Editors Responsibilities

EDITORS' RESPONSIBILITIES POLICY

1. General Duties, Editorial Accountability, and Academic Quality

  • 1.1. Ultimate Accountability: Editors of the Journal of Management Info (JMI) hold total responsibility and accountability for everything published in the journal. They must actively maintain, defend, and elevate the academic and intellectual quality of the journal, ensuring that published research meets the needs of both readers and authors.
  • 1.2. Stakeholder Engagement: Editors must maintain open, continuous communication with readers, authors, reviewers, editorial board members, and the publisher (Readers Insight) to gather feedback, address procedural weaknesses, and integrate technological advancements in scholarly publishing.
  • 1.3. Priority of Academic Standards: The intellectual quality, ethical integrity, and scientific validity of JMI's published works must always take absolute priority over commercial, business, or marketing considerations. Editors must persuade the publisher to provide ample resources, legal guidance, and technical tools to combat publishing misconduct.
  • 1.4. Self-Correction of the Record: Editors must ensure robust, transparent systems are in place to publish corrections, retractions, clarifications, and apologies immediately upon identifying errors or ethical breaches.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions): Uncompromising editorial accountability and transparent self-correction mechanisms align with SDG Target 16.6 (developing effective, accountable, and transparent institutions) by safeguarding the public record from distortion, fraud, and misinformation.

2. Relationship with Readers & Selection Transparency

  • 2.1. Content Integrity and Utility: Editors have an ethical responsibility to deliver highly useful, transparent, and high-quality scholarly information to readers.
  • 2.2. Explicit Separation of Content: To prevent confusion, editors must establish and maintain separate, clearly marked sections for peer-reviewed research articles and non-peer-reviewed content (e.g., editorials, theoretical commentaries).
  • 2.3. Public Review Workflows: JMI's complete manuscript selection criteria and peer-review process must be displayed on the journal's landing page in an accessible, visual format (such as a flowchart) so readers can easily verify JMI’s objective evaluation pathways.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions): Clear, public documentation of selection workflows supports open access to information, guaranteeing that public administration, business leaders, and the global public can trust the scientific validity of JMI's publications.

3. Relationship with Authors & Merit-Based Decisions

  • 3.1. Impartial Merit-Based Evaluation: Authors have a fundamental right to an objective, timely, and impartial peer-review process. Editors must ensure that all publication decisions (acceptance or rejection) are based strictly on merit—specifically, originality, methodological validity, clarity, and relevance to the journal’s scope.
  • 3.2. Scope Routing: If a submitted manuscript is high-quality but falls outside JMI's scope, editors should proactively recommend that the authors submit their work to a more relevant journal within the Readers Insight portfolio.
  • 3.3. Safeguarding Decisions: Once an editor accepts a manuscript, they must not reverse the decision unless severe technical flaws or ethical misconduct (e.g., plagiarism, data fabrication) are proven post-acceptance. Decisions must never be overturned due to changes in editorial board composition.
  • 3.4. Administrative Justice & Appeals: Editors must maintain updated, comprehensive author guidelines, a transparent grievance resolution mechanism, and a formal process allowing authors to appeal editorial rejections within three months. Unresolved appeals must be escalated to an independent board beyond the editor-in-chief.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities): Enforcing strict, merit-based criteria and formal appeals procedures ensures that scholars from low-resource institutions or developing nations are treated with absolute equity, removing institutional power imbalances.

4. Relationship with Reviewers & Anonymity Safeguards

  • 4.1. Complete Reviewer Guidance: Editors must provide comprehensive, updated instructions to reviewers regarding JMI's scope, ethical policies, and confidentiality expectations.
  • 4.2. Anonymity Enforcement: Because JMI utilizes a double-anonymized peer-review model, editors are strictly responsible for stripping all author-identifying markers from manuscripts before assignment and keeping reviewers' identities hidden.
  • 4.3. Reviewer Verification (COPE/Scopus Alignment): Editors must actively verify the credentials of all invited reviewers to prevent peer-review fraud. Reviewers must register using institutional email addresses or linked, validated ORCID profiles, with their publication histories audited prior to manuscript assignment.
  • 4.4. Integrity Collaboration: Editors must encourage reviewers to remain vigilant for signs of research misconduct, such as plagiarism, text recycling, data fabrication, or suspected paper mill interventions.
  • 4.5. Database Maintenance: Editors must maintain and continuously update a high-quality database of active, reliable reviewers, monitoring their performance, timeliness, and review quality.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth): Protecting reviewer confidentiality and verifying reviewer credentials prevents academic exploitation and review fraud, establishing a safe, respectful, and highly professional workspace for global evaluators.

5. Relationship with the Editorial Board

  • 5.1. Operational Guidance: Editors must supply clear, written mandates to Editorial Board members outlining their specific functions, which include academic support, peer reviewing, writing guest commentaries, promoting JMI at international venues, and participating in annual board meetings.
  • 5.2. Ethical Oversight Committees: Editors may constitute specialized sub-committees composed of Editorial Board members to lead formal investigations into complex cases of suspected scientific misconduct.
  • 5.3. Strategic Board Composition (Scopus Selection Criteria): Editors are responsible for the composition and active diversification of the Editorial Board, striving to recruit internationally recognized management scholars to ensure geographical, gender, and institutional representation.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals): Cultivating a geographically and institutionally diverse Editorial Board builds multilateral, cross-border partnerships that connect JMI's research directly with international development agendas.

6. Relationship with the Publisher (Editorial Independence Firewall)

  • 6.1. Complete Editorial Independence: JMI operates under a strict principle of editorial independence. While under contract with Readers Insight Publisher in accordance with the COPE Code of Conduct, editors hold absolute authority, responsibility, and accountability for the journal's editorial content.
  • 6.2. Editorial-Commercial Firewall: To prevent financial bias, all Article Processing Charge (APC) transactions, payments, and waiver negotiations are handled exclusively by Readers Insight's administrative department and are kept completely hidden from editors and reviewers.
  • 6.3. Disagreement Resolution: Any operational or strategic disagreements between the Editorial Team and Readers Insight must be resolved through a formal, documented arbitration process outlined in the publisher's contract, prioritizing academic integrity over commercial interests.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions): An absolute firewall separating commercial revenue (APCs) from academic selection eliminates financial bias, ensuring JMI remains a clean, corruption-free institution.

7. Quality & Confidentiality of Editorial Processes

  • 7.1. Strict Confidentiality: Editors must treat all submitted manuscripts, communication histories, and reviewer files as highly confidential, privileged documents. They are strictly prohibited from using unpublished research data or findings for personal, professional, or competitive advantage.
  • 7.2. Screening Safeguards: Editors must implement and run automated screening systems (such as Turnitin/iThenticate and the "Ethicality" metadata analyzer) to detect plagiarism, text recycling, data falsification, and redundant submissions at triage.
  • 7.3. "Human-in-the-Loop" Principle: No manuscript may be desk-rejected or sanctioned solely based on an automated tool. All flagged anomalies must be manually investigated and validated by a human editor.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure): Maintaining absolute confidentiality protects authors' intellectual property during evaluation, encouraging researchers to submit pioneering corporate or technological innovations without fear of intellectual theft.

8. Privacy Laws & GDPR Compliance

  • 8.1. Data Confidentiality Laws: Editors must strictly comply with modern data privacy and protection frameworks, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). They must protect the personal information (names, affiliations, and emails) of authors, reviewers, and research participants.
  • 8.2. Consent for Identifiable Individuals: Editors must verify that authors have obtained written, informed consent for publication from any individuals who are identifiable in the manuscript (e.g., in qualitative interviews or organizational case studies). Under strict COPE guidance, this clause may only be relaxed if the study is in the public interest, obtaining consent is physically impossible, and the individual is highly unlikely to object.
  • 8.3. Discretionary Name Changes: To protect author privacy, editors must support discreet, retroactive author name changes (such as due to marriage or gender transition), pushing updated metadata to indexing partners without issuing public amendment notices.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions): Respecting and enforcing modern data privacy laws like GDPR ensure that academic operations do not violate the fundamental human rights of global researchers and participants.

9. Dealing with Suspected Misconduct and Whistleblowers

  • 9.1. Duty to Investigate: Editors have a proactive ethical duty to take swift action if they suspect research misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to their attention by a reviewer, reader, or whistleblower.
  • 9.2. Structured Investigative Process: Editors must investigate all allegations of misconduct in accordance with the relevant COPE Flowcharts:
    1. Request detailed clarification and raw data access from the corresponding author.
    2. If the author's response is unsatisfactory or reveals proven fabrication/plagiarism, the editor must reject the manuscript (if unpublished) or initiate a formal correction/retraction (if published).
    3. If necessary, the editor must escalate the issue by submitting a formal complaint and evidence to the author’s parent academic institution or governing ethics board.
  • 9.3. Whistleblower Protection: Editors must protect the identity of whistleblowers who flag research anomalies and must investigate anonymous complaints with equal rigor if specific, verifiable evidence is supplied.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions): Protecting whistleblowers and maintaining a rigorous, self-correcting ethical investigative framework prevents scientific fraud, supporting clean institutional governance.

10. Managing Editor Conflicts of Interest

  • 10.1. Transparency and Public Disclosures: Editors must maintain and publish an annual, updated registry on JMI’s website detailing any financial, academic, or institutional interests of themselves, their editorial staff, and Editorial Board members.
  • 10.2. Objective Recusal Thresholds: Editors must declare a clear, unbiased process for handling submissions where they have a conflict of interest.
    • Any financial relationship exceeding $5,000 USD per year requires the immediate recusal of the editor.
    • Submissions authored by editors, board members, or their close institutional colleagues must be assigned to an independent, external editor, with the conflicted editor blocked from accessing the peer-review files.
  • SDG Alignment (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions): Publicly disclosing conflicts of interest and enforcing rigid, quantitative recusal thresholds builds institutional transparency and eliminates corporate and regional bias.