Guidelines for Authors

Guidelines for Authors

  1. Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process through the OJS platform, authors are required to verify that their manuscripts strictly comply with the following requirements. Submissions that do not meet these guidelines will be returned without proceeding to the evaluation stage.

  1. Originality and No Simultaneous Submissions: The manuscript is original and unpublished, has not been previously published, and is not currently under review or editorial consideration by another journal.
  2. Anonymization of the Main Document: The manuscript must be fully anonymized to ensure compliance with the double-blind peer review process.
  3. Separate Title Page: A title page containing complete authorship information must be uploaded as a supplementary file, including each author's ORCID, institutional affiliation, corresponding author details, and author contribution statement in accordance with the CRediT taxonomy.
  4. Ethical and Legal Declarations: The following duly signed declarations must be submitted:
  • Declaration of Originality.
  • Declaration of Absence of Conflicts of Interest.
  • Declaration on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools
  1. Editable File Format: The manuscript must be submitted in an editable Microsoft Word (.docx), OpenOffice (.odt), or RTF (.rtf) format, structured according to the IMRaD format and the journal's formatting requirements.
  2. Citation and Reference Guidelines: The APA Style Manual (7th edition) must be strictly followed. All in-text citations must correspond to entries in the final reference list, which must include active and interactive web links or DOI identifiers (in the format https://doi.org/...).
  3. Controlled Vocabulary: Keywords in both Spanish and English should preferably be selected from the UNESCO Thesaurus or the WTO (World Trade Organization) Thesaurus, as applicable.
  4. Editorial Policies: All authors must have read and fully accepted the journal's editorial, anti-plagiarism, artificial intelligence (AI) tool usage, and open access policies.
  1. Manuscript Preparation and Structure

Manuscripts must be submitted exclusively through the journal's Open Journal Systems (OJS) management platform after registering as an author.

  1. General Manuscript Formatting
  • Length: Between 4,000 and 8,000 words, including the abstract, tables, figures, footnotes, and references.
  • Margins: 2.5 cm on all sides (top, bottom, left, and right).
  • Font: Times New Roman or Arial, 12-point font for the main body of the text and 10-point font for tables, figures, and footnotes.
  • Line Spacing: 1.5 spacing throughout the main text; single spacing for tables, figures, and footnotes.
  • Acronyms and Abbreviations: These must be written out in full the first time they appear in the text, followed by the acronym in uppercase letters within parentheses (e.g., World Trade Organization [WTO]).
  1. Structure of the Anonymized Manuscript

For peer review purposes, the submitted manuscript must not contain any personal identifying information and must follow the IMRaD scientific structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion/Conclusions):

  • Title: Clear, concise, and informative (maximum of 15 words or two lines), written in both Spanish and English, using sentence case.
  • Structured Abstract: Written in both Spanish and English (between 200 and 250 words). It must briefly include the research objective, methodology, main findings, and conclusions.
  • Keywords: Between 5 and 6 terms in Spanish and English, separated by semicolons (;), and standardized using the UNESCO Thesaurus.
  • Introduction: Presentation of the research problem, theoretical foundations, background from the scientific literature, and research objective.
  • Methodology: Detailed and replicable description of the research approach, design, population, sample, data collection instruments, and empirical analysis procedures.
  • Results: Objective and clear presentation of the findings, supported by tables and/or figures, avoiding duplication of data between the text and illustrations.
  • Discussion and Conclusions: Comparison of the findings with previous theoretical and empirical literature, assessment of the research objectives, study limitations, practical implications for the business sector, and suggestions for future research.
  • References: Complete bibliographic list strictly following APA Style, 7th edition.

III. Title Page and Authorship Information (Separate File)

To safeguard the double-blind peer review process, authors must upload a supplementary file to the OJS platform entitled Title_Page_Authorship.docx, containing the following information:

  1. Author Information: Full first and last names of each author, listed according to their actual contribution to the research.
  2. Institutional Affiliation: Full name of each author's affiliated institution (without abbreviations or acronyms), department or faculty, city, and country.
  3. ORCID iD: Explicit and up-to-date ORCID registration for each author (e.g., https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000).
  4. Corresponding Author: Clear identification of the author responsible for editorial correspondence, including their physical/mailing address, institutional telephone number, and official email address.
  5. Author Contribution Statement (CRediT Taxonomy): Detailed description of each author's specific contribution (Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft, and Writing – Review & Editing).
  6. Funding: Explicit statement identifying the funding sources or institutional projects that supported the research, including the corresponding grant code or agreement number. If no funding was received, the following statement must be included: "This research did not receive any funding or grants from any public or private funding agency."
  7. Conflicts of Interest: A signed declaration stating the absence of any commercial, personal, or institutional relationships that could affect the objectivity of the study.
  1. Guidelines for Tables, Figures, and Graphic Elements
  • Exclusive Terminology: Only the terms Table and Figure shall be used. The latter includes charts, diagrams, maps, schemes, and photographs.
  • Table Formatting: Tables must be presented as editable text within the manuscript, following the basic APA style (no vertical lines, colors, or background shading). Tables pasted as images will not be accepted.
  • Numbering and Titles: All tables and figures must be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals (Table 1, Figure 1). Titles must be placed above the corresponding table or figure and left-aligned. Explicit references must be made to them in the body of the text, with the initial letter capitalized (e.g., "see Table 2").
  • Attribution and Sources: An explanatory note or the corresponding bibliographic source must be provided below each table or figure (e.g., "Note. Adapted from..." or "Note. Reproduced from...").
  • High-Resolution Images and Charts: Photographs and digital images must be included in the manuscript and also submitted as separate files in .JPEG or .TIFF format, with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. If charts have been generated using data analysis software or Excel, the original editable files must also be attached.
  1. In-Text Citations and References (APA Style, 7th Edition)
  2. In-Text Citations
  • Narrative Citations: The author's surname and year must be used, with the year in parentheses. For works by three or more authors, "et al." must be used from the first citation onward (e.g., Pérez et al., 2024). In narrative citations, the conjunction "and" must be used.
  • Parenthetical Citations: The author's surname and year must be indicated in parentheses, separated by a comma (e.g., Pérez, 2024). In parenthetical citations and reference lists following English-language APA conventions, the ampersand (&) must be used.
  • Direct Quotations: Direct quotations must obligatorily include the page number (e.g., p. 45 or pp. 45–47).
  1. Reference List
  • Digital Identifiers (DOI / URL): All references to journal articles, books, or electronic reports must include an active DOI link whenever available (in the format https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxx). If the source does not have a DOI, a direct and active URL to the document must be provided. No period should be placed after the DOI or URL.
  • Scientific Currency: The Editorial Board will prioritize manuscripts in which at least 50% of the references correspond to peer-reviewed and indexed articles published within the last five years.
  • Author Names and Titles: Surnames and initials of up to 20 authors must be included in each reference. Book titles and journal names must be written in full and italicized.
  1. Submission, Processing, Approval, and Licensing
  1. Submission Process: Manuscripts must be submitted exclusively through the OJS platform after completing the author registration process.
  2. Editorial Tracking: The corresponding author may monitor the progress of the manuscript in real time, including preliminary review, double-blind peer review, revisions, and typesetting, through the dashboard of their OJS account.
  3. Proofreading (Page Proofs): Once the article has been accepted and typesetting has been completed, the corresponding author will receive the final page proofs for verification. At this stage, only minor typographical or formatting corrections will be permitted, within a maximum period of five business days.
  4. Publication Consent and Authorization Letter: Together with the approved page proofs, authors must submit the duly signed Final Publication Authorization and Consent Letter.
  5. Open Access and Licensing: Business Innova Sciences is permanently distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.