BIJED

Benin International Journal for Entrepreneurship Development is committed to upholding and promoting best ethical practices in the publication of scholarly articles. To this end, BIJED follows the ethical practices and guidlines outlined by theCommittee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These practices and guidelines underscores the expected behaviour of the Author, the Chief Editor, the Editorial Board, the Reviewer­­­­­ and the Publisher (BIJED).

Note: The ethical guidelines below were adapted from  Elsevier's Publishing Policies which conforms to  COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors

Publication Decisions

1. The editor(s) (Editor-in-Chief and/or Managing Editor) are responsible for determining submitted articles that will be published. The decisions of the editors shall always be driven by the quality/intellectual content of the paper in question, and the editorial policies of the journal. /p
2. Editors shall at all times ensure that the editorial policies promote and encourage a transaparent and honest editorial process.
3. Editors shall at no time base their evaluation of manuscripts on the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

Manuscript submitted to BIJED will be treated as confidential material, and will be disclosed only to individuals (including editorial staff, corresponding authors, potential reviewers, actual reviewers, and editors) who partake in the processing and preparation of the manuscript for possible publication. However, in suspected cases of misconduct, a manuscript may be revealed to members of the BIJED ethics committee and institutions/organizations that may require it for the resolution of the misconduct.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

1. Information and ideas contained in unpublished manuscripts submitted to the Journal is confidential. Actors in the editorial process (including editors and reviewers) who have previleged access to such information are prohibited from using them for personal or other purposes.
2. Editors and Reviewers must disclose any form of relationship or connection they share with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to a submitted paper that may result in a conflict of interest. Where there is conflict of interest, editors and reviewers should rescue themselves by asking another member of the editorial board or another reviewer to instead review and consider the manuscript in question.
3. Editors must at all times ensure that all manuscripts submitted to the journal are subjected to all of the journal’s usual procedures, and peer review is handled independently of the interest of any paries in the edtorial process.
4. All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Investigation of Misconducts

1. Any action, behaviour or conduct (including the violation of any part of BIJED editorial policy, journal policies, publication ethics, and any applicable guidelines/policies specified by BIJED) will constitue misconduct.
2. The editor (in collaboration with the publisher) should take apropriate measures to safeguard the integrity of the journal in cases of ethical compalaint about a submitted manuscript or published article.
3. All cases of ethical complaints will be investigated and where there are convincing evidence of misconduct, appropriate actions (including the prompt publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other correction as may be relevant) will be taken. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

Duties of Reviewers

These guidelines are adopted from  Elsevier's Publishing Policies which conforms to  COPE's Best Practice Guidelines  for Journal Editors

• Contribution to editorial decisions

  Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication, and lies at the heart of the scientific method. In addition to the specific ethics-related duties described below, reviewers are asked generally to treat authors and their work as they would like to be treated themselves and to observe good reviewing etiquette.

  Any selected referee 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 decline to participate in the review process.

• Alertness to ethical issues

  A reviewer should be alert to potential ethical issues in the paper and should bring these to the attention of the editor, including any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which the reviewer has personal knowledge. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.

• Standards of objectivity & competing interests

  Reviews should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should be aware of any personal bias they may have and take this into account when reviewing a paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

  Reviewers should consult the Editor before agreeing to review a paper where they have potential conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

  If a reviewer suggests that an author includes citations to the reviewer’s (or their associates’) work, this must be for genuine scientific reasons and not with the intention of increasing the reviewer’s citation count or enhancing the visibility of their work (or that of their associates).

Duties of Authors

• Reporting standards

  Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

  Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial ‘opinion’ works should be clearly identified as such.

• Data access and retention

  Authors may be asked to provide the research data supporting their paper for editorial review and/or to comply with the open data requirements of the journal. Authors should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable number of years after publication. Authors may refer to their journal’s Guide for Authors for further details.

• Originality and acknowledgement of sources

  The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted and permission has been obtained where necessary.

  Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have influenced the reported work and that give the work appropriate context within the larger scholarly record. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source.

  Plagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical behaviour and is unacceptable.

• Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

  An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical behaviour and is unacceptable.

  In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a paper that has been published previously, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint.

• 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 substantial contributions should be listed as co-authors.

  Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the paper (e.g. language editing or medical writing), they should be recognised in the acknowledgements section.

  The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate 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.

  Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider (at their discretion) the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been submitted and the author must clearly flag any such request to the Editor. All authors must agree with any such addition, removal or rearrangement.

  Authors take collective responsibility for the work. Each individual author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

• Notification of fundamental errors

  When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper if deemed necessary by the editor. If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains an error, it is the obligation of the author to cooperate with the editor, including providing evidence to the editor where requested.