Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Central European Business Review (CEBR) publication ethics policy is periodically reviewed with respect to recommendations from COPE.

Plagiarism Detection and Handling

The CEBR seeks to uphold academic integrity and to protect authors' moral rights. We take all cases of plagiarism very seriously. The CEBR is also aware of the potential impact an allegation of plagiarism can have on a researcher's career. Therefore, we have procedures in place to deal with alleged cases of plagiarism.
In order for us to take an unbiased approach, we investigate each case thoroughly, seeking clarification from all affected parties.
If we are approached by a third party with an allegation of plagiarism, we would always seek a response from the original author(s) or copyright holder(s) before we decide on a course of action. We will not be influenced by other parties and will form our decisions in an unbiased and objective manner.
If you are concerned about plagiarism or want to know more about our approach to handling allegations of misconduct, please contact Editor-in-Chief (jindrich.spicka@vse.cz).

All submissions are checked for plagiarism using the iThenticate software.

Publication and Authorship

The list of the paper’s references must follow the CEBR guidelines available at the CEBR journal For Authors section. Any acknowledgements authors wish to make such as the research funding reference information should be included in a separate headed section at the end of the paper. This part is available only to the editorial team. The reviewers do not have access to see it as it may suggest/imply the location or name of the author(s). In all reviewed papers, any kind of plagiarism or fraudulent data are strictly prohibited. At the same time, it is forbidden to publish the same research data/outcome in more than one peer-reviewed journal.

Authors' Responsibilities

Authors commit themselves that in their contributions they will discuss the benefits of their research objectively, based on the publishing rules, including compliance with citation standards and guidelines of the Central European Business Review (CEBR) journal. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate conclusions are considered to be unethical, and hence unacceptable for the CEBR journal.

By submitting their manuscript to the CEBR journal the authors confirm that it is their original work. If words and/or works of other authors have been used, it must be explicitly stated in the manuscript. The authors are not allowed to send their manuscript for consideration when it is subject to assessment in another journal, or vice versa to send to another periodical the manuscript which is being assessed at a given moment by the CEBR journal. The author who is responsible for the text is obliged to ensure the consent of all co-authors of the work (if there are more authors) with its final wording and submission for publication.

Reporting standards: Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. A manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.
Data Access and Retention: Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a manuscript for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
Originality and Plagiarism: Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others this must be appropriately cited or quoted.
Multiple Publications: An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.
Authorship: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the manuscript and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental Errors in Published Works: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his or her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief of the CEBR journal and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the article.

Responsibilities for the Reviewers

Reviewers are always selected with adequate diligence in order to be qualified by business expertise and/or academic research history. Evaluation is carried out objectively, comments are based on arguments and clearly formulated. If the selected reviewer does not feel competent to assess the quality of the manuscript or is aware that he or she will not be able to express an opinion within specified quality and timeframe, he or she must immediately inform the Editor-in-Chief and resign from the review procedure. Reviewers do not evaluate manuscripts if they have a conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationship that they have with some of the authors of the assessed manuscript.

Promptness: In case any reviewer feels that it is not possible for him or her to complete the review of a manuscript within stipulated time then the same must be communicated to the Editor-in-Chief so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer.
Confidentiality: Information regarding manuscripts submitted by authors should be kept confidential and be treated as privileged information.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer's own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. 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 manuscript.
Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. There shall be no personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that had been previously reported elsewhere should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer 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.

Editorial Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, Associate Editors and members of the Editorial Board undertake to ensure objective evaluation of the manuscript, solely on the basis of its academic qualities. All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism by iThenticate. It is obligatory to observe the anonymous evaluation of the manuscript by the reviewers, as well as the anonymity of reviewers. An Academic Editor is assigned to each manuscript – an expert in the issue usually selected from the Associate Editors or Editorial Board to avoid conflicts of interest. The Academic Editor recommends to the Editor-in-Chief the acceptance / revision / rejection of the manuscript based on referee report received from independent reviewers.

Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor have a duty to act if there is a suspicion of misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is revealed. This duty extends to all submitted manuscripts regardless of publication or rejection. Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor promise a prompt response to complaints.

Publication Decisions: The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal should be published. The validity of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may confer with other Associate Editors or members of the Editorial Board in making this decision.
Review of Manuscripts: The Managing Editor must ensure that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief or the Associate Editor. The Managing Editor must use appropriate software to examine the originality of the contents of the manuscript. After passing this test, the manuscript is forwarded to at least two reviewers for double-blind peer review, each of whom will make a recommendation to publish the manuscript in its present form, to modify the manuscript, or to reject the manuscript.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by anyone who has a view of the manuscript in his or her own research without the express written consent of the author.
Fair play: Manuscripts shall be evaluated solely on their intellectual merit without regard to authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
Confidentiality: The members of the editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.

Publishing Ethics Issues

The publisher’s role in ethics issues is to design an ethics system in the journal that can be continuously improved and the publisher also participates in monitoring the enforcement of ethical issues in cooperation with the editor.

The publisher monitors and safeguards publishing ethics by the editorial board. Intellectual property and copyright is always protected. Editorial board independence is ensured. Privacy for research participants, authors and peer reviewers is respected. The publisher cooperates with editors in the following issues:

Editorial independence
Research ethics, including confidentiality, consent, special requirements for human and research
Authorship
Transparency and integrity, for example, conflicts of interest, research funding, reporting standards
Peer review and the role of editorial team beyond that of the journal editor
Appeals and complaints

When needed corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies are always published.

Assistance is provided to the parties (institutions, grant funders, governing bodies) responsible for investigation of suspected research and publication misconduct, and where possible, facilitates the resolution of these cases.

Publishing Standards

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Authors submitting articles to the CEBR journal warrant the following:

The Work is not currently being considered for publication by any other journal or publication and will not be submitted for such review while under review by the CEBR journal.
Subject to the use of any third party rights where consents have been obtained in accordance with the paragraph below, authors own all intellectual property rights vesting in the Work.
If third party material has been used in the Work, authors have obtained the necessary permission from the copyright holder/s to reproduce in the Work, in all media in all countries, and transmit via all reputable third parties, any such materials including tables, figures and photographs not owned by authors (Please upload any permissions documents when submitting the Work).
The Work does not contain any unlawful statements, does not infringe any existing copyright or violate any proprietary rights, rights of privacy or publicity, or any other rights of any third party. “Proof of consent” has been obtained for studies of named organisations and people (Please upload any evidence when submitting the Work).
All authors have received a final version of the Work, take responsibility for the content, agree to its publication and the order of authors listed on the paper.
Anyone who has made a significant contribution to the research and the Work has been listed as an author. Minor contributors have been noted in the Acknowledgements section.
Authors have declared any potential conflict of interest in the research. Any support from a third party has been noted in the Acknowledgements.
Authors have read and adhered to the CEBR author guidelines.
The submission will be accessible though unrestricted access (i.e. free for all to view and download) via the online journal website.

Conference Papers Policy

The existence of a conference paper on a conference website or the presentation of a paper at a conference does not disqualify the paper from being considered for publication.
The CEBR journal is open for conference-based articles which significantly extend the conference paper and provide new information, knowledge and findings. We expect max. 30 % similarity with the original conference paper in the submitted article when the conference paper was published in the conference book of proceedings.
Authors must be aware that very rarely are conference papers ‘journal-ready’, and should expect to further develop their paper prior to submission.
However, this policy is only applicable if the author declares to the CEBR Editor-in-Chief on submission of their article that a conference paper upon which the paper is based is publicly available; the submitted article is substantially developed from the conference paper, be it with further discussion or a different conclusion; any working paper must be fully referenced on the submitted article, such as ‘This article is based upon a conference paper X, hosted on X.’; authors should not assign copyright when presenting their work at a conference.
Where possible, the CEBR journal will take steps to minimize the impact upon the anonymity of the double-blind peer review, such as asking editors to strike out any reference to a conference before sending the paper out to review.

Types of Ethical Misconduct

Verbatim copying: Verbatim copying of more than 10 per cent (or a significant passage or section of text) of another person's work without acknowledgement, references or the use of quotation marks.
Paraphrasing: Improper paraphrasing of another person's work is where more than one sentence within a paragraph or section of text has been changed or sentences have been rearranged without appropriate attribution. Significant improper paraphrasing (more than 10 per cent of a work) without appropriate attribution is treated as seriously as verbatim copying.
Re-using parts of a work without attribution: Re-use of elements of another person's work, for example, a figure, table or paragraph without acknowledgement, references or the use of quotation marks. It is incumbent on the author to obtain the necessary permission to reuse elements of another person's work from the copyright holder.
Self-plagiarism: The CEBR requires that all authors sign a copyright form that clearly states that their submitted work has not been published before. If elements of a work have been previously published in another publication, including a CEBR publication, the author is required to acknowledge the earlier work and indicate how the subsequent work differs and builds upon the research and conclusions contained in the previous work. Verbatim copying of an author's own work and paraphrasing is not acceptable and we recommend that research should only be reused to support new conclusions. We recommend that authors cite all previous stages of publication and presentation of their ideas that have culminated in the final work, including conference papers, workshop presentations and listserv communications. This will ensure that a complete record of all communication relating to the work is documented.
Attribution: References to other publications must be in APA (7th edition) style. All references should be carefully checked for completeness, accuracy and consistency. You should include all author names and initials and give any journal title in full.

Rules for Data Transparency

To ensure the highest standards of academic integrity and transparency, Central European Business Review (CEBR) requires authors to adhere to the following guidelines regarding the accessibility of data used in their research articles:

1. Data Availability Statement

Each manuscript must include a Data Availability Statement, indicating where the data supporting the findings of the study can be accessed. This statement should specify whether the data is publicly available, available upon request, or proprietary (with justification).

2. Encouragement to Share Data Publicly

Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit their data in a reputable public repository to allow for verification, reproducibility, and further research.

3. Minimum Requirements for Data Sharing

The data shared should include enough information to replicate the study's findings. Authors are expected to provide:

Raw or processed data.
Detailed metadata describing the dataset.
Clear documentation outlining the methods used to collect and process the data.

4. Proprietary or Confidential Data

If the data cannot be shared publicly due to legal, ethical, or proprietary reasons, authors must clearly explain the restriction in the Data Availability Statement and provide as much aggregated or anonymized data as possible, along with detailed descriptions to support replication.

5. Data Citation and Attribution

If authors use publicly available datasets, they must properly cite these sources in the references section. Adherence to the APA 7th Edition citation style is required.

6. Editorial Review of Data Transparency

During the review process, the editorial team may request access to the data for verification purposes. Authors must comply with these requests in a timely manner to ensure the credibility of their research.

7. Compliance and Exceptions

Non-compliance with these guidelines may result in delays in the review or publication process. Exceptions may be granted at the discretion of the editorial board for cases with compelling justification.
By promoting data transparency, CEBR reinforces its commitment to ethical research practices, fostering trust and reproducibility in the academic community.