The European Journal of Accounting, Finance & Business policies and ethics

The Journal Policy concerning Ethics and malpractice statement is based on COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf). Our editorial team enforces the highest publishing standards and we ask our authors and reviewers to help us meet the standards.

I. Publication and authorship
• All submitted papers are subject to a rigorous peer review process by at least two international reviewers who are experts in the field of each contribution.
• Factors considered in the review are relevance, soundness, meaning, originality, readability, and language.
• Possible decisions include approval, approval with changes, or rejection.
• If an author is asked to revise and resubmit a paper, there is no guarantee that the revised paper will be accepted.
• Rejected items will not be reviewed again.
• Acceptance of papers is subject to the then-current legal requirements regarding defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

II. Authors' responsibilities
• Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work.
• Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
• Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
• Authors must participate in the peer review process.
• Authors are obliged to retract or correct errors.
• All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research.
• Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
• Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
• Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
• Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.

III. Reviewers' responsibilities
• Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.
• Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
• Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
• Reviewers should also call to the Editor in Chief's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
• Reviewers must keep all information about the paper confidential and treat it as privileged information.
• Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which there is a conflict of interest arising from a competitive, cooperative, or other relationship or affiliation with an author, company, or organization associated with the papers.

IV. Editors' responsibilities
• Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
• Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
• Editors should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
• Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
• Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
• Editors should have a clear picture of a research's funding sources.
• Editors should base their decisions solely one the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
• Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.
• Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
• Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
• Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
• Editors should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
• Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
• Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers and board members.
• Editors should be accountable for everything published in their journals