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I submitted my paper to a engineering journal. It underwent a major revision and then a minor revision. The minor revision was some grammatical stuff. Now it is in the "Awaiting Editors Decision" mode for the past one week. I am sort of tensed about it. What does this mode mean for a journal review process in general?

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Once you submit your revised manuscript the editor handling your manuscript will look through your revisions to assess if they are satisfactory. Since revisions were in response to a minor revisions verdict, it seems likely that the next step would be accept unless the revisions were not satisfactory, in which case additional revisions might be necessary. In any case, the editor is now assessing your manuscript.

You write that the paper has been in this mode for a week. For any normal journal and thereby workload of their editors, you should not expect any change in status within such a short period. In "my" journal editors have three weeks to reach a decision on how the process should proceed. If the status remains for longer than, say, 3-4 weeks, you can start to consider contacting the journal and ask about its faith. But, please check if the journal has any specific time limits for their processes. Some do, some don't. The bottom line is that you are premature to worry at this stage.

EDIT: As Strongbad points out in a comment the term "Awaiting Editors Decision" strictly indicates that the paper has passed reviewers. this is indeed the general case, also in "my" journal. So in your case, the signal is, as I was, albeit not as clear as I intended, aiming at above, that no additional review is necessary and the editor is assessing the paper for submitting the final verdict.

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    For the journals that I am most familiar with "Awaiting Editors Decision" means all the required reviews are back (although there is still the possibility of adding a final reviewer) on new submissions as well as revised manuscripts.
    – StrongBad
    Commented Jun 6, 2014 at 11:34
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    To be a bit more precise, this is usually an automatic status change once the required number of reviews (usually two) have been submitted to the manuscript handling system, of which the editor is (also automatically) notified via email. So the current status means that the editor was notified a week ago, not that he has been thinking about the decision for a week (depending on his schedule, he might not even had time to look at the reviews yet).
    – Christian Clason
    Commented Jun 6, 2014 at 13:08
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    Yes and it sounds as if it is ScholarOne Manuscripts in particular.
    – Peter Jansson
    Commented Jun 6, 2014 at 14:42
  • (I am a belated guest here). I agree with your third comment @PeterJansson. Two of my papers show the status "Awaiting Decision" (15days and counting) and "Awaiting AE Recommendation" (1.5 months and counting).
    – Coder
    Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 21:09

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