Journal policy

REVIEWERS RESPONSIBILITIES

Reviewers shall deliver a well-argumented and unbiased evaluation of the scientific value of the manuscript to the editor by a given deadline. The reviewers shall assess the manuscript to confirm as to whether it complies with the profile of the journal, the validity of the topic investigated and the applied methods, the originality of the information and data presented in the manuscript, as well as that it is appropriately presented in a readable academic style. Reviewers must notify the editor of any violations of ethical standards by the authors or any knowledge thereof. Reviewers are to note any published works that have not been cited by the authors that may prove relevant to the work. Reviewers are to notify the editor to the substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any other considered, published or reviewed for publication by any other journal. Reviewers must also alert the editor if the same manuscript is submitted to several journals at the same time.

Reviewers must not be in a conflict of interest with either the authors or the sources of funding for the manuscript under review. If the reviewer is in such conflict, it must be reported to the editor immediately in order for another reviewer to be assigned.

Any reviewers who deems themselves to be incapable of carrying out their reviewing duties are to notify the editor in order for another reviewer to be assigned.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Any personal criticism of the author is deemed inappropriate. The reviewers must express their views clearly accompanied by supporting arguments.
Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents. The reviewers must not use any unpublished material from the submitted manuscripts without the explicit written consent of their authors and the information and ideas presented in the submitted therein must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

REVIEW PROCESS

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a review process. The purpose of the review is to assist the editor in deciding whether a manuscript is accepted or not as well as to improve the quality of the manuscripts through correspondence with their authors.

All reviews are to remain anonymous. The articles are typically reviewed by two external and independent reviewers.

The reviewer must finish their review within ten days from the date the manuscript has been received. If unable to do so within the given time, the reviewer must notify the editor-in-chief immediately.

All reviews are to be done free of charge.

The choice of reviewers is at the editor’s discretion. The reviewers must have a respective academic background for the subject of the manuscript being reviewed. Reviewers are not allowed to originate from the same institution as the author of the manuscript under review nor may the reviewers have had any recent joint publications with any of the authors of the manuscript. During the review process, the editor may request the author provide supplementary material (including raw data) as to make a judgment on the scientific contribution and merit of the manuscript. The editor and reviewer shall also keep such information as confidential and shall not use it for personal gain.

The editorial board shall be the party responsible for the review and all aspects thereof. Should the authors have any objections to a review, the editorial board shall check whether the review is objective and whether it meets the academic standards required. Should there be any question concerning the objectivity or quality of the review, the editor is required to the seek opinions of other reviewers.

This journal uses double-blind review.

The average number of weeks between submission and publication is 7 weeks.

REPORTING STANDARDS

A manuscript should contain sufficient details and references to enable reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented therein. Intentional presentation of false claims represents a violation of ethical standards. Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submitted manuscripts. Where necessary, authors must have obtained permission from all the persons or institutions directly involved in the research of submitted manuscripts for publication. Authors wishing to include illustrations, tables or other materials in their articles that have been already published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the primary copyright holders. Any material received without such evidence provided will be assumed to originate from the authors themselves.

AUTHORSHIP

Authors are required to list only the persons who have significantly contributed to the content of the manuscript as authors, i.e. they shall list all individuals who have significantly contributed to the content of the manuscript as authors. If persons other than the authors were involved in significant aspects of the research project and drafting the manuscript, their contribution should be mentioned in a footnote or the acknowledgement section.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SOURCES

Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced the content of their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties while reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials must not be used without explicit written consent of the source.

SPONSORSHIP DISCLOSURE

It is mandatory for the author(s) to identify whether any of their own research has been sponsored or has received financial support of any kind for their submitted papers to the Journal. Sponsored content must be clearly identified to readers as sponsored. Supporting and sponsoring agencies must be clearly stated in a separate sponsorship declaration listed at the end of the paper, prior to bibliography.

COMPETING INTERESTS

Authors should disclose in their manuscripts any financial or any other conflicts of interest that might have influenced the results presented or their interpretations thereof.

What Represents a Competing Interest?
A competing interest is anything that interferes with or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making and/or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to JEBR.

Competing interests can be financial or non-financial, professional or personal. Competing interests can arise in relation to an organisation or another person.

Declaring all potential competing interests is a requirement at JEBR and is integral to the transparent reporting of research.

Failure to declare competing interests can result in immediate rejection of a manuscript. If an undisclosed competing interest comes to light after publication, JEBR will take action following COPE guidelines and issue a public notification to the community.

Financial competing interests
Financial competing interests include but are not limited to:

  • Ownership of stocks or shares
  • Paid employment or consultancy
  • Board membership
  • Patent applications (pending or actual) including individual applications or those belonging to the institution to which the authors are affiliated and from which the authors may benefit
  • Research grants (from any source, restricted or unrestricted)
  • Travel grants and honoraria for speaking or participation at meetings
  • Gifts
  • Non-financial competing interests

Non-financial competing interests include but are not limited to:

  • Acting as an expert witness
  • Membership in a government or other advisory board
  • Relationship (paid or unpaid) with organisations and funding bodies including nongovernmental organisations, research institutions, or charities
  • Membership of lobbying or advocacy organisations
  • Writing or consulting for an educational company
  • Personal relationships (i.e. friend, spouse, family member, current or previous mentor, adversary) with individuals involved in the submission or evaluation of a paper, such as authors, reviewers, editors, or members of the editorial board of a JEBR journal
  • Personal convictions (political, religious, ideological, or other) related to a paper's topic that might interfere with an unbiased publication process (at the stage of authorship, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication

Note: competing interests statement quoted from PLOS.

ERRORS IN PUBLISHED ARTICLES

Should an author find an error in their published article, the author(s) are required to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher to retract or correct the article.

PLAGIARISM

Authors who submit their manuscripts to be considered for publication in JEBR must not claim nor submit the academic work of another as one’s own.

Plagiarism is defined as copying another’s text or ideas and passing the copied material as your work. In other words, plagiarism is fraudulently claiming another’s work as one own for self-benefit. The Journal has a zero-tolerance policy against plagiarism and any potential plagiarism within the works submitted will disqualify them from publication.

For all work published within the Journal, any and all text taken from other work in the literature must be cited within the work itself as its own and references provided.

This definition of plagiarism applies for copied text and ideas:

  • regardless of the source of the copied text or idea;
  • regardless of whether the author(s) of the text or idea which you have copied actually copied that text or idea from another source;
  • regardless of whether or not the authorship of the text or idea which you copy is known;
  • regardless of the nature of your text (journal paper/article, webpage, book chapter, paper submitted for a college course, etc.) into which you copy the text or idea;
  • regardless of whether or not the author of the source of the copied material permits for the material to be copied; and
  • regardless of whether you are or are not the author of the source of the copied text or idea (self-plagiarism).

Quoted from “Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Avoid It”, Peter Cobbett, PhD, August 2016

Submitted manuscripts that fall under the definition of plagiarism will not be considered for publishing. JEBR is using similarity ("plagiarism") detection software iThenticate.

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PROCEDURES FOR DEALING WITH UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR

Any individual or institution may at any time inform the editor and/or editorial staff of any suspected unethical behaviour or any manuscript by providing the necessary evidence thereof.

In agreement with the editorial board, it shall be the decision of the editor-in-chief shall as to whether initiate an investigation procedure. Upon its undertaking, any evidence will be considered confidential and will only be presented to those persons directly involved in the procedure. The persons suspected to have violated any ethical standards will be given the opportunity to respond to any charges made against them. If it is established that any misconduct has occurred, they will be assessed as being either minor or major ethical violations.

Minor violations
Situations characterised as a minor violation will be dealt directly with the person(s) having committed the violation but shall exclude third parties. (For instance: by notifying the author/reviewer that a minor violation has occurred as a result of misunderstanding or misapplication of academic standards, a letter of warming to the author /reviewer who has committed the minor violation.)

Major violation of ethical standards
The editor-in-chief is to decide upon any major violations of ethical standards in concert with the editorial board. Should it prove necessary, an outside group of consultants may be included. The measures to be undertaken are the following which may be implemented separately or jointly:

  • the published announcement or editorial describing the violation of ethical standards;
  • a retraction of the published article following the procedure described under the Retraction Policy;
  • a ban on submissions from the authors for a period to be defined;
  • referring the case to a professional organisation or other authorities for further administrative or judicial action.

When dealing with unethical behaviour, the editorial board of the journal is to rely on the guidelines and recommendations provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics – COPE.

RETRACTION POLICY

Any violation of the rights of publishers, copyright holders or authors, of professional ethical codes, fraudulent claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data as well as all other cases of significant violation of ethical standards require the retraction of the published article.

When withdrawal or retraction is carried out to correct mistakes to already published articles that have been detected thereof, it is done so to preserve scientific integrity, not to punish the author.
Libraries and scientific bodies have developed standards to handle retractions, whose practices have also been adopted by The Journal of Entrepreneurship and Education The retracted article is to be kept in its original form, with a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that the article has been retracted (RETRACTED).

SELF-ARCHIVING

The journals allow authors to deposit the final paper in PDF format in an institutional repository and/or non-commercial subject-based repositories, or to publish them on their personal websites (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.) and/or on the website of the institution in which they are employed, one year following the publication in the journal. Thereby they must state the primary bibliographic data on the article published in the journal (authors, article title, journal title, year, volume, pagination).

 

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the editor and members of the editorial board. Authors assume their legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in their articles. The publisher will not be held responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

SUPPORT TO PERSONS WITH DISABILITY

Authors, librarians and readers with temporary or continuous disability are encouraged to contact us for assistance if they experience any technical difficulty while interacting with our journal. The assistance to persons with disability will be given free of charge.