PUBLICATION ETHICS

"International Entrepreneurship Review" is a double peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Krakow University of Economics (Centre for Strategic and International Entrepreneurship, 27 Rakowicka Street, 31-510 Krakow, Poland, contact e-mail: ier@uek.krakow.pl). In our journal, we are committed to ensuring high ethical standards in the context of publishing scientific results, paying attention, first and foremost, to the quality of articles submitted to the Editorial Board. Our ethical principles are following COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), so our ethical standards that we expect from all stakeholders are as follows:

Authorship & Contributorship

International Entrepreneurship Review has implemented policies against dishonesty and unethical publishing practice and follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) recommendations (http://publicationethics.org).

In particular, this includes protection against ghostwriting (an author is not included in the list of authors nor mentioned in acknowledgements), guest authorship (the impact of an author is meaningless or none) and plagiarism.

By submitting the manuscript Authors are obliged to declare that their work is original, written by the stated authors, has not been published before and contains neither unlawful statements nor infringes the rights of third parties. The Authors are also responsible for providing any necessary written permissions to quote any materials that have been published before in other sources. Individual contribution of every author must be described in the manuscript section “Author contributions”.

The author's statement including the copyright notice as well as the statement on ethics and good practice in science (including financial disclosure, ghostwriting firewall, guest authorship firewall, contribution share for co-authored papers) must be submitted alongside the manuscript according to the form provided (see the attachment – author’s statement) as well as to be mentioned on the article title page (see the attachment – article template).

The journal does not charge any fees for the Article Processing Charges (APCs). No submission charges are levied. The author(s) shall submit, together with the text of the scientific article, an application for its publication free of charge and a declaration, which template is available on the journal's website. The author is obliged to send to the Editorial Office (fax, scanned document, traditional mail) a declaration of consent for free publication of the article in paper and electronic form (PDF) and index the abstract of the article in national and international databases with which the Editorial Office cooperates.

The articles must be up to 50 000 characters (including spaces as well as all necessary tables, figures, graphs and illustrations, the list of used references and any appendixes if needed). Articles not exceeding 50 000 characters are published free of charge, otherwise the article processing fee (APC) will be applied.

We remind that all submitted manuscripts should not exceed the recommended size in accordance with established rules up to 50 000 characters with spaces (i.e. including tables, figures, references, author’s box at the end of the article, etc.). Each Table and each Figure must be recalculated to characters based on its space.

Krakow University of Economics subsidises all articles in IER, as we do not sale the copyrights to the databases, so we have no profits at all. The average real costs of the articles are high and they include linguistic copyediting (65% of total costs), proofreading, DTP (setting), printing, postal costs. Additionally we have fixed costs for maintaining the website and database, human resources costs. We are still trying not to charge any fees from the Authors, but we kindly ask you to respect the maximum length of the submitted articles.

Although no article submission or article processing fees are charged for preferred length of articles, nevertheless the fee for each additional up to 1800 characters (exceeding the first 50 000 characters) is 20 EUR + 23% VAT which is 24.60 EUR (or 105 PLN).

The fee for additional pages should be paid to after the acceptance of the article after issuing a pro-forma invoice:

in EUR:

PL 19 2490 0005 0000 4600 4637 5105
(with the annotation: IER + your full name)
SWIFT: ALBPPLPW

in PLN:

09 2490 0005 0000 4530 8510 4422
(z adnotacją IER + imię i nazwisko).

Bank details:

Alior Bank Spółka Akcyjna
ul. Łopuszańska 38D
02-232 Warszawa
SWIFT: ALBPPLPW

Name of the Recipient:
Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Krakowie /Krakow University of Economics/
Address of the Recipient:
ul. Rakowicka 27
31-510 Kraków
Poland

Scientific articles submitted to the Editor must be prepared in English. Articles prepared in other language versions are not accepted. In addition, the article must have the required structure specified in the requirements posted on the journal's website. On the other hand, the bibliography should be prepared following the APA standard

In the article, authors should ensure all sources are appropriately cited and their authenticity verified.

Anti-Plagiarism Policy

International Entrepreneurship Review has implemented the Crossref Similarity Check anti-plagiarism system with the iThenticate tool for researchers and professional writers to check their original works for potential plagiarism. Please see more: http://www.ithenticate.com/about.

Crossref Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process that is performed independently by external Reviewers. The Journal considers the inclusion of plagiarised content to be misconduct by the Authors.

Complaints & Appeals

Where an author, reviewer, reader, or other person has a complaint against the journal or Editors, they should speak directly to the publisher in the first instance. Wherever possible, the complaint will be dealt with by the relevant publishing or Editorial person. Where a resolution is not satisfactory it will be passed to a more senior person for resolution.

If an author considers that a decision of a manuscript rejection was incorrectly made, they may appeal the decision. To appeal a decision the author must send an e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief or the publisher, giving reasons why they think the decision was wrong. The appeal will be considered by a member of the Editorial Board who was not involved in the original decision (nominated jointly by the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher). There is only one chance to appeal, so it is very important that Authors clearly explain the justification for making an appeal.

Conflict of Interest

A Conflict of Interest (COI) is defined as a situation where personal relationships (e.g. friend, colleague or family), business relationships (e.g. working in a competing company), or financial influences (e.g. funding) will affect the judgement of any person during the publication of the journal. Any conflict of interest between Authors, founding bodies or Reviewers is documented and will be disclosed. Authors provide statement of no conflict of interest or describe any issues that can be considered as such in the manuscript section “Conflict of interest”. Funding source must be disclosed in the manuscript section “Funding”. By commencing reviews, Reviewers are obliged to communicate any conflict of interest with a body founding research or Authors, if anticipated from the manuscript text. In case of any doubts, the relevant explanation must be provided and then the Editor will make appropriate decision if the Reviewer is eligible to perform the requested review.

Data Sharing

Our policy is clear in that we encourage and support Authors who want to store, share, discover and reuse data. We believe that data sharing enables others to reuse the results of experiments and supports the creation of new science, fosters transparency and reproducibility, and builds trust in science.

Although much research data is disseminated as part of journal articles, a number of other data, such as for example: raw data, processed data, software and algorithms, is not made available through article publication. Our policy concerns research data that often underlies, but exists outside of research articles.

We encourage all Authors to make their data available in scientific data repositories, such as for instance Harvard Dataverse, Open Science Framework, figshare or Science Data Bank, where the item will be safely archived and given a unique reference number, so that it can be cited in the Authors’ articles.

Peer Review

Manuscript can be accepted for publication when it follows the aim and scope of International Entrepreneurship Review, presents novelty and is of scientific importance. The Editor seeks to ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process. Two positive reviews are required for publication of the manuscript in International Entrepreneurship Review. In case of any doubt, inconclusive or not fully justified review, the Editor may select additional reviewer for consultation.

Each submitted manuscript is pre-evaluated by the Editors. If it is considered for publication in International Entrepreneurship Review, the manuscript is assigned to one of the Associate Editors or Editor-in-Chief who sent it to at least two independent Reviewers in a double-blind mode ensuring the names of Authors and Reviewers are not known to each other. Reviewers are selected among experts in the given scientific field and the selection is exclusively based on International Entrepreneurship Review Editor’s decision. At least one reviewer is from country other than Author's affiliation country. The Reviewers provide their written opinion that must be convincing and justify final conclusion on the acceptance/rejection of the manuscript or the need for manuscript revision. Questions for Reviewers’ consideration while providing an opinion on the manuscript is available at the journal home page. Simultaneously, the manuscript is screened using the Crossref Similarity Check for potential elimination of plagiarism. Based on the review and the Crossref Similarity Check outcome, the Associate Editor alone or in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief, Statistical Editor or Editorial Board member makes decision on the manuscript revision and communicate it to the corresponding author. The Authors can revise their manuscript according to the Reviewers’ and Editors’ comments and send it again to the Associate Editor with accompanying letter listing answers to the comments. The revised manuscript may be sent to Reviewers once again upon the Editor’s decision. The final decision on manuscript acceptance/rejection is taken by the Editor-in-Chief who can also request additional revision or explanations from the Authors.

Editorial Independence

The Editors have a right to select which articles to consider for publication and which to accept and/or reject without influence from the publisher or other external bodies. In making this decision the Editor is guided by policies of the journal's Editorial board and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding e.g. copyright infringement and plagiarism. Articles that have been published shall remain unaltered. However, in exceptional circumstances, an already published article must be retracted or even removed. In all cases, such actions must not be undertaken lightly and the Journal’s official archives will retain all article versions, including retracted or otherwise removed articles.

Corrections & Retractions

In case of suspicion of dishonesty or unethical publishing practice revealed at any stage of publication process or after article is disseminated, International Entrepreneurship Review will commence action to obtain satisfying explanations according to the COPE guidelines. Identified misconduct or unresolved cases may lead to manuscript rejection or article retraction, and disclosure of the case, including notification of the Author’s institution.

If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the issues: (i) a correction or Addendum may be issued; (ii) an Editor’s Note may be issued; (iii) the article may be retracted.

Authors and readers are encouraged to inform the publisher and Editor-in-Chief if they notice anything that should be corrected. Reported errors will be investigated by the publisher and Editor-in-Chief, and discussed with the Authors. The appropriate correction will be made after this consultation.

An Author Correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the author(s) that affects the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the Authors or the journal. A Publisher Correction may be published to correct an important error(s) made by the journal that affects the scientific integrity of the published article, the publication record, or the reputation of the Authors or of the journal. An Addendum is generally published when significant additional information crucial to the reader’s understanding of the article has come to light following publication of the article.

An Editor's Note is a notification alerting readers if the journal has initiated an inquiry in response to concerns raised about a published article. It is an online-only update, made to the HTML version of record of the published article. It is not indexed.

Articles will be retracted if there is evidence of unethical research, unreliable data, misconduct or plagiarism, or when the integrity of the published work is substantially undermined owing to errors in the conduct, analysis and/or reporting of the study. The original article is marked as retracted but a PDF version remains available to readers, and the retraction statement is bi-directionally linked to the original published paper. Retraction statements will typically include a statement of assent or dissent from the Authors.

Removal of published content due to legal limitations

In exceptional circumstances, International Economic Review reserves the right to remove an article, temporarily or permanently, from the online database. Such action may be taken when (i) the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes a third party’s intellectual property right, right to privacy, or other legal right; is otherwise unlawful or (ii) a court or government order has been issued, or is likely to be issued, requiring removal of such content. In these circumstances, while the metadata (e.g. title and Authors) will be retained, and will be accompanied by a statement explaining why the content has been removed.

Open Access Policy

The journal is published on an open-access basis in order to be able to use its resources in a free manner, while respecting the Authors' copyrights, so readers are obliged to apply the general rules of source reference and citation, as in the case of printed publications. The articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution - NoDerivs (CC BY 4.0) License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. By the end of 2022, we published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-ND 4.0) License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0

Archiving

All published scientific articles are deposited on the Krakow University of Economics servers. In case of discontinuation of the journal, each scientific paper will be deposited in the repository maintained by the Krakow University of Economics (https://uek.rodbuk.pl/) registered in OpenDOAR (SHERPA).

Authors can deposit a copy of their article's submitted, accepted or published version in an institutional or other repository of their choice without any embargo.

Publishing schedule

The journal is published quarterly (4 four journal issues per year).

Studies Involving Human Participants and Vulnerable Populations

IER journal adheres to the highest ethical standards in research and publication, which is in line with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. When publishing research involving human participants, including vulnerable groups such as children and refugees, we expect all studies submitted to our journal to comply with the following ethical principles:

Researchers publishing in the journal must obtain voluntary and informed consent from all study participants. Each participant should receive clear and comprehensive information about the purpose of the study, procedures, risks, benefits, and the right to withdraw at any time without consequences. Researchers who wish to publish their articles in the IER journal are responsible for obtaining consent and providing this information.
In the context of research involving children or individuals lacking or having limited legal capacity, researchers submitting the article are required to obtain informed consent from the legal guardian of the person participating in the study and, where possible, from the child or the individual participating in the study.
Particular care must be taken when conducting research involving vulnerable groups (e.g., refugees) to ensure that consent to participate in the study is obtained knowingly and without coercion.
In research involving human participants, confidentiality of all personal data must be ensured, and appropriate consent from participants must be obtained (data anonymization) unless explicit consent for disclosure has been given. Moreover, the research findings should strictly avoid including any information that could identify participants unless explicit consent has been obtained.
Researchers must exercise particular caution when conducting studies involving vulnerable groups, such as children, refugees, and individuals with cognitive impairments. The risk of coercion or undue influence on participants should be carefully assessed and minimized.
Research involving vulnerable groups should be designed to minimize the risk of harm or stress to participants, with appropriate support mechanisms in place.
Participants must be informed of their right to withdraw from the study at any time without any negative consequences. Researchers must respect and act on such requests immediately, ensuring that any data collected up to that point is either destroyed or excluded from the analysis, according to the participant's preference.
Researchers must respect cultural differences and norms when researching, particularly with vulnerable groups such as refugees. Cultural sensitivity must be integrated into the design, conduct, and reporting of research to ensure the dignity and rights of participants are upheld.

AI and AI-assisted tools

AI and AI-assisted tools do not qualify for authorship under our authorship policy. Our journal does not permit the use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create anything in submitted manuscripts. All authors must declare that the manuscript is free of any AI-assisted tools to generate text or images.