The Transnational Journal of Business (herein after referred to as the “Journal”) is published by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), which adheres to the policies and core practices as defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Journal Management
The Managing Editor is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Journal. The Managing Editor is also responsible for the recruitment and selection of reviewers, the timely processing of submitted manuscripts, communicating with authors, as well as prospective authors and reviewers. The Journal shall maintain a web site accessible without charge where individuals can view and download any materials published by the Journal. The Journal maintains separate ISSN registrations for both the print and electronic versions of all published issues.
Ethical Oversight
The ACBSP Scholarly-Practitioner Publications Committee (SPPC) has primary oversight for the ethical oversight of the Journal, its Editors, Reviewers and Authors. The Journal is committed to protecting vulnerable populations/diversity as well as utilization of ethical research methods to include Institutional Review Boards (IRB’s) as required by institutional stakeholders. Such policies extend to protecting the use of animals in research.
The Journal does not accept advertising, nor does it charge author(s) submission or publication fees. Author(s) who submit to the Journal shall report sources of financial support for their papers and note any special relations to any sponsor. Submissions may withhold the names of specific sponsors if they provide an adequate and full description of the sponsors’ nature and interest.
The Journal does not file or encourage the filing of ethics complaints that are frivolous and are intended to harm the alleged violator.
For all matters, whether or not included in the present policy, the decision of the ACBSP Board of Directors shall be final to all concerned.
Peer Review Process
The peer review process is the cornerstone of scholarly work published for public consumption. The Journal follows a double-blind peer review process. Reviewers are selected by the Managing Editor for their expertise and objectivity in evaluating a scholarly manuscript. The identity of the author shall remain unknown and shielded to the reviewer while the reviewer’s identity shall also be unknown and shielded from the author.
Manuscripts shall not contain any personal identifiers, institutional identifiers or any other contextual information which may reveal the identity of the authors. The blind review process is the hallmark of a respected journal and cannot be compromised.
The Managing Editor will maintain fairness in the application of academic publishing standards and operate without personal or ideological favoritism or malice. In the case of an article submitted by a faculty member of the same institution where the Managing Editor is employed, the Managing Editor will be recused from the process of final decision for selecting such article(s) after the double-blind review process.
The Managing Editor shall also recuse themselves if any other potential conflicts of interest exist and refer the matter to the SPPC. The Managing Editor shall ensure the confidentiality of the review process and supervise editorial office staff, including students, in accordance with practices that maintain confidentiality.
Reviewers shall respect the confidentiality of the process and the proprietary rights of those who submitted the material. Reviewers shall disclose conflicts of interest or decline requests to review others’ work when they are aware of conflicts of interest.
Reviewers shall decline requests for reviews of the work of others when they believe that the review process may be biased or when they have questions about the integrity of the process. If asked to review a manuscript they have previously reviewed, reviewers must make that prior review known to the person making the request (Editor), unless it is clear that they are being asked to provide a reappraisal.
Authorship and Contributorship
Only authors having made significant contributions to the completed manuscript can be listed as authors. If appropriate, an endnote of appreciation may be included as recognition of those who have inspired or otherwise motivated the author(s) but did not make a scholarly contribution to the completed work.
Submissions should ensure that authorship and other publication credits are based on the scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved. Submissions should list a student as principal author on multiple-author publications that substantially derive from the students’ work.
Plagiarism in all forms, which includes self-plagiarism, is a serious violation of the Journal’s ethical standards. Authors shall explicitly identify, credit, and reference the author of any data or material taken verbatim from written work, whether that work is published, unpublished, or electronically available. Manuscripts shall explicitly cite others’ work and ideas, including their own, even if the work or ideas are not quoted verbatim or paraphrased. This standard applies whether the previous work has been published, unpublished, or electronically available.
Manuscripts previously published or submitted to other Journals for consideration of publication should not be submitted to the Journal. Submitting the same manuscript concurrently to multiple Journals for consideration of publication is a violation of the Journal’s Ethics policies. Any author(s) discovered making multiple submissions of the same manuscript shall forfeit their privilege to publish in the Journal. Papers submitted as part of the Call for Presentations for ACBSP Conference are exempt from the multiple submission provision.
Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests
The Journal adheres to the following definition of a conflict of interest: A conflict of interest is any fact that is known to any of the participants in the publication process, such as Authors, Reviewers, Editors, members of the SPPC, members of the ACBSP Board of Directors or any ACBSP staff that could call into question the objectivity of the review. A competing interest is defined as any aspect of the process that can be influenced by a relationship between authors and reviewers.
Authors should declare in writing any known or suspected potential conflicts to the Editor upon submission of the manuscript. The Managing Editor will review the issue and make a determination as to whether a conflict of interest does exist. There may be times when even the possible perception of a conflict of interest can call into question the article’s eligibility for publication. The decision will normally be communicated to the author in writing in ninety (90) calendar days.
Reviewers are also obligated to discuss any conflicts of interest before agreeing to review a submission. For any conflict of interest, reviewers should disqualify themselves by making their conflict known to the Managing Editor. Examples of conflicts of interest include the following examples:
The author and reviewer:
- Have a business arrangement;
- Are employed at the same institution;
- Have served on each other’s dissertation committees;
- Are related or;
- Are co-authors on another manuscript or have been co-authors within the past five (5) years.
The double-blind review process requires that the identity of the author and the identity of the reviewer will not be known to each other.
Complaints and Appeals
Complaints and appeals concerning editorial decisions can be submitted to the Managing Editor or any member of the SPPC. The Managing Editor has primary responsibility for investigating complaints and appeals. Complaints cannot be based on a disagreement with the Managing Editor’s judgement about the importance or relevance of the article.
Author(s) can appeal to the SPPC by taking the following steps:
- Explain why you disagree with a decision by addressing editorial comments in detail;
- Provide evidence of any technical errors you believe the reviewer made, and;
- Provide evidence of any conflict of interest you are aware of that would negate the reviewer’s ability to evaluate the article objectively.
The SPPC will respond to your complaint in writing normally within ninety (90) calendar days. Should you have a complaint against the Managing Editor or SPPC, please send your reasons for the complaint to the ACBSP President/CEO or Chair of the ACBSP Board of Directors. The Board shall take all complaints seriously and will normally provide a written response within ninety (90) calendar days.
Allegations of Misconduct
Ethical misconduct on the part of any Editor, Author or Reviewer will not be tolerated. Allegations of misconduct should be directed to the Managing Editor immediately. Allegations of misconduct will be investigated by the Managing Editor, in consultation with the SPPC for final resolution, and may include retraction of published manuscripts suspected of ethical misconduct.
Allegations of misconduct on the part of the Managing Editor or the SPPC should be directed to the ACBSP President/CEO or the Chair of the ACBSP Board of Directors.
Data and Reproducibility
Author(s) are expected to maintain and make available all data collected in the course of any research submitted for publication for a minimum of ten (10) years. Selective omission of data, data manipulation or altering of photographic images without disclosure is a violation of the Journal’s ethics policy (See Resnik, D. B., & Shamoo, A. E. (2017). Reproducibility and research integrity. Accountability in Research, 24(2), 116–123. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2016.1257387).
Authors should not fabricate data or falsify results in their publications or presentations. Findings shall be fully reported and include data relevant within the context of the research question(s). Results shall be reported whether they support or contradict expected outcomes. Author(s) shall take particular care to present relevant qualifications to their research or to the findings and interpretations of their research. Underlying assumptions, theories, methods, measures or research designs that may be relevant to the findings and interpretations of their work shall be disclosed.
Should author(s) subsequently discover errors in their publication or presentation of data, they should notify the Managing Editor immediately to correct such errors in the form of a correction, retraction, published erratum or other public statement. Author(s) shall report accurately the results of others’ scholarship by using complete and correct information and citations when presenting the work of others. Data analyzed from others shall be explicitly acknowledged and the extent of the contribution be defined by the author(s).
Post Publication Discussions and Corrections
Author(s) are required to notify the Managing Editor immediately of any error(s) or omission(s) which may change the context or meaning of any published work. Readers may submit letters to include critiques or corrections of a substantive nature to the Managing Editor. Publication of letters is at the sole discretion of the Managing Editor and the SPPC; however, the policy of the Journal is to maintain an open forum for competing ideas as well as cooperative ideas.
Retractions
The Journal ascribes to the principles for retraction as set forth by COPE. Reasons for retraction include, but are not limited to the following:
- Plagiarism;
- Research has been previously published;
- Unethical Research;
- Significant errors in data analysis, experimental design or fabrication of data, any of which could lead to erroneous findings or;
- Copyright infringement
If an article is retracted, a statement to that effect will be made public including a notice on any online versions of the article. The retraction will state fully the reason for the retraction. The retracted article will be fully identified by title and author.
Intellectual Property and Copyright Provisions
The Journal respects the absolute right of author(s) to maintain their intellectual property rights upon acceptance of submitted manuscripts for publication.
The Journal shall share in the copyright of any published work until published.
The Journal shall be defined as an open access journal which means that once published, the copyright holder of a scholarly work grants usage rights to the Journal and readers using an open license allowing free access to the work and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link full texts of articles, pass them as data to software or use for any other lawful purpose with appropriate credit and reference.
Users of content will not be required to register for such usage.
Questions regarding intellectual property and copyright may be directed to the Managing Editor.