Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The International Journal of Accounting, Business and Finance (IJABF) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and strictly follows the Core Practices outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

1. Duties of Editors

Publication Decisions: The Chief Editor is solely responsible for deciding which submitted manuscripts will be published based on scientific merit, objective relevance, and thematic fit.
Fair Play and Objectivity: Manuscripts are evaluated without regard to the author's race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
Confidentiality: The editorial team must protect the anonymity of reviewers and will not disclose manuscript details to anyone outside the active evaluation process.
Conflicts of Interest: Editors must recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have a competing personal, financial, or institutional interest.

2. Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Reviewers provide constructive, evidence-based, and objective feedback to help authors improve their work and assist editors in making final decisions.
Promptness and Timeliness: If a selected reviewer feels unqualified or cannot meet the specified deadline, they must immediately notify the editor and decline the review invitation.
Confidentiality: Every manuscript received for review is treated as a confidential document and must not be shared or discussed with third parties.
Ethical Vigilance: Reviewers should alert the editors if they suspect plagiarism, duplicate submission, data fabrication, or ethical concerns regarding human subjects.

3. Duties of Authors

Originality and Plagiarism: Authors must ensure that their work is entirely original. Proper citations must explicitly acknowledge any text, ideas, data, or media derived from prior publications.
Multiple or Concurrent Submissions: Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously is considered unethical scholarly conduct and is strictly prohibited.
Data Access and Retention: Authors may be requested to share their raw research datasets during the review process and should make them accessible in public repositories whenever feasible.
Authorship and Contributions: Only individuals who have made significant contributions to the conceptualization, execution, or interpretation of the study should be listed as co-authors. All co-authors must approve the final manuscript before submission.

4. Dealing with Academic Misconduct

Identification of Misconduct: The editorial board will take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers involving research misconduct, including data fabrication, plagiarism, and citation manipulation.
Handling Allegations: In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism, the publisher and editors will take all appropriate measures to investigate the allegations, clarify the situation, and amend the article in question where necessary. Such measures may include the prompt publication of an erratum or clarification or, in the most serious cases, the retraction of the affected work.

The IJABF strictly follows the COPE guidelines/policies on publishing ethics. Any complaints, appeals, or conflicts of interest/competing interests will be dealt with as per the latest COPE guidelines/policies. Please visit https://publicationethics.org/ for more details.

Indexing and Citation Transparency Policy:
The International Journal of Accounting, Business and Finance is committed to absolute transparency regarding its indexing status and citation metrics. We clearly separate journal quality ratings (such as the ABDC list) from indexing databases, digital repositories, and permanent archives. Any citation metrics displayed on our platform (including citations originating from Scopus-indexed literature) explicitly reflect external cross-references to IJABF articles and do not state or imply direct indexing in databases where the journal is not yet formally listed.