Ethics

Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement

The publisher of this journal, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Organisational Sciences, is dedicated to high ethical behaviour standards during the complete publication process. Thus, the editors of Management: Journal of Sustainable Business and Management Solutions in Emerging Economies will do the best to ensure fairness, transparency, confidentiality of editorial decision and double blind peer review process without conflict of interest. To fulfil that aim and prevent possible misconduct, all the parties: authors, reviewers, editors and the publisher are expected to meet ethical behaviour and responsibility standards. Ethical standards and responsibility of the journal are based on the set of ethical behaviour standards and guidelines of The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), as well as the Elsevier guidelines for Publishing Ethics. When dealing with potential ethical issues, authors and reviewers can expect process workflow described in the decision trees of the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK), as well with the The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts.

Ethical behaviour and responsibility of Authors

 Authorship

Anyone who contributed significantly to the research/manuscripts should be listed as an author or co-author. The contribution of each author should be clear.  Regular contributions are but are not limited to: idea conception, article/research design, writing the article, gathering, analysis and interpretation of data. 

Information about authors` contributions would not be published, but it could be required from authors. 

In the part of Acknowledgements, it is allowed to express gratitude to person/s that participated or less substantially contributed to the research but not enough to deserve authorship.

Changes of Authorship

The authors must agree to be listed, and agree on specific order / corresponding author designation before submission of the manuscript. If there are any changes after submission, like a different order of authors, removing or adding an author, all listed authors must approve it. If one of the listed authors disagrees with the changes, the manuscript will not be reviewed/published until all listed authors agree. Request for changes authorship should be sent to the editors.

Corresponding author

The corresponding author must be listed. The corresponding author will be responsible for communication between the journal and co-authors.

Conflicts of interests

Funding supports

Finance and non-finance or any other supports of research or interests could influence the results. Therefore, the research funding supports should be disclosed in the part of Acknowledgements.

Private interests

Private interests, such as employment or personal financial or non-financial interest, could lead to less objectivity interpretation of research. Any of that kind of interest should be declared.

 Originality

The manuscript has to be the original, previously unpublished work of all listed authors. Plagiarism is not allowed. The article's research and publications must be properly cited and referenced. Original text from previous publication should be directly quoted in quotation marks with the appropriate citations. Data, tables, images and figures should be the authors own or be changed/adjusted from previous research, and the source should be referenced. 

Journal actively uses "Turnitin" software to screen all submitted articles for plagiarism issues before they pass any further editorial screening. If plagiarism is suspected in the submitted article, we will follow these guidelines.

Fabrication or falsification of data

Data must be presented clearly and understandably without fabrication, falsification, or manipulation.

Redundant publication (duplicate / multiple submissions or publication)

This journal does not allow the publication of articles simultaneously submitted to several different journals or conferences. The manuscript should not be submitted, under consideration for publication or previously published in another journal or elsewhere. If the authors have reused a substantial part of their previous research, it must be clearly stated, cited and referenced as previous work, and the new article must present at least 70% of new content. Upon the editorial decision, papers presented at conferences related to the aims and scope of the journal, selected as best papers by the conference boards, may be offered fast-track review or published as special issues/supplementary articles with necessary modifications. Author will explicitly notify that the article is developed from the specified conference paper.

Research involving the participation of human subjects

Guidelines for research involving the participation of human subjects are mostly limited to their participation in interviews and surveys. General guidelines are:

• As the main principle, authors need to minimise the risk of harm to the participants in the study. Participants should not be put in a position of discomfort or harmed in any possible way. In rare cases where the possibility of harm can present during the research study, it must be disclosed, thoroughly discussed and accepted by the participants and the Ethical body of the author's institution. For most research, that risk is eliminated by following the guidelines below.
• Authors need to obtain informed consent from the research participants, ensuring that research participants understand and accept their participation in research and what they are expected to do participating in the study. In most cases, sharing the information in an interview or a survey is covered by informing and explaining to the participants research goals, data gathering methods, and ensuring that there will be no coercion or deception in the process.
• Authors need to protect the anonymity and confidentiality of their research participants. This is particularly important if the research study collects data of private or sensitive nature to the participants. Researchers need to follow GDPR guidelines ( https://gdpr-info.eu/) regarding the processing of personal data. Researchers must take care that a combination of data which separately cannot identify participants, in combination with other given information (vernacular, industry, specific terms, information about the company) can be abused to identify specific participants. That is especially important if the research occurs in small organisations or with specific, identifiable groups of employees, like top-tier managers or expert staff. For example, suppose the organisation is unique, the country of research is provided and the organisation can be identified by the award given to it (mentioned in the research article), and further that it is evident that the interviewed person is in charge of the finance. In that case, readers can identify the person working at that time as the organisation's CFO even without having any other personal data, and this anonymity and confidentiality of the participant is breached.
• Authors must avoid deceptive practices in most circumstances, unless the covert research is necessary and approved by the related authorities. In most cases, participants must be told the whole truth and nothing but the truth during the research. In some specific cases, participants would not give the true answers, like when researching xenophobia or specific organisational behaviour/culture. Researchers in such instances may not disclose immediately to the participants what their survey questions are about e.g. measuring xenophobia - because then participants would tend to give false or socially acceptable answers. Also, employees may behave differently if being watched, so the researcher may be covered as a part of the working group or external expert/participant, as in the fourth stage of the famous Hawthorne experiment. However, consent from the authorities in the organisation where the research takes place needs to be obtained, Ethical board from the research institution must approve the method, and participants need to be informed of the truth after the research. For more guidance, authors can consult the article: "Spicker, P. (2011). Ethical covert research. Sociology, 45(1), 118-133."
• Authors must provide the participants the right to withdraw during the research. While participants may consent, they may also withdraw from the research study without coercion, pressure or manipulation from the researchers. They should not be held obliged to continue by the invested work, research results or previously given consent.

Ethical behaviour and responsibility of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Based on the reviewers` subject knowledge, fair judgment, and objective assessment reviewer should decide on the manuscript. That decision is essential and major contribution to the final editorial decision about the manuscript.

 Confidentiality

The review process of the submitted manuscript should be confidential. Reviewers must not give any information about the review process or share and discuss the submitted manuscript or any other details/materials. All information about the submitted manuscript reviewers must keep confidential.

 Objectivity

Reviewers should have proper expertise, competence and knowledge of the research field to assess the manuscript. The review process of the submitted manuscript should be objective, constructive, clear and assessed in a timely manner. Reviewers should suggest a decision and support it with relevant arguments.

 Conflict of interest

Reviewers should declare if there is financial, collaboration, competition or any other conflict of interest. If the reviewer discloses any conflict of interest, another reviewer will be selected. 

 

Ethical behaviour and responsibility of Editors

 Fair decision

Editorial Board members, and especially Executive editors who perform the operative tasks have the responsibility and authority to accept, reject or send the submitted manuscripts to review. Editors may reject the manuscript without a review process if the manuscript is poor quality or unsuitable for the journal. Editors make a decision on which submitted manuscript will be published. The decision should be fair, objective and appropriate, without any bias from race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, affiliation or political philosophy. To make the right decision, editors are guided by the journal aims and scope, editorial board directions, reviewer feedback and their independent judgement stemming from their expertise in the field. Editors ensure an appropriate and unbiased peer review process. Also, editors would evaluate the manuscript for academic, scientific and intellectual contents independent from any other issues and make a fair decision.

Current Editorial Board members may submit the article to the Management: Journal of Sustainable Business and Management Solutions in Emerging Economies in exceptional cases which require top-tier quality article in our aims and scope, with a strong impression that it will be interesting to our readership and improve the journal’s citation. Executive editors are strongly discouraged from publishing the article in the journal they edit, unless the expected contribution to the journal, confirmed by other Editorial Board members, is considerably above the average. Editors will then invest additional efforts to ensure the double-blind review process is completely transparent, rigorous, and non-biased. If the review process finishes in favour of paper acceptance,  publication may be accompanied by a statement on the transparency of the review process conducted. These limitations do not apply for the articles in process, submitted before the editors were appointed.

 Confidentiality

Editors have an obligation to keep confidential specific identity of authors and reviewers and all other confidential material.

 Conflicts of interests

Editors must disclose any potential conflict of interest. If there is any conflict of interest, editors should not be peer reviewers or be involved in some editors` assignments.

Allegations of research misconduct

The journal editors will actively engage to prevent research misconduct. If journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct, the publisher or editor shall deal with allegations by detailed analysis of the allegation and the article, and the will follow COPE and Elsevier guidelines for retracting or correcting articles when needed. Publishers and editors are open to publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Ethical behaviour and responsibility of the Publisher

Publisher is obliged to safeguard editorial independence from external influences, support the editors by solving the technical and procedural issues, and give legal support when necessary. Also, the publisher is in charge of educating all the stakeholders on publishing ethics.

Publisher is obliged to keep the meticulously created scholarly record in electronic and paper form and provide the means to keep the editorial process steps history for each article in the pipeline. Finally, the publisher is obliged to follow the industry's best practice and adapt to the changes regarding the process.

In order to ensure publishing new and independent research papers and prevent malpractice, publisher may provide extensive education and advice on publishing ethics standards.