexing information
• current metric values that can be responsibly reported
• article types and methods the journal welcomes
• double-anonymized review and editorial screening
• manuscript preparation, transparency and data requirements
• open-access choices, fees, acceptance rate and publisher-reported timelines
• a practical journal-fit framework and pre-submission checklist
• ethical ways Contentxprtz can support manuscript readiness

Methodology and Sources

This profile was prepared from the official ScienceDirect journal page, Elsevier's Guide for Authors and Journal Insights, the supplied Scopus Source ID, ISSN records, the NLM Catalog and a SCImago snapshot for contextual SJR/quartile information. Official publisher sources were given priority for scope, peer review, fees, acceptance rate, timelines, editorial leadership and submission requirements. Where the retrieved official pages did not expose a reporting year or numeric metric, the article states that limitation rather than inventing a value.

What Is Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes?

OBHDP sits at the boundary between management research and psychological science. Its subject is not organizations in a broad administrative sense; its distinctive emphasis is on the psychological mechanisms that explain how people perceive, think, feel, judge, choose and behave in organizational settings. The journal's official scope spans individuals, dyads, groups and other social collectives, which allows researchers to examine phenomena at several interpersonal and collective levels while retaining a strong psychological core.

The title has been used since 1985 and continues the earlier journal Organizational Behavior and Human Performance. The ISSN Portal confirms print and online records, while ScienceDirect shows an active 2026 publication stream. This continuity matters to authors evaluating archival stability and disciplinary history, but current scope and editorial criteria should carry more weight than age alone.

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Aims and Scope

The official aims and scope identify four central domains: organizational behavior, organizational psychology, human cognition, and judgment and decision-making. Within these domains, the journal names perception, cognition, judgment, attitudes, emotion, well-being, motivation, choice and performance as representative topics. It welcomes original empirical research, theory development, meta-analysis and methodological advances that are relevant to these substantive domains.

For empirical manuscripts, the journal's stated threshold is unusually concrete. A paper should demonstrate an interesting behavioral or psychological phenomenon, make a significant theoretical and empirical contribution, identify and test the mechanism underlying the phenomenon, and show practical implications in an organizational context. In practical terms, a well-executed study can still be a weak fit if it reports a relationship without explaining why it occurs or why it matters for organizational behavior.

Conceptual manuscripts are treated differently: the four empirical criteria do not apply, but the journal says conceptual work should offer a substantively new contribution. Across formats, the editorial preference is for research that develops or tests theory, resolves conflicting predictions or findings, examines neglected core elements of established theories, or integrates previously separate theories or research streams.

Methods the journal explicitly welcomes

OBHDP states that empirical research may use laboratory experiments, field experiments, field studies, survey research and computational modeling. It does not rank methods in the abstract; it emphasizes rigor, care and whether the method yields valid answers to important questions. Multi-study manuscripts using complementary methods are described as particularly appealing.

Subject Areas and Research Topics

Elsevier's journal insights classify the journal under Applied Psychology, Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, and Strategy and Management. Based on the official scope, representative manuscript themes may include:

• judgment, choice and decision biases in organizational contexts
• motivation, persistence, goals and self-regulation at work
• emotion, moral judgment and behavioral ethics
• negotiation, bargaining and interpersonal decision-making
• status, power, influence and social comparison
• creativity, idea generation and idea endorsement
• trust, disclosure, communication and collaborative interaction
• attitudes, identity and self-concept in organizations
• well-being and psychological processes affecting performance
• leadership, followership and dyadic dynamics where the contribution is psychological
• group norms, learning and collective behavior
• forecasting, expertise and confidence judgments
• social cognition and perception in workplace settings
• replication studies that add important value or insight
• meta-analytic and conceptual synthesis that advances theory

These examples are guidance derived from the stated scope, not an exhaustive official topic list. Authors should examine the newest issues to see whether the journal's current publication pattern matches their question, level of analysis and methodology.

Scopus Indexing and Other Academic Visibility

The supplied journal record identifies Scopus Source ID 22326, and Elsevier's Journal Insights page lists Scopus among the journal's abstracting and indexing services. The same official page lists the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), alongside SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), SNIP and the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC).

For institutional or PhD requirements, “indexed in Scopus” should not be treated as the end of the check. Universities may require a particular indexing date, active status, subject category, quartile, impact metric or approved journal list. Researchers should therefore open the current Scopus source profile and their own institutional policy on the day they make a submission decision.

The NLM Catalog records the journal but states that it is not currently indexed for MEDLINE; it was selectively included in MEDLINE/PubMed for a limited period in 1985–1986. This is a useful reminder that database coverage is database-specific.

Current Journal Metrics and Quartile Context

Elsevier currently displays CiteScore 7.7 and Impact Factor 3.8 on the ScienceDirect journal page. Because the retrieved publisher page does not expose the reporting year beside those values, authors citing them in a CV, thesis or institutional report should confirm the current year directly in Scopus and Journal Citation Reports before final use.

A SCImago ranking snapshot based on Scopus data as of March 2025 lists OBHDP at SJR 2.383 and Q1. Quartile is category- and year-dependent, so “the journal is Q1” is best understood as a dated ranking observation, not a permanent label. The current Scopus/SJR category should be checked if a university rule specifically requires Q1 status.

Metrics can help authors understand visibility and citation context, but they do not answer the most important editorial question: whether a manuscript matches the journal's theoretical standards and readership.

Publisher and Editorial Leadership

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes is published by Elsevier on ScienceDirect, with Academic Press identified as the publishing imprint in Elsevier's journal comparison information. The official journal page lists Mike Baer, PhD of Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business and Maryam Kouchaki, PhD of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management as Editors-in-Chief. Editorial appointments can change, so authors should use the current journal page rather than old PDFs or third-party directories when addressing correspondence.

Types of Articles and Studies Published

The Guide for Authors describes the journal as welcoming empirical research across multiple methods, conceptual manuscripts, meta-analyses, methodological advancements and replications that add important value or insight. For replications, the journal asks authors to include “A Replication of XX Study” in the manuscript subtitle and abstract.

OBHDP recommends keeping submissions to no more than 54 pages total, of which 30 pages are actual manuscript text, to ease review. This is presented as a recommendation rather than a universal hard word limit. Authors with unusually complex designs or supplementary materials should consult the live Guide for Authors before submission.

Who Should Consider Publishing in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes?

The journal may be appropriate for PhD researchers, early-career scholars, faculty and interdisciplinary teams when the work is genuinely within its theoretical and psychological remit. Academic status itself does not create fit. A doctoral manuscript with a strong mechanism and organizational contribution may be relevant; a senior scholar's technically polished paper may still be outside scope if it is primarily strategic, economic or descriptive without a meaningful behavioral-process contribution.

How to Decide Whether Your Manuscript Fits OBHDP

1. Define the psychological process. Can you state what mechanism involving cognition, judgment, emotion, motivation, attitudes or behavior the paper explains?
2. Define the theoretical contribution. Does the study develop new theory, test an unexamined core element, resolve a conflict, or integrate research streams?
3. Connect the phenomenon to organizations. Is the organizational implication substantive rather than a final-paragraph add-on?
4. Check recent publication patterns. Compare your manuscript with several recent OBHDP papers at the same level of analysis.
5. Match the evidence to the claim. The journal welcomes multiple methods but emphasizes rigor and validity over method prestige.
6. Check transparency readiness. For empirical work, can you meet the journal's materials, data/code and disclosure expectations or clearly justify constraints?

Manuscript Submission Guidelines

The journal uses Elsevier's online submission system, which collects manuscript details and files and creates a PDF for peer review. Editable files such as Word or LaTeX are required for final production. All editorial correspondence, including decisions and revision requests, is handled by email.

Because the journal uses double-anonymized review, authors must provide the title page and anonymized manuscript separately. The title page includes the article title, authors, affiliations, acknowledgements, declaration of interest, corresponding author's full address and corresponding author's email. The anonymized manuscript contains the main paper, references, figures and tables but must not contain identifying author names or affiliations.

Before submission, the journal asks authors to designate a corresponding author, provide contact details, upload all required files, check spelling and grammar, ensure references match in text and list, obtain permissions for copyrighted material and confirm awareness of any OA APC if the open-access route is chosen.

Research Transparency and Data Requirements

OBHDP requires empirical submissions to include a completed Open Practices Disclosure Form. It also requires a Research Transparency Statement as a separate section of the manuscript, generally in the Overview of Studies before the first study's Method. The statement covers preregistration; availability of materials, data and analysis scripts; selective reporting; artificial intelligence; conflicts of interest; and funding.

The journal states that original study materials, data and analysis scripts should be made available to the review team in a trusted online repository unless reasonable constraints prevent sharing. Where constraints cannot be resolved, authors must explain and justify them. Linked repositories and supplementary material also need to preserve anonymity during review.

OBHDP also requires authors to follow relevant APA Style Journal Reporting Standards (JARS) for research-design and analysis disclosure. This transparency framework is a substantive part of readiness; it should be addressed before the paper reaches the final formatting stage.

Manuscript Preparation and Formatting Requirements

The Guide for Authors asks for concise, informative titles and a conventional research structure where appropriate. The introduction should state the objectives clearly without turning into an exhaustive literature review. The theory section should develop the arguments that support the hypotheses or propositions. Methods should be detailed enough to allow independent reproduction, and results should be clear and concise.

For review purposes, authors should keep identifying information out of the anonymized manuscript and linked resources. Tables, figures and references belong in the anonymized manuscript. The journal also permits supplemental materials for online-only publication when they enhance understanding without being essential to evaluating the main claims.

All submitted materials, including supplementary instruments and analysis code, must be translated into English for the review team. Where participant-facing survey instruments or experiment scripts were used in another language, the Guide asks authors to provide both the participant-language version and an English version.

Citation, Reference and Reporting Style

The journal asks authors to ensure every in-text citation appears in the reference list and vice versa, and to verify bibliographic details carefully so links to services such as Scopus and Crossref can be created accurately. Data references should identify the dataset and repository and use a persistent identifier where available; preprints should be clearly marked as preprints and include the preprint DOI.

For reporting research design and analysis, OBHDP specifically requires authors to follow relevant APA Style Journal Reporting Standards (JARS). The retrieved Guide for Authors does not expose a short standalone “APA reference style” label in the search extract; authors should therefore follow the live reference-style examples and current Guide rather than relying on a remembered template.

Peer-Review Process

OBHDP follows a double-anonymized review model: author identities are concealed from reviewers and reviewer identities are concealed from authors. The submission is first assessed by editors for suitability. If suitable, it is typically sent to a minimum of two reviewers for independent assessment of scientific quality. Editors make the final accept/reject decision.

That initial suitability stage can be decisive. Scope fit, theoretical significance, mechanism, rigor, transparency and presentation all affect whether a paper is ready to enter external review. The journal also allows formal appeals that meet Elsevier's appeal policy, with one appeal per submission and a final appeal decision.

Typical Submission-to-Publication Workflow

1. Confirm aims-and-scope fit and article type.
2. Prepare the title page and fully anonymized manuscript.
3. Complete open-practices and research-transparency requirements.
4. Submit through Elsevier's online system.
5. Editorial suitability and technical screening.
6. Double-anonymized external review, typically by at least two reviewers if sent out.
7. Revision and point-by-point response if invited.
8. Final editorial decision.
9. Publishing agreement and open-access/license choice.
10. Proof correction; Elsevier asks for proof corrections within two days.
11. Online publication after acceptance and production.

Open Access, APC and Publication Fees

The journal is hybrid. Elsevier currently lists an open-access APC of USD 3,350 excluding taxes; the amount may be reduced through institutional agreements, funder arrangements or other applicable discounts. Authors using the subscription route are not charged a publication fee, and the final article is available to subscribers.

Because APCs and agreements can change, the correct budgeting step is to check the live journal page during submission and confirm whether the corresponding author's institution has an Elsevier agreement. Choosing the subscription route does not mean the manuscript receives a different peer-review standard.

Acceptance Rate and Publication Timeline

Elsevier's official Journal Insights currently reports a 4% acceptance rate. It also displays publisher-reported journal timelines of 4 days from submission to first decision, 61 days from submission to decision after review, 590 days from submission to acceptance, and 24 days from acceptance to online publication.

These figures are descriptive journal-level indicators, not promises for an individual paper. A manuscript that enters multiple revision rounds, needs difficult-to-find reviewers or presents unusually complex evidence can follow a different path. Authors with deadlines should plan from the journal's real workflow rather than assuming the headline “first decision” number equals full peer-review time.

Publication Ethics and Generative-AI Policy

Authors must follow Elsevier's publishing ethics policy and confirm that the work is not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere, has appropriate author approval and has not been published previously except in permitted forms such as a preprint, abstract, thesis or registered report. The publisher may use screening tools to verify compliance.

Authorship is limited to people who made substantial contributions to the work, took part in drafting or critical revision, approved the submitted version and accept accountability for the work. Funding and conflicts of interest must be disclosed.

Elsevier permits responsible use of generative-AI tools in manuscript preparation but requires disclosure when such tools are used beyond basic grammar, spelling and reference checks. Authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality, verification and rights. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. The Guide also states that reviewers and editors are not currently allowed to use generative-AI tools such as ChatGPT in peer review or manuscript evaluation, to protect confidentiality and authors' rights. Generative AI is not permitted to create or alter manuscript figures except where AI use is part of the research method and is reported reproducibly.

Recent Research Themes in the Journal

Recent articles visible on the official journal page illustrate the breadth inside the journal's psychological core. Examples include work on first offers in negotiation, scarcity and directed attention, pausing in collaborative conversations, norm learning, confidence and expertise in forecasting, status dynamics around idea endorsement, and moral-emotion responses to workplace gossip. A 2025 issue also included research on AI disclosure and trust, persistence through streaks, seller attachment in bargaining and personal financial disclosure.

These examples suggest that “organizational behavior” in OBHDP is interpreted through mechanisms and decision processes rather than through a narrow functional-management lens. A manuscript on AI, for example, would not fit merely because AI is used at work; it would need to make a meaningful contribution to psychological or behavioral understanding.

Common Reasons a Manuscript May Be Unsuitable

The journal does not publish an official breakdown of rejection reasons, so the following are practical interpretations of its stated criteria rather than journal statistics:

• the topic is organizational but the contribution is not fundamentally behavioral or psychological
• the paper documents an effect but does not identify and test an underlying mechanism
• the theoretical contribution is incremental relative to the relevant literature
• the organizational implications are weak or added only after the analysis
• the evidence cannot support the claimed contribution
• an empirical paper is not ready to meet the journal's transparency, data or code expectations
• the manuscript is not adequately anonymized for double-anonymized review
• the argument is difficult to follow because structure, language or reporting obscures the contribution

Journal-Fit and Pre-Submission Checklist

How to Respond to Reviewer Comments

If OBHDP invites a revision, create a structured response document that reproduces each reviewer comment, answers it directly and states exactly where the manuscript was changed. When you disagree, explain the reasoning and provide evidence rather than responding defensively. Keep the response letter, revised manuscript and transparency materials synchronized; a change to analysis or interpretation can affect several sections at once.

Revision-stage language editing can be useful when the scientific response is sound but the explanation is too compressed, repetitive or ambiguous. It should improve communication, not manufacture evidence or conceal weaknesses.

Is Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Suitable for PhD Researchers?

Potentially, yes—but not simply because it is indexed in Scopus. A PhD researcher should first check whether the manuscript meets the journal's scope, theoretical-contribution standard, mechanism requirement for empirical work, transparency expectations and methodological rigor. The researcher should also confirm whether their university or doctoral regulations recognize the journal's current indexing and any required quartile or database status.

For dissertation-derived work, a common readiness question is whether the manuscript has been transformed from a thesis chapter into a focused journal contribution. OBHDP's page recommendation and strong theoretical emphasis mean that extensive thesis-style literature review and methodological detail may need restructuring, while necessary transparency information may move to supplements or repositories.

How Researchers Should Evaluate This Journal

How Contentxprtz Can Support Authors Preparing for OBHDP

For a journal with explicit theoretical, transparency and anonymization requirements, publication readiness involves more than grammar correction. Contentxprtz can help authors assess whether the manuscript communicates a clear journal-aligned contribution, improve the title and abstract, strengthen structure and academic language, check consistency between text and tables, review references, format submission documents, and proofread a revision or reviewer-response letter.

For empirical OBHDP submissions, support can also include checking whether the manuscript clearly presents the Research Transparency Statement, whether anonymization is consistent across files, and whether data/materials statements are understandable and internally consistent. The researcher remains responsible for the scientific decisions, underlying data, analyses, source selection, disclosures and final submission.

Contentxprtz does not control editorial decisions and does not guarantee acceptance or publication. Professional support can improve clarity, compliance and presentation, but the journal alone decides whether a manuscript enters review and whether it is ultimately accepted.

Summary: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes is an Elsevier/Academic Press journal focused on fundamental research in organizational behavior, organizational psychology, cognition, judgment and decision-making. It is indexed in Scopus (supplied Source ID 22326) and SSCI, uses double-anonymized peer review and currently displays a CiteScore of 7.7 and Impact Factor of 3.8 on ScienceDirect. The journal supports hybrid publishing, with a current open-access APC of USD 3,350 excluding taxes and no publication fee for the subscription route.

Its distinctive submission standard is theoretical and mechanistic: empirical papers should identify an important phenomenon, make a substantial theoretical and empirical contribution, test the underlying psychological mechanism and show organizational implications. Empirical authors must also address open-practices, transparency, data/materials/code and disclosure requirements. Before submitting, verify the live Guide for Authors, Scopus/JCR metrics, editorial team and current fees.

Authoritative Sources and Verification Links

• Official ScienceDirect journal page — aims and scope, editors, ISSNs, current displayed metrics, OA model and headline timelines.
• Official Guide for Authors — article types, peer review, anonymization, transparency, data, ethics, AI and submission requirements.
• Elsevier Journal Insights — acceptance rate, APC, indexing and publisher-reported timelines.
• Scopus Source ID 22326 — verify active Scopus coverage, subject categories and current Scopus metrics.
• ISSN Portal record — online ISSN and publication record.
• NLM Catalog record — title history, abbreviation, country/language and historical MEDLINE/PubMed coverage.

Final Publication-Readiness Note

OBHDP may be a strong target for manuscripts that make a substantial, mechanism-focused contribution to organizational behavior or decision-process research and can meet the journal's transparency expectations. Before submitting, recheck the live scope, Guide for Authors, Scopus record, metric reporting years, fees and editorial information. If professional support is used, it should improve the clarity and compliance of the authors' own research—not promise or simulate an editorial outcome.