Publication Ethics Statement

Publication code of ethics

The editorial policy of Business & Management Compass, the University of Economics – Varna journal, complies with the international standards for publication ethics. As an editorial board, we believe it is of immense importance for us to conform to the widely accepted principles, norms and good practices for ethical behaviour in publishing that underpin the guidelines of:

Committee for publication ethics (COPE): http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines
Elsevier publishing house: Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK).

The code of ethics refers to all participants in the publication process: publishers, editors, authors and reviewers. The rules concern ethical issues like: objectivity of reviewers and equal treatment of all articles and authors, originality and plagiarism, confidentiality, fraudulent citation and data, possible conflict of interest.

Research Ethics

For non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys, questionnaires, social media research), all participants must be fully informed that anonymity is assured, the aim of the research that is being conducted, and that their responses will be used in aggregated state and if there are any risks associated.

 

Editors’ obligations

♦ Objectivity and equality
The editorial board assesses the submitted articles on the ground of their scientific merits irrespective of authors’ race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and political outlook.

♦ Confidentiality
The editorial board has no right to discuss the submitted materials with third party, except for the reviewers, publisher and authors.

♦ Decision for publishing
The editorial board makes the decision for publishing as suggested by the editor-in-chief. The editor-in-chief has in mind the reviewers’ opinions and complies with the Business & Management Compass editorial policy for protecting author’s rights and against all forms of plagiarism and fraud.

♦ Conflicts of interest
Reviewers should stay away from reviewing and immediately inform the editor-in-chief in cases of potential conflicts of interest based on acquaintance, financial commitment and various forms of cooperation with the author. The members of the editorial board and the reviewers should not take advantage of ideas and information in unpublished manuscripts without the authors’ agreement.

♦ Ethical irregularities and complaints
The editorial board will resort to immediate measures in all cases of received signals for unethical behavior such as plagiarism, incorrect citation, manipulation of data and results. The measures include contacts with the affected parties and institutions for discovering the truthfulness of the alleged ethical irregularities. As a consequence of this process the manuscript can be removed or, if already printed, the identified ethical irregularities can be published.

In the case of rejecting a manuscript the editorial board recommends authors to offer the article to another publishing house. The authors have the right to ask for a new review but only in the case of submitting convincing proofs of reviewers’ inaccuracies  to the editor-in-chief. In this case only it is possible for the manuscript  to have a new expert review, which will be final.

Reviewers’ obligations

♦ Contribution to editorial decisions
Reviewers’ precise work underpins the decisions of the editorial board for publishing. Besides, reviewers’ comments can improve the quality of the manuscripts. The Business & Management Compass  editorial board relies on all authors with published articles to contribute as future reviewers with their expertise.

♦Timeliness
Reviewers who do not feel competent enough in the scientific field of the manuscript offered or they are unable to submit their reviews within the required deadlines must inform immediately the editor-in-chief that they will not review.

♦ Confidentiality
Reviewers must comply with the principle of confidentiality and not discuss with a third party any information concerning the reviewed manuscript.

♦ Objectivity standards
Reviews must be impartial and based on the objective reality in the manuscript. Reviewers are expected to express their viewpoint clearly, with competence and enough arguments.

♦ Acknowledging sources
Reviewers must strictly observe citation and the use of data and sources. In case they identify considerable similarity between the reviewed manuscript and an article already published, they are required to inform the editor-in-chief.

♦ Declaring conflict of interest
Reviewers must stay away from reviewing when a conflict of interest arises based on professional, personal, financial or other commitments with the author. Reviewers should not take advantage of ideas and information in unpublished manuscripts without the authors’ agreement.

 

Authors’ obligations

♦ Compliance with standards, access to data and keeping it
Authors should develop their conclusions on objective data, correct calculations and scientific arguments. Reference to old surveys should be appropriate and correct. Authors should keep used data long enough and submit it on demand so that a reader may re-conduct the survey.

♦ Originality and plagiarism
Manuscripts submitted for publication must be original. If the author uses parts of his own or someone else’s works, he should use citation. Plagiarism in all forms is unacceptable.

♦ Multiple or simultaneous publication
It is unethical and unacceptable behavior to submit already published articles or submit a paper for reviewing to several journals.

♦ Acknowledging sources
It is necessary to quote correctly all sources used for writing the manuscript.

♦ Article authorship
Authors are identified as having an essential contribution to writing the articles. Everybody who has considerable contribution should be identified as coauthor. Coauthors must agree with the variant of the article submitted for publication.

♦ Declaring conflict of interest
Authors must declare conflict of interest that can influence the end results of the research.

♦ Fundamental errors in already published papers
Identifying considerable errors in already published papers makes the author obliged to cooperate with the editorial board in withdrawing the paper or publishing a revised version.

 

Publisher’s obligations

♦ The publisher guarantees that advertising, reprinting or other commercial activities do not have an impact on editorial decisions.
♦ The publisher cooperates for communicating with other journals and/or publishers if this improves publication activity.
♦ The publisher cooperates with other publishing houses and organizations in setting standards for publication ethics.