Suitability and Promptness

• Peer reviewers should inform the editor if they do not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review and s/he should inform the editor immediately after receiving a request,
• Peer reviewers should be responsible to act promptly and submit a review report on time,
• Peer reviewers should immediately inform the editor of any possible delays and suggest another date of submission a review report, and
• Peer reviewers should not unnecessarily delay the review process, either by prolonged delay in submission of their review or by requesting unnecessary additional data/information from the editor or author(s).

Standards of Objectivity

• Reviews should be objectively carried out with a consideration of high academic, scholarly and scientific standards,
• All judgments should be meticulously established and maintained to ensure the full comprehension of the reviewers’ comments by the editors and the author(s),
• Both reviewers and author(s) in rebuttal should avoid unsupported assertions,
• The reviewer may justifiably criticize a manuscript but it would be inappropriate and impressible to resort to personal criticism on the author(s), and
• Reviewers should ensure that their decision is purely based on the quality of the research paper and not influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual biases.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

• A reviewer should not, for his/her research, use unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript, without the approval of the editor,
• The data included in the research paper is required to be kept confidential and the reviewer shall not be allowed to use for his/her any personal study,
• The reviewer must declare any potentially conflicting interests (e.g. personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious). In this situation, s/he will require to follow journals policies on situations they consider to represent a conflict to reviewing,
• A reviewer should be honest to declare conflicts of interest, if, the research paper under reviews is the same to his/her presently conducted study,
• If the reviewer feels unqualified to separate his/her bias, s/he should immediately return the manuscript to the editor without review, and justify to him/her about this.

Confidentiality

• Reviewers should keep the research paper as a confidential document and must not discuss its content in any platform except in cases where professional advice is being sought with the authorization of the editor, and
• Reviewers are professionally and ethically bound not to disclose the details of the research paper before its publication without the prior approval of the editor.

Ethical Considerations

• If reviewer would suspect that the research paper is almost the same of someone else’s work, s/he will ethically inform the editor and provide its citation as a reference,
• If the reviewer would suspect the results in the research paper to be untrue/unrealistic/fake, s/he will share it with the editor,
• If there has been an indication for violating the ethical norms in the treatment of human beings (e.g. children, female, poor people, disabled, elderly, etc), then this should be identified to the editor, and
• If the research paper based on any previous research study or is a replica of an earlier work or the work is plagiarized e.g. the author has not acknowledged/referenced others’ work appropriately, then this should be brought in the editor’s knowledge.

Originality

For evaluating originality, peer reviewers should consider the following elements:

• Does the research paper add to the existing knowledge?
• Do research questions and/or hypotheses are appropriate to the objective of the research work?

Structure

If the layout and format of the paper are not per prescribed one, the reviewers should discuss it with the editor or should include this observation in his/her review report. On the other side, if the research paper is exceptionally well, the reviewer may overlook the formatting issues. Other times, reviewers may suggest restructuring the paper before publication. The following elements should be carefully evaluated:

• If there is a serious problem of language expression and the reviewer gets the impression that the research paper does not fulfill the linguistic requirements and readers would face difficulties to read and comprehend the paper. Such a situation would usually arise when the author’s native language is not English. The reviewer should record this deficiency in his/her report and suggest the editor make its proper editing.
• The data presented in the paper is original or reproduced from previously conducted or published work. The papers which reflect originality are more likely to be given preference for publication.
• The clarity of illustrations including photographs, models, charts, images, and figures is essential to note. If there is duplication that should be reported in the review report. Similarly, descriptions provided in the results section should correspond with the data presented in tables/figures, if not then it should be listed in the review report.
• Critically review the statistical analysis of the data. Also, check the rationale and appropriateness of the specific analysis.
• Reviewers should read the Methodology section in detail and make sure that the author(s) has demonstrated the understanding of the procedures being used and presented in the manuscript.
• The relationship between Data, findings, and Discussion requires evaluating thoroughly. Unnecessary conjecture or unfounded conclusions that are not based on the presented data are not acceptable.
• The organization of the research paper is appropriate or deviate from the standard or prescribed format?
• Does the author(s) follow the guidelines prescribed by the journal for the preparation and submission of the manuscript?
• Is the research paper free from typographical errors?

Review Report

• The reviewer must explicitly write his/her observations in the section of comments because the author(s) will only see the comments reviewers have made,
• For writing a review report, the reviewers are requested to complete a prescribed form (s),
• It is helpful for both the editor and author(s) if the reviewer writes a summary in the first section of the review report. This summary should comprise of reviewers final decision and inferences drawn from the full review,
• Any personal comments on the author(s) should be avoided and final remarks must be written courteously and positively,
• Indicating any deficiencies is important. For the understanding of editor and author(s), the reviewers should highlight these deficiencies in some detail with specificity. This will also justify the comments made by the reviewer,
• When a reviewer decides the research paper, it will indicate as Reject, Accept without revision, or Need Revision and either of the decisions should have a justification of the same.
• The reviewers should indicate the revisions clearly and comprehensively, and show a willingness to confirm the revisions submitted by the author(s) if the editor wishes so, and
• The final decision about publishing a research paper (either accept or reject) will solely rest with the editor and it is not a reviewers’ job to take part in this decision. The editor will surely consider reviewers’ comments and have a right to send the paper for another opinion or send back to the author(s) for its revisions before making the final decision.

The above guidelines for authors, editors and reviewers are also available on the official website of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC).

Peer Review Policy

About Peer Review

The IJBFI is appreciative of its peer-reviewers, of whom there are many. It is only by collaboration with our reviewers that editor can ensure that the manuscripts IJBFI publish are among the most important in their disciplines of research. We appreciate the time that referees devote to assessing the manuscripts we send them, which helps ensure that IJBFI publish only material of the very highest quality. In particular, many submitted manuscripts contain large volumes of additional (supplementary) data and other material, which take time for referees to evaluate. We thank our referees for their continued commitment to our publication process and to help recognize this effort we provide each IJBFI referee with an official refereeing activity certificate. Peer review is commonly accepted as an essential part of scientific publication. But the ways peer review is put into practice vary across journals and disciplines.

General information

The following types of contribution to IJBFI are peer-reviewed: Articles, Letters, Brief Communications, Matters Arising, Technical Reports, Analysis, Resources, Reviews, Perspectives and Insight articles. Correspondence and all forms of published correction may also be peer-reviewed at the discretion of the editor. Other contributed articles are not usually peer-reviewed. Nevertheless, articles published in these sections, particularly if they present technical information, may be peer-reviewed at the discretion of the editor.

For any general questions and comments about the peer-review process, the journal or its editorial policies that are not addressed here, we encourage reviewers to contact us. Questions about a specific manuscript should be directed to the editor who is handling the manuscript. We ask peer-reviewers to submit their reports via editor’s email.

Criteria for publication

IJBFI receive many more submissions than they can publish. Therefore, we ask peer-reviewers to keep in mind that every paper that is accepted means that another good paper must be rejected. To be published in IJBFI, a paper should meet four general criteria:

• Provides strong evidence for its conclusions.
• Novel (we do not consider meeting report abstracts and preprints on community servers to compromise novelty).
• Of extreme importance to researchers in the specific field.
• Ideally, interesting to researchers in other related disciplines.

In general, to be acceptable, a paper should represent an advance in understanding likely to influence thinking in the field. There should be a discernible reason why the work deserves the visibility of publication in IJBFI rather than the best of the specialist journals.

The review process

All submitted manuscripts are read by the editorial staff. To save time for authors and peer-reviewers, only those papers that seem most likely to meet our editorial criteria are sent for formal review. Those papers judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate are rejected promptly without external review (although these decisions may be based on informal advice from specialists in the field).

Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership are sent for formal review, typically to two or three reviewers, but sometimes more if special advice is needed (for example on statistics or a particular technique). The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers’ advice, from among several possibilities:

• Accept, with or without editorial revisions
• Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached
• Reject, but indicate to the authors that further work might justify a resubmission
• Reject outright, typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems

Reviewers are welcome to recommend a particular course of action, but they should bear in mind that the other reviewers of a particular paper may have different technical expertise and/or views, and the editors may have to make a decision based on conflicting advice. The most useful reports, therefore, provide the editors with the information on which a decision should be based. Setting out the arguments for and against publication is often more helpful to the editors than a direct recommendation one way or the other.

Editorial decisions are not a matter of counting votes or numerical rank assessments, and we do not always follow the majority recommendation. We try to evaluate the strength of the arguments raised by each reviewer and by the authors, and we may also consider other information not available to either party. Our primary responsibilities are to our readers and to the scientific community at large, and in deciding how best to serve them, we must weigh the claims of each paper against the many others also under consideration.

We may return to reviewers for further advice, particularly in cases where they disagree with each other, or where the authors believe they have been misunderstood on points of fact. We therefore ask that reviewers should be willing to provide follow-up advice as requested. We are very aware, however, that reviewers are usually reluctant to be drawn into prolonged disputes, so we try to keep consultation to the minimum we judge necessary to provide a fair hearing for the authors.

When reviewers agree to assess a paper, we consider this a commitment to review subsequent revisions. However, editors will not send a resubmitted paper back to the reviewers if it seems that the authors have not made a serious attempt to address the criticisms.

We take reviewers’ criticisms seriously; in particular, we are very reluctant to disregard technical criticisms. In cases where one reviewer alone opposes publication, we may consult the other reviewers as to whether s/he is applying an unduly critical standard. We occasionally bring in additional reviewers to resolve disputes, but we prefer to avoid doing so unless there is a specific issue, for example a specialist technical point, on which we feel a need for further advice.

Selecting peer-reviewers

A reviewer must hold a PhD degree or advance professional qualification with extensive professional/academic experience, i.e. CPA, CFA, CMA, etc. Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and we base our choice on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations and our own previous experience of a reviewer’s characteristics. For instance, we select referees who are quick, careful and provide reasoning for their views, whether robustly critical or forgiving. We check with potential reviewers before sending them manuscripts to review. Reviewers should bear in mind that these messages contain confidential information, which should be treated as such. IJBFI strive toward a diverse demographic representation within our reviewer database. We would therefore like to strongly encourage authors who suggest reviewers to provide a diverse list of their peers, in particular with respect to gender and geography.

Access to the literature

If a reviewer does not have access to any published paper that is necessary for evaluation of a submitted manuscript, the journal will supply the reviewer with a copy. Under these circumstances, the reviewer should send the publication reference of the paper required to the editor who sent them the paper to review. The editor will obtain the paper, paying any necessary fees, and send it to the reviewer.

Writing the review

The primary purpose of the review is to provide the editors with the information needed to reach a decision but the review should also instruct the authors on how they can strengthen their paper to the point where it may be acceptable. As far as possible, a negative review should explain to the authors the major weaknesses of their manuscript, so that rejected authors can understand the basis for the decision and see in broad terms what needs to be done to improve the manuscript for publication elsewhere. Confidential comments to the editor are welcome, but they should not contradict the main points as stated in the comments for transmission to the authors.

We ask reviewers the following questions, to provide an assessment of the various aspects of a manuscript:

• Key results:Please summarize what you consider to be the outstanding features of the work.
• Validity:Does the manuscript have flaws which should prohibit its publication? If so, please provide details.
• Originality and significance:If the conclusions are not original, please provide relevant references. On a more subjective note, do you feel that the results presented are of immediate interest to many people in your own discipline, and/or to people from several disciplines?
• Data & methodology:Please comment on the validity of the approach, quality of the data and quality of presentation. Please note that we expect our reviewers to review all data, including any extended data and supplementary information. Is the reporting of data and methodology sufficiently detailed and transparent to enable reproducing the results?
• Appropriate use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties:All error bars should be defined in the corresponding figure legends; please comment if that’s not the case. Please include in your report a specific comment on the appropriateness of any statistical tests, and the accuracy of the description of any error bars and probability values.
• Conclusions:Do you find that the conclusions and data interpretation are robust, valid and reliable?
• Suggested improvements: Please list additional experiments or data that could help strengthening the work in a revision.
• References:Does this manuscript reference previous literature appropriately? If not, what references should be included or excluded?
• Clarity and context:Is the abstract clear, accessible? Are abstract, introduction and conclusions appropriate?
• Please indicate any particular part of the manuscript, data, or analyses that you feel is outside the scope of your expertise, or that you were unable to assess fully.
• Please address any other specific question asked by the editor via email.

Reports do not necessarily need to follow this specific order but should document the referees’ thought process. All statements should be justified and argued in detail, naming facts and citing supporting references, commenting on all aspects that are relevant to the manuscript and that the referees feel qualified commenting on. Not all of the above aspects will necessarily apply to every paper, due to discipline-specific standards. When in doubt about discipline-specific refereeing standards, reviewer can contact the editor for guidance.

It is our policy to remain neutral with respect to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations, and the naming conventions used in maps and affiliation are left to the discretion of authors. Referees should not, therefore, request authors to make any changes to such unless it is critical to the clarity of the scientific content of a manuscript.

Timing

IJBFI is committed to rapid editorial decisions and publication, and we believe that an efficient editorial process is a valuable service both to our authors and to the scientific community as a whole. We therefore ask reviewers to respond promptly within the number of days agreed. If reviewers anticipate a longer delay than previously expected, we ask them to let us know so that we can keep the authors informed and, where necessary, find alternatives.

Anonymity

We do not release referees’ identities to authors or to other reviewers unless a referee voluntarily signs their comments to the authors. Our preference is for referees to remain anonymous throughout the review process and beyond. However, to increase the transparency of the reviewing process, reviewers may sign their reports, if they feel comfortable doing so. Before revealing their identities, referees should consider the following: (1) Referee reports, whether signed or not, are subsequently shared with the other reviewers if the manuscript were to be transferred and (2) Reviewers may be asked to comment on the criticisms of other reviewers and on further revisions of the manuscript and identified reviewers may find these discussions more challenging.

We ask reviewers not to identify themselves to authors while the manuscript is under consideration without the editor’s knowledge. If this is not practicable, we ask authors to inform the editor as soon as possible after a reviewer has revealed his or her identity to the author. We deplore any attempt by authors to confront reviewer or determine their identities. Our own policy is to neither confirm nor deny any speculation about reviewers’ identities.

Double blind peer review

IJBFI offer a double-blind peer review option where authors remain anonymous to the referees throughout the consideration process. The authors are responsible for anonymizing their manuscript accordingly; a checklistis provided to help with this process.

Transparent peer review

IJBFI uses a transparent peer review system, where we are publishing the reviewer comments to the authors and author rebuttal letters of revised versions of published research articles, as well as the editorial decision letters. Authors are provided the opportunity to opt into this scheme at the completion of the peer review process, before the paper is accepted.

Editing referees' reports

As a matter of policy, we do not suppress reviewers’ reports; any comments that were intended for the authors are transmitted, regardless of what we may think of the content. On rare occasions, we may edit a report to remove offensive language or comments that reveal confidential information about other matters. We ask reviewers to avoid statements that may cause needless offence; conversely, we strongly encourage reviewers to state plainly their opinion of a paper. Authors should recognize that criticisms are not necessarily unfair simply because they are expressed in robust language.

The peer-review system

It is editors’ experience that the peer-review process is an essential part of the publication process, which improves the manuscripts our journals publish. Not only does peer review provide an independent assessment of the importance and technical accuracy of the results described, but the feedback from referees conveyed to authors with the editors’ advice frequently results in manuscripts being refined so that their structure and logic is more readily apparent to readers. IJBFI is appreciative of its peer-reviewers, of whom there are many. It is only by collaboration with our reviewers that editors can ensure that the manuscripts we publish are among the most important in their disciplines of scientific research. We appreciate the time that reviewers devote to assessing the manuscripts we send them, which helps ensure that IJBFI publishes only material of the very highest quality. In particular, many submitted manuscripts contain large volumes of additional (supplementary) data and other material, which take time to evaluate. We thank our reviewers for their continued commitment to our publication process.

Reviewing peer review

The goals of peer review are both lofty and mundane. It is the responsibility of journal to administer an effective review system. Peer review is designed to select technically valid research of significant interest. Referees are expected to identify flaws, suggest improvements and assess novelty. If the manuscript is deemed important enough to be published in a high visibility journal, referees ensure that it is internally consistent, thereby ferreting out spurious conclusions or clumsy frauds. One problem with manuscript selection is the inherent tension between referees and authors. Referees wish for only the most solid science to be published, yet when they ‘switch hats’ to that of author, they desire quick publication of their novel ideas and approaches. Authors of papers that blow against the prevailing winds bear a far greater burden of proof than normally expected in publishing their challenge to the current paradigm. Veering too far in one direction or the other leads to complaints either that peer review isn’t stringent enough, or that it is stifling the freshest research. It is the job of the editors to try to avoid both extremes.

The editor do not expect peer review to ferret out cleverly concealed, deliberate deceptions. A peer reviewer can only evaluate what the authors chose to include in the manuscript. This contrasts with the expectation in the popular press that peer review is a process by which fraudulent data is detected before publication (although that sometimes happens). We are continually impressed with peer review’s positive impact on almost every paper we publish. Even papers that are misunderstood by reviewers are usually rewritten and improved before re-submission. Mistakes are made, but peer review, through conscientious effort on the part of referees, helps to protect the literature, promote good science and select the best. Until a truly viable alternative is provided, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Peer-review publication policies

All contributions submitted to IJBFI that are selected for peer review are sent to at least one national, two or more international, independent reviewers, selected by the editor. Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent reviewers and may also request that the journal excludes one or two individuals or laboratories. The journal sympathetically considers such requests and usually honors them, but the editor’s decision on the choice of referees is final.

Editors, authors and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts. Unless otherwise declared as a part of open peer review, the peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously; identities of reviewers are not released. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality of manuscripts. If a reviewer wishes to seek advice from colleagues while assessing a manuscript, the reviewer must consult with the editor and should ensure that confidentiality is maintained and that the names of any such colleagues are provided to the journal with the final report. Regardless of whether a submitted manuscript is eventually published, correspondence with the journal, referees’ reports and other confidential material must not be published, disclosed or otherwise publicized without prior written consent. Reviewers should be aware that it is our policy to keep their names confidential and that we do our utmost to ensure this confidentiality. We cannot, however, guarantee to maintain this confidentiality in the face of a successful legal action to disclose identity.

IJBFI reserves the right to contact funders, regulatory bodies, journals and the authors’ institutions in cases of suspected research or publishing misconduct.

Ethics and security

The editor may seek advice about submitted papers not only from technical reviewers but also on any aspect of a paper that raises concerns. These may include, for example, ethical issues or issues of data or materials access. Very occasionally, concerns may also relate to the implications to society of publishing a paper, including threats to security. In such circumstances, advice will usually be sought simultaneously with the technical peer-review process. As in all publishing decisions, the ultimate decision whether to publish is the responsibility of the editor of the journal concerned.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism

International Journal of Business and Finance Implications (IJBFI) evaluates submissions on the understanding that they are the original work of the authors. Reuse of text, data, figures, or images without appropriate acknowledgement or permission is considered plagiarism, as is the paraphrasing of text, concepts, and ideas. This includes copying sentences or paragraphs verbatim from someone else’s work, even if the original work is cited in the references. The ORI module “Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-Plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: a Guide to Ethical Writing” can help authors identify questionable writing practices. All allegations of plagiarism are investigated in accordance with COPE guidelines detailed below:

1. COPE guidelines on suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript
2. COPE guidelines on suspected plagiarism in a published paper
3. ICMJE Recommendations

In accordance with the guidelines of Higher Education Commission (HEC), IJBFI observes Zero Tolerance to plagiarism. 

1. HEC plagiarism policy
2. How HEC deals plagiarism
3. HEC policy
4. HEC little-book of plagiarism

Plagiarism Detection

IJBFI uses either Turnitin or iThenticate for all research papers submitted to detect possible plagiarism. IJBFI is in process to be member of Crosscheck by CrossRef. iThenticate is a plagiarism screening service that confirms the originality of content prior to publication. We use this software to check submissions against millions of published research papers manuscript for potential plagiarism.

IJBFI, if similarity is more than 10% overall and more than 5% from single source, the paper is returned to the author(s) immediately. IJBFI follows HEC and COPE guidelines to make the determination whether (or to what extent) plagiarism exists. If plagiarism or other unethical practices are detected after publishing the paper, editorial board has the authority to correct or retract the paper as HEC’s plagiarism policy.  All authors are responsible for their content individually and collectively. In case of serious plagiarism issues, editorial board may decide to consult the institutions of authors.

Self-plagiarism: verbatim or substantial copying of authors’ own published work (or under consideration for publication at some other outlet) effecting originality of current submission is also not acceptable in any way.