Business Excellence and Management accepts and adheres to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal’s editorial policies are consistent with the COPE’s Core Principles of scholarly publishing. Therefore, it is expected that editors, reviewers and authors to agree and follow the best-practice guidelines on ethical behaviour as they participate and interact in the process of publication. In the event that the publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in the journal, the publisher or editor will follow COPE's guidelines in dealing with allegations. The full collection of guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is available directly through their official COPE Guidance Portal.
The Editorial Team, Reviewers and Authors must comply with a set of duties, of which we will list the most common ones below:
Duties of the Editor-in-chief, Editorial Team and Editorial Board
The editors of the journal have the obligation, responsibility and freedom to decide which of the articles submitted by the authors will be published without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, citizenship or the political orientation of the authors. The editorial team, reviewers or editorial board members can assist in making these decisions. We undertake not to take into account the eventual revenues brought by the editorial activity, as they have no impact, and will not have any influence for such decisions.
The editorial team, including editor-in-chief and editorial board assumes that it will not disclose any information related to an article received for publication to any third party, other than the corresponding author, reviewers and publisher, under appropriate conditions. Also, the editors should preserve the anonymity of the reviewers.
The Editor-in-chief, Editorial Staff and members of the Editorial Board will not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members. They will not use unpublished manuscripts to conduct their own research without the written consent of the authors. The information and ideas gained from the peer-review process will remain confidential and will not be used to gain benefits for itself. Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead of review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. The publishers of the journal should ask all those involved to disclose relevant competing interests, but also to publish any corrections after publication, should the conflict of interest be discovered later. If necessary, other actions can be taken such as withdrawing the article or expressing concern about the existence of a conflict of interest, as the case may be.
Editors will react as quickly as possible when dealing with ethical complaints regarding a manuscript submitted for publication or published in the journal. The measures they will take will mean contacting the author and notifying the author of the situation, with the recommendation to take measures to respond to the complaint. Also, other measures such as further communication to competent institutions and research bodies, publication of corrections, withdrawal of the paper, may be adopted as appropriate. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after the initial publication.
Duties of the Reviewers
The peer-review activity is meant to assist the publisher in making the best editorial decisions, and through indirect communication with the author, this activity can assist the author in improving the work. Peer-review activity is a crucial component of formal scholarly communication and is the base of the scientific method.
Any reviewer who considers that he or she does not have sufficient expertise to review a particular work or knows that he / she cannot be prompt in providing a relevant review should notify the Editor-in-chief and not assume participation in the review process, so the manuscript could be sent by the Editor-in-chief to any other reviewer.
Any work received for review should be treated as strictly confidential. It may not be shown or discussed with third parties unless the publisher has agreed to do so.
Reviews must be conducted in an objective manner, without the author being personally criticized. The reviewer should express his / her views in a clear and reasoned manner.
Reviewers will make efforts to identify relevant research that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, argument, idea was previously reported must be substantiated by the relevant citation. A reviewer will draw the publisher's attention if he notices that the manuscript is similar to an already published work he knows.
The information and ideas gained from the peer-review process will remain confidential and will not be used to gain benefits for itself. 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.
Duties of the Authors
Authors of original research should present the research in an accurate manner and discuss the objectives and significance level of the results. The data underlying the research should be presented in the most accurate way. A research article should contain enough details and references to allow other researchers to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. The responsibility for the opinions expressed in articles belongs to the authors.
Authors must ensure that they have submitted works that belong to them and are original, and if they used works, ideas, words from other authors, they were cited or quoted accordingly. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. The Business Excellence and Management journal uses specialized plagiarism detection software, approved at the institutional level, and the works that exceed the agreed coefficients of plagiarism will be rejected, the authors of the respective works being forbidden any future publication in this journal.
As a general rule, an author should not publish works that actually describe the same research in more than one publication. Submitting the same article to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. Authors are not allowed to submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper.
Always proper acknowledgment of the works of other authors must be given. The authors should cite the publications that were decisive for the research carried out. Information obtained privately through conversations, correspondence or discussions with third parties should not be used without the written permission of the source of that information. The information obtained during the review processes, for example, cannot be used without the written permission of the author of the work.
Authorship represents those who have made a significant contribution to the design, execution or interpretation of the reported research results. Everyone who has made a significant contribution should be listed as co-authors. Corresponding author must ensure that all appropriate co-authors and all inappropriate co-authors are included as such in the paper and that each of them saw and approved the final draft of the paper and also agreed with the submission and publication of it.
The authors must disclose in their work if there are conflicts of interest that could influence the results or the interpretation of the work. All sources of financial support must be disclosed. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed as soon as possible.
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is his/her duty to immediately notify the journal editor using the contact details provided on the website and to cooperate with him/her to retract or correct the paper.
The journal commitment is to ensure that editorial integrity and quality are maintained through responsible use of emerging technologies, such as Generative AI (GenAI) and AI-assisted technologies, by the editors, reviewers and authors.
Editors should treat manuscripts submitted to the journal as confidential documents. They should not upload the manuscripts or notifications or decision letters into generative AI tools as this may violate the confidentiality, proprietary rights and data privacy rights of the authors, and also, may generate incorrect, incomplete or biased conclusions about the manuscripts. The editor is responsible and accountable for the editorial process, the final decision and the communication with the authors.
Reviewers also should treat manuscripts they review as confidential documents. They should not upload the manuscript or peer review report into generative AI tools as this may violate the confidentiality, proprietary rights and data privacy rights of the authors, and also, may generate incorrect, incomplete or biased conclusions about the manuscript. The reviewer is responsible and accountable for the content of the peer review report.
Authors can use GenAI and AI-assisted technologies to support them when preparing a manuscript, but only with appropriate oversight and disclosure, and never as a substitute for human critical thinking, expertise and evaluation. Authors are responsible and accountable for the contents of their work. Authors should use GenAI and AI-assisted technologies with responsibility, by checking the terms and conditions of the AI tools used, checking for factual errors and for any bias, disclosing the use of the AI tools in their manuscript, including the name of the AI tool used, the purpose of its use, and the extent of their oversight. Authors are accountable for the contents of their manuscript, thus they should review and verify the accuracy, comprehensiveness, and impartiality of all AI-generated output (including checking the sources, as AI-generated references can be incorrect or fabricated), should edit and adapt all output so as to ensure the manuscript represents the authentic and original contribution of the authors and reflects their own analysis, interpretation, insights and idea, should ensure that AI tools use is made clear and transparent to readers (through a disclosure statement), to ensure that the manuscript safeguards data privacy, intellectual property and other rights, by checking the terms and conditions of any AI tool used.
The Business Excellence and Management journal policy is to provide permanent availability and preservation of published content. To achieve this goal two types of archiving routes are used.
Local archiving
In the event that the journal is no longer published, we are committed to ensuring permanent availability and conservation of scholarly research by maintaining our own digital archive. This digital archive will be maintained through the Bucharest University of Economic Studies servers and can be consulted at the university library. Also, the website would remain active, providing access to articles published until that stage and the title would also remain in the third-party archives (http://beman.ase.ro/indexation.htm).
External archiving
The journal articles are deposited in various databases around the world to guarantee long term digital preservation. These archives include: PROQUEST, EBSCO, CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN ONLINE LIBRARY, ERIHPLUS, etc.