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Policies and Publishing Ethics

Policies and Publishing Ethics

Philosophy of Management Dynamics

Management Dynamics accepts empirical studies, perspectives, management and teaching cases, systematic literature reviews, and book reviews.

For more information, please see Management Dynamics Aims and Scope page.

Management Dynamics Journal requires all journal submissions to adhere to the highest of ethical standards and best practices in publishing. All writing and research submitted to Management Dynamics is expected to present accurate information and to properly cite all content referenced from other materials.

General Submission Rules

Submitted articles should not have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). Please note: "publication" in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. In addition, by submitting material to Management Dynamics, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at Management Dynamics.

Publishing Ethics

Editorial Policies

The Journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and endorses the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals as well as the GPP3 guidelines regarding authorship.

Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies.

Management Dynamics is committed to respecting high standards of ethics in the editorial and reviewing process and outlines the best practice, guidelines, and principles, which aim to achieve high standards in publishing.

Affiliations

You and your co-authors must list all relevant affiliations to attribute where the research or scholarly work was approved and/or supported and/or conducted.

  • For non-research articles, you must list your current institutional affiliation.
  • If you moved to a different institution before the article has been published, you should list the affiliation where the work was conducted and include a note to state your current affiliation.
  • If you do not have a current relevant institutional affiliation, you should state your independent status.

    • Journal policies on Authorship and Contributorship

    Authorship

    Listing authors’ names on an article is an important mechanism to give credit to those who have significantly contributed to the work. It also ensures transparency for those who are responsible for the integrity of the content.

    Authors listed in an article must meet all of the following criteria:

    1. Made a significant contribution to the work reported, whether that’s in the conception, study design, execution, acquisition of data, analysis, and interpretation, or in all these areas.
    2. Have drafted or written, substantially revised, or critically reviewed the article.
    3. Have agreed on the journal to which the article will be submitted.
    4. Reviewed and agreed on all versions of the article before submission, during revision, the final version accepted for publication, and any significant changes introduced at the proofing stage.
    5. Agree to take responsibility and be accountable for the contents of the article and to share the responsibility to resolve any questions raised about the accuracy or integrity of the published work.

    Any changes in authorship before or after publication must be agreed upon by all authors, including those being added or removed. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain confirmation from all co-authors and to provide a full explanation about why the change was necessary. If a change in authorship is necessary after the publication of the article, this will be amended via a post-publication notice. Any changes in authorship must comply with our criteria for authorship, and requests for significant changes to the authorship list after the article has been accepted may be rejected if clear reasons and evidence of author contributions cannot be provided.

    Authorship Criteria

    Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the three components mentioned below:

    1. Concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data;
    2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
    3. Final approval of the version to be published.

    Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without the written consent of all the contributors. The journal prescribes a maximum number of authors for manuscripts depending upon the type of manuscript, its scope, and the number of institutions involved (vide infra). The authors should provide a justification if the number of authors exceeds these limits.

    Contribution Details

    Contributors should provide a description of contributions made by each of them toward the manuscript. The description should be divided into the following categories, as applicable: concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, and manuscript review. The authors' contributions will be printed along with the article. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole from inception to published article and should be designated as 'guarantors'.

    Appeals and complaints

    The journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal’s editorial management of the peer review process.

    We welcome genuine appeals to editor decisions. However, you will need to provide strong evidence or new data/information in response to the editor’s and reviewers’ comments. This is important given a majority of the journal scholarly articles are reviews and original research, reliant on accurate scientific data. For scholarly articles of an opinion nature, an appeal is less likely to overturn an editor's decision. These can include viewpoints and opinion pieces where editorial judgment about readability and relevance weighs most heavily. In any case, all opinion-led articles should be evidence-based and fully referenced. For opinion-led articles, you should always present your evidence and explain how it led you to form your opinion.

    Editors don’t expect frequent appeals and they rarely reverse their original decisions. Therefore, if you receive a decision to reject your manuscript, you are strongly advised to submit it to another journal. The decision to reject a manuscript for publication will often involve the editor’s judgment of priority/ importance. These are things that authors usually cannot address through an appeal. However, if you believe that there is a case to be made for a genuine appeal please follow the instructions below.

    Journal policies on conflicts of interest / competing interests

    The author(s) and co-author(s) must declare any competing interests relevant to, or which can be perceived to be relevant to the article.

  • A competing interest can occur where you (or your employer, sponsor or family/friends) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them which could influence the research or interpretation of the results.
  • Competing interests can be financial or non-financial in nature. To ensure transparency, you must also declare any associations which can be perceived by others as a competing interest.

    • Examples of financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):

  • Employment or voluntary involvement
  • Collaborations with advocacy groups relating to the content of the article
  • Grants from an entity paid to the author or organization
  • Personal fees received by the author/s as honoraria, royalties, consulting fees, lecture fees, testimonies, etc.
  • Patents held or pending by the authors, their institutions or funding organizations, or licensed to an entity whether earning royalties or not
  • Royalties being received by the authors or their institutions
  • Stock or share ownership
  • Benefits related to the development of products as an outcome of the work

    • Examples of non-financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):

  • Receipt of drugs, equipment, or access to data by an entity that might benefit or be at an advantage financially or reputationaly from the published findings.
  • Holding a position on the boards of industry bodies or private companies that might benefit or be at an advantage financially or reputationaly from the published findings.
  • Writing assistance or administrative support from a person or organization that might benefit or be at an advantage from the published findings.
  • Personal, political, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual competing interests are perceived to be relevant to the published content.
  • Involvement in legal action related to the work.

    • All authors of a manuscript submitted to the journal will be required to complete a competing interest declaration which will be listed in the Disclosure section at the end of the article. If an author is in doubt over whether they need to disclose a competing interest, they should consult with their institution or the journal Editor, who can guide them on the right course of action.

    If there are no competing interests to declare, the following statement will be added to the article “The authors declare that they have no competing interests.”

    Sponsorship of clinical trials

    Authors employed by pharmaceutical companies or other organizations which sponsor clinical trials must declare this as a competing interest.

    Authors should adhere to the Good Publication Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies (GPP3), which guides to ensure responsible and ethical standards are maintained.

    Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. Potential conflicts of interest must be declared – whether or not they actually had an influence – to allow informed decisions. In most cases, this declaration will not stop work from being published nor will it always prevent someone from being involved in a review process.

    If unsure, declare a potential interest or discuss it with the editorial office. Undeclared interests may incur sanctions. Submissions with undeclared conflicts that are later revealed may be rejected. Published articles may need to be re-assessed, have a corrigendum published, or in serious cases be retracted.

    Conflicts include:

    Financial – funding and other payments, goods, and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work

    Affiliations – being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work

    Intellectual property – patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization

    Personal – friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections

    Academic – competitors or someone whose work is critiqued


    Journal’s policy on ethical oversight

    Management Dynamics Journal is committed to ensuring that all research published in the journal adheres to the highest standards of ethical conduct. The journal follows the guidelines and principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expects all authors, reviewers, and editors to comply with these standards. In case of any ethical oversight, the journal editorial board informs author(s) to clarify their stand. If substantial proof of unethical publishing is found, the paper is retracted.

    Duties of Editors

    1. Publication Decisions - The editorial board of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. Members of the board confer and refer to reviewer recommendations in making this decision, constrained by legal requirements related to libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. Editorial decisions are not affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors..
    2. Confidentiality, disclosure, and conflicts of interest - During the review process, editors must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's, reviewers’, or any other reader’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Readers should be informed about who has funded the research or other scholarly work and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication and, if so, what this was.
    3. Author relations - Editors strive to ensure that peer review at the journal is fair, unbiased, and timely. The journal has established policies for handling submissions from editorial board members to ensure unbiased review. Author instructions provide guidance about the criteria for authorship.
    4. Reviewer relations - The Journal encourages reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, and inappropriate data manipulation), and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism. Reviewers’ comments should be sent to authors in their entirety unless they contain offensive or libelous remarks. Contributions of reviewers to the journal are regularly acknowledged and cease to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality, or late reviews.
    5. Quality assurance – Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognizing that different sections have different aims and standards. Editors should seek assurances that the research they publish has been approved by an appropriate body (e.g. research ethics committee, institutional review board) where one exists. Editors should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with their publishers to handle potential breaches of laws and conventions. Errors, inaccurate, or misleading statements must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.

    Duties of Reviewers

    1. Contribution to editorial decisions - Reviewers assist the editorial board in making editorial decisions. Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.
    2. Qualification of reviewers - Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
    3. Confidentiality - Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
    4. Acknowledgment of sources - Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. References to the ideas of others should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

    Duties of Authors

    1. Reporting standards - Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. Authors should be prepared to provide public access to raw data in connection with a paper and retain such data for at least two years after publication. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable
    2. Originality, plagiarism, and concurrent publication - Authors should ensure their work is entirely original and that any work and/or words of others have been appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Submitting essentially the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
    3. Disclosure and conflicts of interest - All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
    4. Authorship of the paper - The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.
    5. Fundamental errors in published works - When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and work with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

    Peer Review Process

    All manuscripts are subjected to peer review and are expected to meet the standards of academic excellence. If approved by the editor, submissions will be considered by peer reviewers, whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors and vice versa, identities of authors will remain anonymous to the reviewers (Double-blind peer review). The decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript is the responsibility of the editorial board and is based on the recommendations of the reviewers (peer-reviewed process).

    Our Research Integrity team will occasionally seek advice outside standard peer review, for example, on submissions with serious ethical, security, biosecurity, or societal implications. We may consult experts and the academic editor before deciding on appropriate actions, including but not limited to recruiting reviewers with specific expertise, assessment by additional editors, and declining to further consider a submission.

    Desk rejection policy

    1. The topic / scope of the study is not relevant to the field of the Journal.
    2. There are publication ethics problems, non-adherence to international standard guidelines, and plagiarism (set at a similarity index of higher than 30 percent).
    3. The topic does not have a sufficient impact, nor does it sufficiently contribute new knowledge to the field.
    4. There are flaws in the study design.
    5. The objective of the study is not clearly stated.
    6. The study of the organization is problematic and/or certain components are missing.
    7. There are problems in writing or series infelicities of in the style of grammar.
    8. The manuscript does not follow the submission guideline of the Journal.

    Data falsification/fabrication

    Where deliberate action has been taken to inappropriately manipulate or fabricate data. This is considered a serious form of misconduct and is designed to mislead others and damage the integrity of the scholarly record with wide-reaching and long-term consequences.

    When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure all data contained within their manuscript is accurate and correctly represents their work. To help assist the journal with manuscript evaluation, authors are expected to retain all raw data represented in their manuscripts. If the original data cannot be produced on request, acceptance of a manuscript or published paper may be declined or retracted.

    Duplicate submission/publication

    Authors are required to declare upon submission that the manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere, and as such the detection of a duplicate submission or publication is typically considered to be a deliberate act. This includes articles previously published in another language. For acceptable forms of secondary submissions or publications (e.g. an article translated into English), in accordance with ICMJE guidance, authors must seek permission from the publisher and copyright holder of the original article and must inform the Editor of the receiving journal about the history of the original article. It must also be made clear to readers that the article is a translated version, with a citation provided to the original article.

    As a general rule, authors should refrain from submitting previously published papers to another journal for consideration.

    Images and figures

    The author(s) should only use images and figures in your article if they are relevant and valuable to the work reported. Please refrain from adding content of this type which is purely illustrative and does not add value to the scholarly work. As a warranty in the Journal Author Publishing Agreement, you make with us, you must obtain the necessary written permission to include material in your article that is owned and held in copyright by a third party, including – but not limited to – any proprietary text, illustration, table, or other material, including data, audio, video, film stills, screenshots, musical notation, and any supplemental material.

    Journal’s policy on intellectual property

    The Management Dynamics journal requires that all submissions must be original work of the author(s) and that it does not infringe on any intellectual property rights of others. The journal follows a strict policy on intellectual property and plagiarism.

    Plagiarism

    The journal has a strict policy against plagiarism, where the journal does not tolerate using others’ ideas, words, or work without acknowledgment. Submissions containing plagiarism in whole or part, duplicate and redundant publication, or self-plagiarism (same or a different language), will be rejected. The Preprint archive will not be considered a duplicate publication. The corresponding author is responsible for the manuscript through and after the evaluation and publication process with the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors. All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using professional plagiarism-checking software. Submitted manuscripts with an unacceptable similarity index resulting from plagiarism are rejected immediately.

    Journal’s options for post-publication discussions and corrections

    Management Dynamics journal provides options for post-publication discussions and corrections to ensure the accuracy and integrity of published articles. The journal welcomes comments, criticisms, and suggestions from readers, which are published alongside the original article. These comments are reviewed by the editorial board and may be forwarded to the original authors for their response.

    In the case of any errors, retractions, or corrections to published articles, the journal follows the guidelines and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Corrections and retractions are published with the article, and the original article is updated to reflect the changes.

    Authors are also encouraged to notify the journal of any errors or corrections that need to be made to their published articles. The editorial board will investigate the issue and work with the author to make any necessary changes to the article.

    Funding

    The journal requires that authors declare all the sources of funding including financial support in their manuscript. The authors should describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in any of the stages from study design to submission of the manuscript for publication. They should also state if the sponsor(s) had no such involvement. Please ensure that this information is accurate and in accordance with your funder’s requirements.

    Advertising

    The journal does not accept advertisements from third parties.

    References

    1. COPE Codes of Conduct
    2. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines on Editors in Chief sharing