Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

It is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher. This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and its ethics statement is based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines. COPE provides resources for journal editors, peer reviewers, and authors on the topic of professional publishing standards at publicationethics.org.

Authors' responsibilities

Authors must guarantee their manuscripts are product of their effort and that data are obtained in an ethical manner. The manuscript must be original, not previously published or accepted for publication in another place or in another language. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. If the manuscript contains information, which overlap with the previously published works, in press, or under deliberation for publication, the author must cite this work. When authors decide to submit the manuscript to another journal, corresponding author must request EJFB Direction to withdraw the manuscript.

Authorship of the paper. 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 co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication to EJFB.

Originality and plagiarism. All published articles in EJFB are expected to offer scientific improvements in the fields of family business, entrepreneurial family, and allied fields. Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Evidence and underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript.

A paper should contain sufficiently detailed references to permit others to reconstruct its argument. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Third party information and results cannot be used without explicit and authorized mention of the source. It is responsibility of the authors to obtain the necessary permissions for the images with copyright.

The manuscript must be free from any kind of plagiarism, falsification, or fabrications. Authors should minimize recycling their previous writings and clearly cite them. Such self-referencing should be phrased carefully to avoid compromising the double-blind review process. Plagiarism or self-plagiarism is an automatic reason for rejection of the manuscript.

The articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC-BY-NC-SA. For more information, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Data access and retention. Authors need to guarantee that all data in the submitted article are real and accurate and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, and should in any event be prepared to retain such evidence and data for a reasonable time after publication. EJFB encourages authors to deposit their research data (data underlying publications considered as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation) in their institutional repositories or open access thematic repositories (e.g., repositories within the European Open Science Cloud initiative - EOSC).

Acknowledgement of sources. Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the scholarly understanding of the question under study.

Funding acknowledgement. All sources of financial support for the research project must be disclosed.

Conflict of interest. Authors should avoid any kind of conflicts of interest or the presence of conflicts of interest throughout the research process. 

Peer-review process. Authors are obliged to participate in the peer-review process. Authors should respect the confidentiality of that process. The corresponding author who submits a manuscript must inform all the co-authors of the submission process and the results of the review.

Fundamental errors in published works. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify EJFB Direction and to collaborate with the journal to retract or correct the paper.

Reviewers' responsibilities

Peer review of manuscripts assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist authors in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of the scientific method.

The reviewer is expected to assess the general qualities of a given manuscript as scientific soundness, logical coherence, similarity with other articles and so. The reviewer is supposed to decide whether a manuscript delivers well the main idea of authors and if it needs some corrections into style or clearness to inform the corresponding editor. The reviewer should decide if the manuscript is sufficiently original, if it expands on the research conducted so far in the field.

Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible, should notify the editor and excuse himself or herself from the review process. In principle, the reviewer should be a disinterested party with respect to the author(s) of the manuscript. Best practice is guided by an arm’s length principle. It is incumbent upon reviewers to inform corresponding editor or EJFB Direction if they become aware of or suspect the possibility of a conflict of interest which might include prior co-authorship, close professional relationship or personal relationship. In this situation, the review must be abandoned.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. They should be politically correct and constructive in their reports.

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously formulated should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

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. When peer-review process is complete, reviewers must destroy the manuscript.

Since 2020, EJFB publishes yearly the panel of peer-reviewers.

Editorial responsibilities

The editor-in-chief of EJFB together with the deputy editors are responsibles for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor-in-chief will endeavor to satisfy the needs of the readership to constantly enhance the quality and impact of the journal, as well as to boost academic and scientific standards. The editor-in-chief is guided by the policies of the EJFB Editorial Committee and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor-in-chief may confer with other editors (deputy and associate editors) or reviewers in making this decision.

The editors (editors-in-chief, deputy and associate editors) will make fair and impartial decisions and will assure an appropriate and just peer-review process. Editorial decisions are must be established on the relevance of a paper to the journal and on the manuscript’s relevance, originality and contribution. The editors should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

The editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and other editorial advisers, as appropriate.

The editors will have no conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors or institutions connected to the papers. When a manuscript is so closely associated to the current or past research of an editor as to create a conflict of interest, the editors-in-chief should assign it to another editor.

A new editorial board was appointed in 2020. Since then, EJFB have adopted the following policy on the publication of articles by its editors:

- The editor-in-chief will not publish any article during their term, with the exceptions of editorials, annual reviews, and introductions to special issues co-edited by them.

- Papers authored by editors or Editorial Board members will be sent to editors unaffiliated with the authors or institutions and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer review bias. The submitted papers will be subject to the usual double-anonymous peer review process. 

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor'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.

The editor-in-chief should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper. Such measures will generally include contacting the author(s) of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be investigated, even if it is discovered years after publication.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the editor-in-chief of EJFB and cooperate with the editors to retract or correct the paper. Corrections will be published in the next issue or as soon as the Direction and authors, mutually agree to the modifications.

In instances where an editor finds that a significant error has been published for which a correction needs to be made, and in all cases where there is reason for concern about such matters as plagiarism, fabrication of research, duplicate publication, or conflicts of interest, the Direction of EJFB will review and resolve the matter in consultation with Editorial Committee. The authors should collaborate accordingly in retracting or correcting the paper. In all instances, the EJFB is committed to preserving the integrity of the scholarly version of record.