Policy Guidelines

• Plagiarism statements
• Peer review
• Research misconduct policies
• Correction and relevance policy
• Conflict of interest
• Complaints policy
• Privacy statement

Plagiarism statements

Among many responsibilities of publishers, it is of utmost importance to the author that the submitted work is original efforts and he/she should own it in all respect. In case of any work, words or phrases are used by the author, which belong to someone else, it is expected that proper citations are included where required. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and will not be processed for any evaluation. Unethical publishing behavior is highly discouraged.

The author is responsible for acknowledging the effort of all sources or any kind of aid provided by the work of others. In case of many authors, it is prominent to mention them all as co-authors. If the manuscript contains any extracts from copywrite sources, it is the author’s responsibility to obtain permissions where required from the owners. In JAF we make sure that minimum requirements of plagiarism are met before the document is processed further for evaluation. The similarity index should be according to the required percentage.

Peer review

Peer review process is used to assess the quality of manuscript before publication. The submitted manuscripts are assessed, in terms of originality, validity and significance, by the independent researchers having expertise in the relevant areas. The publication decision of manuscript is made on the basis of assessment of editors.

Journal of accounting and finance review follows a double-blind peer review policy, in which both, the identity of authors and that of reviewers are concealed from each other. Two to three reviewers are asked to review the submitted manuscripts in terms of scientific soundness, coherence, clarity, significance and duplication of already published work. Decision is made by the editor or in consultation with editorial board, on the basis of reviewers report. 

Procedure

The assistant editor will assign the review task to two members from the reviewer board. A total of 40 days will be given to evaluate the paper. Following areas are critically evaluated i.e., originality factor, research methodology, objectives and scope of research work, literature review with substantial input from recent and authentic sources, sound justification of results and their discussions, and contribution to present body of knowledge and future recommendations with directions. The overall structure of the paper with appropriate title may also be among the elements of consideration by the reviewers.

The possible outcomes of the review process could be as follow:

• Acceptance of the paper. (No changes required)
• Acceptance with minor changes. (Small changes required)
• Acceptance with major changes. (Extensive changes as suggested by the reviewer)
• (The paper will not be published)

It should be noted that the editor has the right to reject the manuscript at any stage of the evaluation. Moreover, the final decision of the paper (acceptance or rejection) is at the editor's discretion.

Research misconduct policies

Manuscripts may be desk rejected (i.e. rejected without editorial review) for the following reasons:

• Research work with excessive plagiarism
• Outside the scope of journal
• Manuscript which is not written in proper/ required format of the journal.
• If the article has no significant contribution in the literature of accounting and finance

Correction and relevance policy

Corrections of scientifically relevant errors in published manuscripts may be submitted for incorporation. Academic editors may be asked to evaluate any changes. The changes shall be announced in separate portion with title of ‘Correction’ if the change affects scientific interpretation of publication such as adding any missing methodological details, correction of misleading portion of published part or correction of errors in the data that don’t affect conclusion. Editorial Office may also be contacted for the correction of name and affiliation of author. If a proper justification is provided for the said correction and the board is satisfied with the justification changes shall be made and updated accordingly.

Conflict of interest

Any personal or financial support which may cause conflict of interest or bias with any individual or organization must be disclosed.

Financial support for the publication should also be disclosed along with attestation statement of full access to all relevant data and full responsibility of reliability and validity of data

Reviewers are also required to disclose any conflict of interest or bias with the assigned work for assessment.

The statement of grant support of conflict of interest and any other financial disclosure will be published along with research work.

Complaints policy

Written complaints regarding publication misconduct on the part of any person including author, reader, writer, reviewer, editorial board may be sent to Chief Editor using Journal’s official email address. A special Complaints Committee formulated for the said purpose will investigate the issue and subsequently suggest course of action to the Board.

Privacy statement

The personal data shared with this journal including names, email addresses shall exclusively be used for the purposes stated in this journal and shall not be accessible for any person or party for any other purpose.