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Kelaniya Journal of Management

Policy on Publication Best Practices and Publication Ethics

The Kelaniya Journal of Management (KJM) is a double-blind peer reviewed journal dedicated to ensuring the highest values of publication ethics. All parties of the journal such as the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, Authors, and Reviewers have to agree upon the total ethical behavior in this context. The publication best practices and publication ethics of the Kelaniya Journal of Management are based on the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 

This policy consists of four sections based on the responsibilities of Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, Authors and Reviewers

Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief

1. Making initial evaluation of the manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic and intellectual merit, without considering the author(s)’ race, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnic origin, religious belief, citizenship, political orientation or social class.
2. Deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal should be sent to the Desk reviewers following the initial evaluation based upon the policies and authors’ guidelines of the journal and legal requirements about copyright infringement and plagiarism.
3. Ensuring appropriate peer reviewers are selected to evaluate the manuscripts.
4. Guaranteeing a fair and unbiased double-blind peer review of the manuscripts and ensure all information related to the authors and reviewers are kept confidential and to ensure both authors’ and peer reviewers’ identities are secured.
5. Providing of direction and guidance to members of the Editorial Board, authors and reviewers on their responsibilities and ethical expectations and also on the description of peer review process.
6. Developing and maintaining a database of appropriate reviewers and updating of the same on the basis of reviewer competence, punctuality and responsiveness.
   

Responsibilities of the Editorial Board 

1. Ensuring the maintenance of overall quality of the journal.
2. Maintaining transparency, competency and fairness in all matters pertaining to publication of submitted manuscripts.
3. Assuring the international standards of both online and print publications of the journal by providing opinions to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.
4. Establishing the journal policy and ensure the implementation of it.
5. Ensuring the implementation of publication ethics of the journal by all the stakeholders.
6. Editorial Board will consider retractions if any, from the Journal only where there is firm evidence of unreliable, falsified or incorrect data, plagiarism, duplicate publication or unethical research practices.
7. Editorial board members are responsible for desk evaluation of the manuscripts submitted to KJM. Desk evaluation of the manuscripts will be undertaken based on the relevance of the manuscript to the scope of the Journal, originality, scientific merit, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
   

Responsibilities of the Authors

1. Authors should not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one publication at a time. This is found to be an unethical publishing behavior and is obnoxious.
2. Manuscripts submitted by authors  for publication in KJM must be original articles and need to confirm that the submitted works represent their own contributions and that they have not been copied or plagiarized in whole or partially  from others’ work and such  must not be included with no clear cited sources.
3. All authors must at all times conform to the journal guidelines for publication.
4. All the authors who submit manuscripts to the Kelaniya Journal of Management are required to follow the author guidelines strictly.
5. Authors must ensure that all manuscripts is in accordance with national and international ethical guidelines governing research.
6. Authorship of manuscripts should be confined only to those who have made significant contributions in terms of concept, design, implementation, data analysis, interpretation and writing of the reported research work.
7. Main author and corresponding author must take all the responsibilities in ensuring all the ethical considerations of the journal.
8. Main author and corresponding author with the journal should ensure that all appropriate co-authors are included in the list of authors of the manuscript. Total consensus of all co-authors in approving the final version of the paper and its submission for publication should be ensured.
9. All sources of financial support of the work submitted to the journal should be disclosed and acknowledged.
10. The journal is freely available online. Authors should agree with the open access policy which enables unrestricted access and reuse of all published articles. The articles are published under the Creative Commons Copyright License Policy CC- BY. This license permits users to use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided it is licensed under the same terms and the original work is properly cited.
11. The corresponding author shall be prompt and ensure adherence to timelines and respond to any requests, queries and recommendations of reviewers that are conveyed by the Editor or on behalf of the Editor and Editorial Board.
12. If a significant error or inaccuracy in a published work is detected by the relevant author, he/she is obliged to promptly notify the journal editor and co-operate to a retraction or correction of the manuscript. 
    

Responsibilities of the Reviewers

1. Transparency and integrity of the research publication is ensured by the peer review process. Reviewers must therefore be responsible both ethically and professionally.
2. Selected reviewers who for any reason are unable to review the received manuscript must report to the Editor in Chief/Editorial Board immediately.
3. All reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal comments, references and criticisms of authors are unethical and are not accepted.
4. Constructive and clear comments relevant to manuscript must be made by the reviewers and they should be supported by appropriate arguments.
5. The reviewers must keep all knowledge gained from the review completely confidential.
6. Peer reviewers should assist especially the Editor in Chief and the Editorial Board whenever necessary, in making editorial decisions by submitting their recommendations on eligibility and relevance of the manuscripts for publication.
7. Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents and should not be discussed on their content with outside parties and should not be multiplied in any form.
8. If a selected particular reviewer is not competent to review a given manuscript or knows that the timely review of the same will be impossible, should immediately inform to the Editor in Chief without delay, enabling them towards calling an alternative reviewer. 
9. Reviewers are requested to report to the Editor in Chief, if they are aware of copyright breach and plagiarism on the author’s side.
10. Reviewers must strictly evaluate the manuscripts, only based on content, without imagining the author’s race, age, gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, citizenship, political orientation or social class.
11. Peer review must be done very objectively, with a clear logic, so that authors can use them for improving the paper.
12. Reviewers should not consider any manuscript for reviewing in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, establishments or institutions connected to the manuscripts.

Errata and Retraction Policy

An erratum refers to a correction of errors introduced to the article by the publisher. All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication. Authors who notice an error should contact the Editor in Chief of the journal.

Data Set Policy 

A submission to the Kelaniya Journal of Management implies that materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, may freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without breaching participant confidentiality. The journal strongly encourages that all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely to be available to readers, whenever possible. We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publicly available repositories (where available and appropriate) or presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files whenever possible.

Process for Managing Research and Publication Misconduct

When the Kelaniya Journal of Management identifies suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as a redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, an ethical problem discovered with the submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and other issues, the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The editorial board will discuss the suspected cases and reach a decision.

Handling Complaints and Appeals

The policy of the journal is primarily aimed at protecting the authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher of the journal. The process of handling complaints and appeals follows the guidelines of the Committee of Publication Ethics available from: https://publicationethics.org/appeals.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (2013). COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. March 2013, version 1. Available at: http://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_guidelines_for_peer_reviewers_0.pdf

Committe on Publication Ethics (COPE) (2013). Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, 7 March 2011, version 1. Available at: http://publicationethics.org/files/Code%20of%20Conduct_2.pdf