Business Studies Publication Ethics & Publication Malpractice Statement

Ethical standards include codes and principles of behavior.

The journal Business Studies adheres to ethical standards for scientific publications adopted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

We encourage the best standards of publication ethics and take all possible measures against publication malpractices. The University of Business Studies as a publisher, takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities.

Duties and responsibilities of editors

In addition to many general duties, such as constantly improving the quality and integrity of the journal, striving to needs of authors and readers, encouraging academic debate, and others, the editors accept obligation to apply best will and practice to cope with the following responsibilities:

Editorial Board

Editorial board will be generated from recognized experts in the field. The editor will provide full names and affiliations of the members as well as updated contact information for the editorial office on the journal webpage.

Publication decisions

The editor should be responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. Editors have a responsibility to protect the anonymity of reviewers and/or authors as per the highest academic standards.

Peer review process

All of a journal’s content is subjected to peer-review. Papers submitted for possible publication are subjected to a double-blind, external and internal peer review process. Reviewers must point to potential malpractice. Papers are first reviewed by editors. The editor may reject it out of hand either because it is not dealing with the subject matter for that journal or because it is manifestly of a low quality so that it cannot be considered at all. Reviewers must have higher or the same academic qualification in relation to the author. Reviewers must not be from the same institution as the author. Given that each paper has two reviewers, they are not known to each other. One of reviewers must be external. Before making a final decision on a paper, reviewers can indicate changes and improvements before publication. If the reviews do not agree, the editorial board decides on the classification of paper according to the reviewer with a higher academic title. If the reviewers are of the same title, the decision is made in favour of the author. In order to improve the quality of the journal, the editor and members of the editorial board may request improvement of the paper until the moment of publication.

Editors should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described process. Editors should not reverse decisions on publication unless serious problems are identified.

Editors should publish guidance for  authors and reviewers on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated and will refer or link this code.

Fair play

Editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Editors´ decision to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper´s importance, originality and clarity, and the study´s relevance to the aim of journal.

Digital Archiving

The editor will ensure digital preservation of access to the journal content by The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina and The National and University Library of The Republic of Srpska. The journal is published annually and is registered in the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) database.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. He/she who determines the unethical behavior of the editor should provide sufficient information and evidence to the publisher in order to initiate the investigation. All allegations need to be taken seriously and treated.

Responsibility of the author

The first author confirms that the paper is a work of authorship in a written statement. Authors must certify that their paper has not been previously published in any other publication. Authors must certify that their work is not considered for publication elsewhere. The authors are obliged to list all the sources they used in writing the paper. The journal does not charge for the publication of papers, reading or downloading.

Authors warrant that the rights of third parties will not be violated, and that the publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation. Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions, the validity of the experimental results and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the data public. Authors wishing to include figures or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors. Authors must make sure that all only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to the journal Business Studies are written with ethical standards in mind and that they not contain plagiarism. Authors affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of others. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal Editor or publisher and cooperate with the Editor to retract or correct the paper.

Open access

In accordance with the definition of open access, access to the entire content is free. The users of the journal can read, store, copy, distribute, print and search the papers in a full form  without seeking permission from the publisher or author.