Statement of ethics and responsibilities of authors submitting to APMAJ
- Research results
- Publication and authorship practices
- Collaborations
- Peer review
- Editorial responsibilities
This journal is jointly published by the Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association (APMAA - which is based in Japan), Accounting Research Institute and UiTM Press, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).
Thus, needless to say that it will be essential that all who participate in producing the journal, who conduct themselves as authors, reviewers and editors, strictly adhere with the highest level of professional ethical standards.
By submitting a manuscript to this journal, each author explicitly confirms that the manuscript meets the highest ethical standards from the authors and its' co-authors including proper statistical investigations and thorough ethical reviews by the data owning organisations.
Research Results
The results of research should be properly collated, collected through primary, secondary or tertiary data analysis, meticulously recorded and maintained in a flow permitting validation and re-analysis by authors and co-authors, collaborators prior publication and by other scepticts for publication. Exceptions may be appropriate in certain circumstances to preserve privacy and ownerships.
Theft of data, theft of research findings other from one's own, plagiarism and fabrication of data are an unacceptable departure from the norms of scientific conduct. Selective highlighting, dissemination of certain data or reporting of specific data with the intent to mislead or improper message are condorned and discouraged. Report by any third party or authors, co-authors, collaborators that may be dissatisfied with the publication process and results, may ask the original authors to defend their data submission, data analysis, research findings and discussions. Error on behalf of the authors if identified must be promptly corrected by the authors up to the extent of retracting the paper. Submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently is ethically unacceptable.
Authorship and Publication Responsibilities
The authors' obligations are to present an accurate, of sound and ethical methodological process, robust data analysis on the research already conducted. It must also include a brief synopsis of the research objectives, concise results discussion in sufficient details to understand the results significance. The references must be recently (within a decade) of published work from public sources to allow others to refer to these references and allow research repeatability. It will be the authors responsibility to request permission to use any previously published materials from its' original publisher with proper referrals and credits given to the original publisher. This proof of permission process must be acknowledged in the manuscript. Tools, confidential interviews or questionnaires from their original authors must also be obtained prior using those similar tools in authors manuscript. Again, the proof of permission and credits must be properly described in the manuscript sent to APMAJ.
Authorship must be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the research study either in the form of conceptual help, methodological advices, data / statistical analysis, collaborators who presented the paper in scientific meetings or assisted in the editing process. Other individuals who have contributed to the study are encouraged to be acknowledged, but not identified as authors. Sources of financial support for the project and ethical approving institutions must be disclosed. Proper acknowledgment of others used in research project must always be given and its the responsibility of the main author to do so.
Collaborations
All collaborators share responsibility for any paper they co-author as collaborators. The corresponding author who submits the paper on behalf of the other collaborators for publication should ensure that all co-authors have seen the final version of the paper, have collectively agreed upon reviewing it and have decisively agreed to its final submission for publication. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a manuscript should not be a co-author. Error of the authors are also deemed to be the error of its' named collaborators and their respective institutions as well.
Peer Review Process by Reviewers
Review by independent reviewers provide advice to editors of scientific journals concerning the publication of research and their results. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for other gain. Reviewers must disclose conflicts of interest resulting from direct competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, and avoid cases in which such conflicts leads to a judgmental and an objective evaluation of a manuscript.
Reviewers should independently judge the quality of the research manuscript and respect its' authors. There is no place where by personal attacks or personal criticisms allowed. Reviewers should explain and support their comments in a method, that editors and authors may clearly understand and positively embrace their comments.
Reviewers should treat any manuscript as independent work of authors that must be kept as a private and confidential document. Unless in certain dire conditions whereby the reviewers expertise do not cover the area of manuscript; the reviewer noticed any substantial conflicts, then the reviewer may disclose the information with the editors in purpose of sending to another reviewer of higher speciality or obtaining a consensus in that particular conflict area. Any unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, must be with manuscript authors' consents.
He/ she may point out relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors or incorrectly cited by authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant credits and cited. A reviewer can attract the editor's attention any significant similarity between the considered manuscript and any published paper or manuscript submitted concurrently to other journal/journals.
Editorial Responsibilities
The editor of a journal has complete responsibility and authority to accept a paper for publication or to reject it based on the expertise and experience of editors. Any confusion of local editors may be referred to international associate board of editors in obtaining their judgment. The editor may confer with associate editors in making this decision. Situations that may lead to real or perceived conflicts of interest should be avoided in the journal best interest.
An editor should give prompt and unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, judging each on its quality and merits. This must be independent and regardless to gender, religious belief, ethnic, nationality, work organisations or political inclination of the authors, and respecting the intellectual independence of the authors.
The editor or the editorial staff must not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to others than the reviewers. The convincing evidence that the manuscript or conclusions of a published paper are erroneous should encourage the editors to publish a correction or the whole paper retraction. The editors have the discrete authority to the same authors to a more strict scrutiny of future manuscripts or withholding the possibility of further publication in this journal for the next period of two years.
English Language
Editing APMAJ emphasizes on the linguistic accuracy of every manuscript published. Thus all authors are required to get their manuscripts edited by professional English language editors.
Author(s) must confirm that their manuscripts have been adequately edited. A proof (in a form of certificate/ written statement) from recognised editing service provider should be submitted together with the cover letter at the time of submitting a manuscript to APMAJ. All costs will be borne by the author(s).
This step, taken by authors before submission, will greatly facilitate reviewing, and thus publication if the content is acceptable.