• Submit your paper
Author guidelines

Before you start

For queries relating to the status of your paper pre decision, please contact the Editor or Journal Editorial Office. For queries post acceptance, please contact the Supplier Project Manager. These details can be found in the Editorial Team section.

Author responsibilities

Our goal is to provide you with a professional and courteous experience at each stage of the review and publication process. There are also some responsibilities that sit with you as the author. Our expectation is that you will:

  • Respond swiftly to any queries during the publication process.
  • Be accountable for all aspects of your work. This includes investigating and resolving any questions about accuracy or research integrity
  • Treat communications between you and the journal editor as confidential until an editorial decision has been made.
  • Read about our research ethics for authorship. These state that you must:
    • Include anyone who has made a substantial and meaningful contribution to the submission (anyone else involved in the paper should be listed in the acknowledgements).
    • Exclude anyone who hasn’t contributed to the paper, or who has chosen not to be associated with the research.
    • In accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools, Large Language Models cannot be credited with authorship as they are incapable of conceptualising a research design without human direction and cannot be accountable for the integrity, originality, and validity of the published work.
  • If your article involves human participants, you must ensure you have considered whether or not you require ethical approval for your research, and include this information as part of your submission. Find out more about informed consent.

Research and publishing ethics

Our editors and employees work hard to ensure the content we publish is ethically sound. To help us achieve that goal, we closely follow the advice laid out in the guidelines and flowcharts on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) website.

We have also developed our research and publishing ethics guidelines. If you haven’t already read these, we urge you to do so – they will help you avoid the most common publishing ethics issues.

A few key points:

  • Any manuscript you submit to this journal should be original. That means it should not have been published before in its current, or similar, form. Exceptions to this rule are outlined in our pre-print and conference paper policies.  If any substantial element of your paper has been previously published, you need to declare this to the journal editor upon submission. Please note, the journal editor may use Crossref Similarity Check to check on the originality of submissions received. This service compares submissions against a database of 49 million works from 800 scholarly publishers.
  • Your work should not have been submitted elsewhere and should not be under consideration by any other publication.
  • If you have a conflict of interest, you must declare it upon submission; this allows the editor to decide how they would like to proceed. Read about conflict of interest in our research and publishing ethics guidelines.
  • By submitting your work to Emerald, you are guaranteeing that the work is not in infringement of any existing copyright.

Third party copyright permissions

Prior to article submission, you need to ensure you’ve applied for, and received, written permission to use any material in your manuscript that has been created by a third party. Please note, we are unable to publish any article that still has permissions pending. The rights we require are:

  • Non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the article or book chapter.
  • Print and electronic rights.
  • Worldwide English-language rights.
  • To use the material for the life of the work. That means there should be no time restrictions on its re-use e.g. a one-year licence.

We are a member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) and participate in the STM permissions guidelines, a reciprocal free exchange of material with other STM publishers.  In some cases, this may mean that you don’t need permission to re-use content. If so, please highlight this at the submission stage.

Please take a few moments to read our guide to publishing permissions to ensure you have met all the requirements, so that we can process your submission without delay.

Open access submissions and information

All our journals currently offer two open access (OA) publishing paths; gold open access and green open access.

If you would like to, or are required to, make the branded publisher PDF (also known as the version of record) freely available immediately upon publication, you can select the gold open access route once your paper is accepted.

If you’ve chosen to publish gold open access, this is the point you will be asked to pay the APC (article processing charge). This varies per journal and can be found on our APC price list or on the editorial system at the point of submission. Your article will be published with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence, which outlines how readers can reuse your work.

Alternatively, if you would like to, or are required to, publish open access but your funding doesn’t cover the cost of the APC, you can choose the green open access, or self-archiving, route. As soon as your article is published, you can make the author accepted manuscript (the version accepted for publication) openly available, free from payment and embargo periods.

You can find out more about our open access routes, our APCs and waivers and read our FAQs on our open research page. 

Find out about open

Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines

We are a signatory of the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, a framework that supports the reproducibility of research through the adoption of transparent research practices. That means we encourage you to:

  • Cite and fully reference all data, program code, and other methods in your article.
  • Include persistent identifiers, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), in references for datasets and program codes. Persistent identifiers ensure future access to unique published digital objects, such as a piece of text or datasets. Persistent identifiers are assigned to datasets by digital archives, such as institutional repositories and partners in the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS).
  • Follow appropriate international and national procedures with respect to data protection, rights to privacy and other ethical considerations, whenever you cite data. For further guidance please refer to our research and publishing ethics guidelines. For an example on how to cite datasets, please refer to the references section below.

Prepare your submission

Manuscript support services

We are pleased to partner with Editage, a platform that connects you with relevant experts in language support, translation, editing, visuals, consulting, and more. After you’ve agreed a fee, they will work with you to enhance your manuscript and get it submission-ready.

This is an optional service for authors who feel they need a little extra support. It does not guarantee your work will be accepted for review or publication.

Visit Editage

Manuscript requirements

Before you submit your manuscript, it’s important you read and follow the guidelines below.  

The abstract should present the context and/or background information of the research, besides the objective, methodology and main research results. You may consider highlighting the statement of the problem addressed in the research. It should also show the link to previous research as well as the implications (practical and theoretical) of the findings (see specific format below). 

The introduction should present, objectively, the topic and the main concepts and literature. It should describe a research gap and, based on that, a problem and research aim, better detailing the practical and theoretical contributions (including the originality of the paper) as well as the academic, economic and social impact of the research (Recommendation: it should not exceed two pages). 

The theoretical framework needs to be guided by the research problem. Simply including (listing) references from international leading journals on the topic (Scopus and JCR/SSCI) from the last 5 years is mandatory but not enough. Authors should map the state of the art on the subject, building mainly on top-tier Journals Scopus (Q1 and Q2) like TBL, and use them readily in the analysis and discussion of the results. 

The methodology needs to be presented and justified. More precisely, the relevant procedures and techniques for data collection and analysis must be covered and clearly described so that a replication of the research would be possible. The decisions made must be supported by the extant theory and/or previous empirical studies and fits the research problem. 

The results must be presented consistently and comprehensively. Authors are asked to perform an analysis of results that clearly reflects the theoretical background and methodological choices and to give the interpretation of results preferably contrasting previous empirical studies, regarding international context, in developed economies, and emerging markets (whenever applicable). 

All figures and tables need to be presented and discussed in the main text. 

Discussion of results is a broader and far-reaching exercise. In this way, it is strongly recommended to discuss the results and their impact on the economy and society, as well as the implications of the research for academic and business communities. The discussion should make explicit the contribution(s) to the relevant theory or literature on management, economics and business or information and technology. Thus, authors are invited to discuss the results (detailing the practical and theoretical contributions) in the light of the existing literature, seeking to stimulate reflections and bring forward the debates on the subject. 

The conclusions should present clearly and concisely the synthesis of the results, in accordance with the proposed objectives, theoretical background and methodology. The limitations of the research should be highlighted besides future research directions derived from these limitations or from the findings of the study. 

Author(s) will also find some useful tips in our structure of your journal submission how-to guide. 

Format

Article files should be provided in Microsoft Word format

While you are welcome to submit a PDF of the document alongside the Word file, PDFs alone are not acceptable. LaTeX files can also be used but only if an accompanying PDF document is provided. Acceptable figure file types are listed further below.

Article length / word count

Articles should be between 4000  and 8500 words in length. This includes all text, for example, the structured abstract, references, all text in tables, and figures and appendices. 

Please allow 280 words for each figure or table.

Article title

A concisely worded title should be provided.

Author details

The names of all contributing authors should be added to the ScholarOne submission; please list them in the order in which you’d like them to be published. Each contributing author will need their own ScholarOne author account, from which we will extract the following details:

  • Author email address (institutional preferred).
  • Author name. We will reproduce it exactly, so any middle names and/or initials they want featured must be included.
  • Author affiliation. This should be where they were based when the research for the paper was conducted.

In multi-authored papers, it’s important that ALL authors that have made a significant contribution to the paper are listed. Those who have provided support but have not contributed to the research should be featured in an acknowledgements section. You should never include people who have not contributed to the paper or who don’t want to be associated with the research. Read about our research ethics for authorship.

Biographies and acknowledgements

If you want to include these items, save them in a separate Microsoft Word document and upload the file with your submission. Where they are included, a brief professional biography of not more than 100 words should be supplied for each named author.

Research funding

Your article must reference all sources of external research funding in the acknowledgements section. You should describe the role of the funder or financial sponsor in the entire research process, from study design to submission.

Structured abstract

All submissions must include a structured abstract, following the format outlined below.

These six sub-headings and their accompanying explanations must always be included:

  • Purpose
  • Design/methodology/approach
  • Findings
  • Originality
  • Research limitations/implications (It is highly recommended to present theoretical contributions)
  • Practical/managerial implications and/or Social/economic implications

You can find some useful tips in our write an article abstract how-to guide.

The maximum length of your abstract should be 250 words in total, including keywords and article classification (see the sections below).

Keywords

Your submission should include up to 12 appropriate and short keywords that capture the principal topics of the paper. Our Creating an SEO-friendly manuscript how to guide contains some practical guidance on choosing search-engine friendly keywords.

Please note, while we will always try to use the keywords you’ve suggested, the in-house editorial team may replace some of them with matching terms to ensure consistency across publications and improve your article’s visibility.

Article classification

During the submission process, you will be asked to select a type for your paper; the options are listed below. If you don’t see an exact match, please choose the best fit:

 

  • Article
  • Regular Column
  • Book Review

 

You will also be asked to select a category for your paper. The options for this are listed below. If you don’t see an exact match, please choose the best fit:

Research paper. Reports on any type of research undertaken by the author(s), including:

  • The construction or testing of a model or framework
  • Action research
  • Testing of data, market research or surveys
  • Empirical, scientific or clinical research
  • Papers with a practical focus

Viewpoint. Covers any paper where content is dependent on the author's opinion and interpretation. This includes journalistic and magazine-style pieces.

Technical paper. Describes and evaluates technical products, processes or services.

Conceptual paper. Focuses on developing hypotheses and is usually discursive. Covers philosophical discussions and comparative studies of other authors’ work and thinking.

Case study. Describes actual interventions or experiences within organisations. It can be subjective and doesn’t generally report on research. Also covers a description of a legal case or a hypothetical case study used as a teaching exercise.

Literature review. This category should only be used if the main purpose of the paper is to annotate and/or critique the literature in a particular field. It could be a selective bibliography providing advice on information sources, or the paper may aim to cover the main contributors to the development of a topic and explore their different views.

General review. Provides an overview or historical examination of some concept, technique or phenomenon. Papers are likely to be more descriptive or instructional (‘how to’ papers) than discursive.

Headings

Headings must be concise, with a clear indication of the required hierarchy. 

The preferred format is for first level headings to be in bold, and subsequent sub-headings to be in medium italics.

Notes/endnotes

Notes or endnotes should only be used if absolutely necessary. They should be identified in the text by consecutive numbers enclosed in square brackets. These numbers should then be listed, and explained, at the end of the article.

Figures

All figures (charts, diagrams, line drawings, webpages/screenshots, and photographic images) should be submitted electronically. Both colour and black and white files are accepted.

There are a few other important points to note:

  • All figures should be supplied at the highest resolution/quality possible with numbers and text clearly legible.
  • Acceptable formats are .ai, .eps, .jpeg, .bmp, and .tif.
  • Electronic figures created in other applications should be supplied in their original formats and should also be either copied and pasted into a blank MS Word document, or submitted as a PDF file.
  • All figures should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and have clear captions.
  • All photographs should be numbered as Plate 1, 2, 3, etc. and have clear captions.
  • All figure/table captions should include the necessary credit line, acknowledgement, or attribution if you have been given permission to use the figure/table; if the figure/table is the property of the author(s), this should be acknowledged in the caption.

Tables

Tables should be typed and submitted in a separate file to the main body of the article. The position of each table should be clearly labelled in the main body of the article with corresponding labels clearly shown in the table file. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Roman numerals (e.g. I, II, etc.).

Give each table a brief title. Ensure that any superscripts or asterisks are shown next to the relevant items and have explanations displayed as footnotes to the table, figure or plate.

Supplementary files

Where tables, figures, appendices, and other additional content are supplementary to the article but not critical to the reader’s understanding of it, you can choose to host these supplementary files alongside your article on Insight, Emerald’s content hosting platform, or on an institutional or personal repository. All supplementary material must be submitted prior to acceptance.

If you choose to host your supplementary files on Insight, you must submit these as separate files alongside your article. Files should be clearly labelled in such a way that makes it clear they are supplementary; Emerald recommends that the file name is descriptive and that it follows the format ‘Supplementary_material_appendix_1’ or ‘Supplementary tables’. All supplementary material must be mentioned at the appropriate moment in the main text of the article, there is no need to include the content of the file but only the file name. A link to the supplementary material will be added to the article during production, and the material will be made available alongside the main text of the article at the point of EarlyCite publication.

Please note that Emerald will not make any changes to the material; it will not be copyedited, typeset, and authors will not receive proofs. Emerald therefore strongly recommends that you style all supplementary material ahead of acceptance of the article.

Emerald Insight can host the following file types and extensions:

  • Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
  • MS Word document (.doc, .docx)
  • MS Excel (.xls, xlsx)
  • MS PowerPoint (.pptx)
  • Image (.png, .jpeg, .gif)
  • Plain ASCII text (.txt)
  • PostScript (.ps)
  • Rich Text Format (.rtf)

If you choose to use an institutional or personal repository, you should ensure that the supplementary material is hosted on the repository ahead of submission, and then include a link only to the repository within the article. It is the responsibility of the submitting author to ensure that the material is free to access and that it remains permanently available.

Please note that extensive supplementary material may be subject to peer review; this is at the discretion of the journal Editor and dependent on the content of the material (for example, whether including it would support the reviewer making a decision on the article during the peer review process).

References

All references in your manuscript must be formatted using one of the recognised Harvard styles. You are welcome to use the Harvard style Emerald has adopted – we’ve provided a detailed guide below. Want to use a different Harvard style? That’s fine, our typesetters will make any necessary changes to your manuscript if it is accepted. Please ensure you check all your citations for completeness, accuracy and consistency.

Emerald’s Harvard referencing style

References to other publications in your text should be written as follows:

  • Single author: (Adams, 2006)
  • Two authors: (Adams and Brown, 2006)
  • Three or more authors: (Adams et al., 2006) Please note, ‘et al' should always be written in italics.

A few other style points. These apply to both the main body of text and your final list of references.

  • When referring to pages in a publication, use ‘p.(page number)’ for a single page or ‘pp.(page numbers)’ to indicate a page range.
  • Page numbers should always be written out in full, e.g. 175-179, not 175-9.
  • Where a colon or dash appears in the title of an article or book chapter, the letter that follows that colon or dash should always be lower case.
  • When citing a work with multiple editors, use the abbreviation ‘Ed.s’.

At the end of your paper, please supply a reference list in alphabetical order using the style guidelines below. Where a DOI is available, this should be included at the end of the reference.

For books

Surname, initials (year), title of book, publisher, place of publication.

e.g. Harrow, R. (2005), No Place to Hide, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.

For book chapters

Surname, initials (year), "chapter title", editor's surname, initials (Ed.), title of book, publisher, place of publication, page numbers.

e.g. Calabrese, F.A. (2005), "The early pathways: theory to practice – a continuum", Stankosky, M. (Ed.), Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp.15-20.

For journals

Surname, initials (year), "title of article", journal name, volume issue, page numbers.

e.g. Capizzi, M.T. and Ferguson, R. (2005), "Loyalty trends for the twenty-first century", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp.72-80.

For published 
conference proceedings

Surname, initials (year of publication), "title of paper", in editor’s surname, initials (Ed.), title of published proceeding which may include place and date(s) held, publisher, place of publication, page numbers.

e.g. Wilde, S. and Cox, C. (2008), “Principal factors contributing to the competitiveness of tourism destinations at varying stages of development”, in Richardson, S., Fredline, L., Patiar A., & Ternel, M. (Ed.s), CAUTHE 2008: Where the 'bloody hell' are we?, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Qld, pp.115-118.

For unpublished 
conference proceedings

Surname, initials (year), "title of paper", paper presented at [name of conference], [date of conference], [place of conference], available at: URL if freely available on the internet (accessed date).

e.g. Aumueller, D. (2005), "Semantic authoring and retrieval within a wiki", paper presented at the European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC), 29 May-1 June, Heraklion, Crete, available at: http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de/file/aumueller05wiksar.pdf (accessed 20 February 2007).

For working papers

Surname, initials (year), "title of article", working paper [number if available], institution or organization, place of organization, date.

e.g. Moizer, P. (2003), "How published academic research can inform policy decisions: the case of mandatory rotation of audit appointments", working paper, Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, 28 March.

For encyclopaedia entries 
(with no author or editor)

Title of encyclopaedia (year), "title of entry", volume, edition, title of encyclopaedia, publisher, place of publication, page numbers.

e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1926), "Psychology of culture contact", Vol. 1, 13th ed., Encyclopaedia Britannica, London and New York, NY, pp.765-771.

(for authored entries, please refer to book chapter guidelines above)

For newspaper 
articles (authored)

Surname, initials (year), "article title", newspaper, date, page numbers.

e.g. Smith, A. (2008), "Money for old rope", Daily News, 21 January, pp.1, 3-4.

For newspaper 
articles (non-authored)

Newspaper (year), "article title", date, page numbers.

e.g. Daily News (2008), "Small change", 2 February, p.7.

For archival or other unpublished sources

Surname, initials (year), "title of document", unpublished manuscript, collection name, inventory record, name of archive, location of archive.

e.g. Litman, S. (1902), "Mechanism & Technique of Commerce", unpublished manuscript, Simon Litman Papers, Record series 9/5/29 Box 3, University of Illinois Archives, Urbana-Champaign, IL.

For electronic sources

If available online, the full URL should be supplied at the end of the reference, as well as the date that the resource was accessed.

Surname, initials (year), “title of electronic source”, available at: persistent URL (accessed date month year).

e.g. Weida, S. and Stolley, K. (2013), “Developing strong thesis statements”, available at: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/1/ (accessed 20 June 2018)

Standalone URLs, i.e. those without an author or date, should be included either inside parentheses within the main text, or preferably set as a note (Roman numeral within square brackets within text followed by the full URL address at the end of the paper).

For data

Surname, initials (year), title of dataset, name of data repository, available at: persistent URL, (accessed date month year).

e.g. Campbell, A. and Kahn, R.L. (2015), American National Election Study, 1948, ICPSR07218-v4, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (distributor), Ann Arbor, MI, available at: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07218.v4 (accessed 20 June 2018)

Submit your manuscript

There are a number of key steps you should follow to ensure a smooth and trouble-free submission.

Double check your manuscript

Before submitting your work, it is your responsibility to check that the manuscript is complete, grammatically correct, and without spelling or typographical errors. A few other important points:

  • Give the journal aims and scope a final read. Is your manuscript definitely a good fit? If it isn’t, the editor may decline it without peer review.
  • Does your manuscript comply with our research and publishing ethics guidelines?
  • Have you cleared any necessary publishing permissions?
  • Have you followed all the formatting requirements laid out in these author guidelines?
  • Does the manuscript contain any information that might help the reviewer identify you? This could compromise the anonymous peer review process. A few tips:
    • If you need to refer to your own work, use wording such as ‘previous research has demonstrated’ not ‘our previous research has demonstrated’.
    • If you need to refer to your own, currently unpublished work, don’t include this work in the reference list.
    • Any acknowledgments or author biographies should be uploaded as separate files.
    • Carry out a final check to ensure that no author names appear anywhere in the manuscript. This includes in figures or captions.

You will find a helpful submission checklist on the website Think.Check.Submit.

The submission process

All manuscripts should be submitted through our editorial system by the corresponding author.

A separate author account is required for each journal you submit to. If this is your first time submitting to this journal, please choose the Create an account or Register now option in the editorial system. If you already have an Emerald login, you are welcome to reuse the existing username and password here.

Please note, the next time you log into the system, you will be asked for your username. This will be the email address you entered when you set up your account.

Don't forget to add your ORCiD ID during the submission process. It will be embedded in your published article, along with a link to the ORCiD registry allowing others to easily match you with your work.

Don’t have one yet? It only takes a few moments to register for a free ORCiD identifier.

Visit the ScholarOne support centre for further help and guidance.

What you can expect next

You will receive an automated email from the journal editor, confirming your successful submission. It will provide you with a manuscript number, which will be used in all future correspondence about your submission. If you have any reason to suspect the confirmation email you receive might be fraudulent, please contact our Rights team on [email protected]

Post submission

Review and decision process

Each submission is checked by the editor. At this stage, they may choose to decline or unsubmit your manuscript if it doesn’t fit the journal aims and scope, or they feel the language/manuscript quality is too low.

If they think it might be suitable for the publication, they will send it to an independent referee for double anonymous peer review.  Once the reviewer has provided their feedback, the editor may decide to accept your manuscript, request minor or major revisions, or decline your work.

The journal may also, from time to time, publish invited papers. These will be subject to editor-only review.

While all journals work to different timescales, the goal is that the editor will inform you of their first decision within 60 days.

During this period, we will send you automated updates on the progress of your manuscript via our submission system, or you can log in to check on the current status of your paper.  Each time we contact you, we will quote the manuscript number you were given at the point of submission. If you receive an email that does not match these criteria, it could be fraudulent and we recommend you email [email protected].

If your submission is accepted

Open access

Once your paper is accepted, you will have the opportunity to indicate whether you would like to publish your paper via the gold open access route.

If you’ve chosen to publish gold open access, this is the point you will be asked to pay the APC (article processing charge).  This varies per journal and can be found on our APC price list or on the editorial system at the point of submission. Your article will be published with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence, which outlines how readers can reuse your work.

Copyright

All accepted authors are sent an email with a link to a licence form.  This should be checked for accuracy, for example whether contact and affiliation details are up to date and your name is spelled correctly, and then returned to us electronically. If there is a reason why you can’t assign copyright to us, you should discuss this with your journal content editor. You will find their contact details on the editorial team section above.

Proofing and typesetting

Once we have received your completed licence form, the article will pass directly into the production process. We will carry out editorial checks, copyediting, and typesetting and then return proofs to you (if you are the corresponding author) for your review. This is your opportunity to correct any typographical errors, grammatical errors or incorrect author details. We can’t accept requests to rewrite texts at this stage.

When the page proofs are finalised, the fully typeset and proofed version of record is published online. This is referred to as the EarlyCite version. While an EarlyCite article has yet to be assigned to a volume or issue, it does have a digital object identifier (DOI) and is fully citable. It will be compiled into an issue according to the journal’s issue schedule, with papers being added by chronological date of publication.

How to share your paper

Visit our author rights page to find out how you can reuse and share your work.

To find tips on increasing the visibility of your published paper, read about how to promote your work.

Correcting inaccuracies in your published paper

Sometimes errors are made during the research, writing and publishing processes. When these issues arise, we have the option of withdrawing the paper or introducing a correction notice. Find out more about our article withdrawal and correction policies.

Need to make a change to the author list? See our frequently asked questions (FAQs) below.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a submission fee
for the journal?

The only time we will ever ask you for money to publish in an Emerald journal is if you have chosen to publish via the gold open access route. You will be asked to pay an APC (article processing charge) once your paper has been accepted (unless it is a sponsored open access journal). 

Read about our APCs

At no other time will you be asked to contribute financially towards your article’s publication. If you haven’t chosen gold open access and you receive an email which appears to be from Emerald, asking you for payment to publish, please contact our Rights team on permission[email protected]

How can I become
a reviewer for a journal?

Please contact the editor for the journal, with a copy of your CV. You will find their contact details on the editorial team tab on this page.

Who do I contact if I want to find out which volume and issue my accepted paper will appear in?

Typically, papers are added to an issue according to their date of publication. If you would like to know in advance which issue your paper will appear in, please contact the content editor of the journal. You will find their contact details on the editorial team tab on this page. Once your paper has been published in an issue, you will be notified by email.

Who do I contact if I have
a query about my submission?

Please email the journal editor – you will find their contact details on the editorial team tab on this page. If you ever suspect an email you’ve received from Emerald might not be genuine, you are welcome to verify it with the content editor for the journal, whose contact details can be found on the editorial team tab on this page. Alternatively, you can email our Rights team.

Is my paper suitable
for the journal?

If you’ve read the aims and scope on the journal landing page and are still unsure whether your paper is suitable for the journal, please email the editor and include your paper's title and structured abstract. They will be able to advise on your manuscript’s suitability. You will find their contact details on the Editorial team tab on this page.

How do I make a change to the list of authors once the manuscript has been submitted?

Authorship and the order in which the authors are listed on the paper should be agreed prior to submission. We have a right first time policy on this and no changes can be made to the list once submitted. If you have made an error in the submission process, please email the Journal Editorial Office who will look into your request – you will find their contact details on the editorial team tab on this page.

Editorial team
  • Editor-in-Chief

    • Professor Ricardo Vinícius Dias Jordão, PhD
      Swiss Management Center (Switzerland) and The Center for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics, CEFAGE-UE (Portugal)
      [email protected]
  • Editorial Assistant (For queries about submission issues, the status of your manuscript or peer review process)

    • Luiz Guilherme Rodrigues Antunes, MBA
      PhD student at University of São Paulo, FEA-USP (Brazil)
      [email protected]
    • Dr João Paulo Nascimento da Silva
      Fellow Researcher at The University of Lavras, UFLA (Brazil)
      [email protected]
  • Journal Editorial Office (For queries related to pre-acceptance)

  • Supplier Project Manager (For queries related to post-acceptance)

  • Associate Editors

    • Assistant Professor Bahaaeddin Alareeni
      Middle East Technical University (Turkey)
    • Dr. Fabio Antonialli
      PPA Business School and École Centrale Lyon (France)
    • Assistant Professor Ewerton Alex Avelar
      Faculty of Economic Sciences at UFMG (Brazil)
    • Assistant Professor Roberto Carlos Bernardes
      FEI University Center (Brazil)
    • Associate Professor Felipe Mendes Borini
      School of Economics, Administration and Accounting at University of São Paulo, FEA-USP (Brazil)
    • Assistant Professor Ripon K. Chakrabortty
      School of Engineering & Information Technology at UNSW Canberra (Australia)
    • Professor Susanne Durst
      Reykjavik University (Iceland) and School of Business at the University of Skövde (Sweden)
    • Professor Vipin Gupta
      Center for Global Management at California State University (USA)
    • Professor Allam Hamdan
      Ahlia University, Bahrain
    • Assistant Professor Remedios Hernández-Linares
      Financial Economics & Accounting Department at University of Extremadura (Spain)
    • Professor Syed Abdul Rehman Khan
      School of Management and Engineering at Xuzhou University of Technology (China)
    • Senior Lecturer Nuttawuth Muenjohn
      College of Business and Law at RMIT University (Australia)
    • Professor José Antonio Sousa Neto
      SKEMA Business School (Brazil, China, France, South Africa, USA) and Seattle University (USA)
    • Assistant Professor Jorge Casas Novas
      Management Department and CEFAGE, Évora University (Portugal)
    • Senior Lecturer Breno Nunes
      Aston Business School at Aston University (UK)
    • Assistant Professor Beatriz Pereira
      Ivy College of Business at Iowa State University (USA)
    • Associate Professor Muhammad Mustafa Raziq
      The University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates)
    • Assistant Professor Milos Ulman
      Department of Information Technologies at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (Czech Republic)
    • Associate Professor Malgorzata Zieba
      Faculty of Management and Economics at Gdansk University of Technology (Poland)
  • Editorial Advisory Board

    • Professor Kanwal Ameen
      University of Home Economics (Pakistan)
    • Professor Sergio Vale Aguiar Campos
      Department of Computer Science at UFMG and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT (USA)
    • Lecturer Ricardo Santana Diniz
      Partner and Global Leader of KPMG Lighthouse for Data & Analytics, Automation, and Artificial Intelligence (USA)
    • Professor Bryan Foss
      University of the West of England (UK)
    • Professor Ina Fourie
      University of Pretoria (South Africa)
    • Professor João Mauricio Gama Boaventura
      School of Economics, Administration and Accounting at University of São Paulo, FEA-USP (Brazil)
    • Professor Hernan Gil Forleo
      University of Buenos Aires (Argentina)
    • Professor Suraksha Gupta
      Newcastle University - UK
    • Professor Jane Hendy
      Dean of Brunel Business School at Brunel University London (UK)
    • Professor Myungsuh Lim
      Sangji University (Korea)
    • Assistant Professor Vera Lúcia Cançado Lima
      FUMEC University (Brazil) and Macquarie University (Australia)
    • Associate Professor Martin Liu
      Nottingham University Ningbo (People's Republic of China)
    • Dr Jon Machtynger
      Microsoft and Surrey University (UK)
    • Professor Rosa Nancy Matos Reyes
      ESAN Graduate School of Business (Peru) and President of Academic Committee of the CLADEA (Ibero-America)
    • Professor Enrique Ogliastri
      IE University Business School (Spain) and INCAE (Costa Rica)
    • Assistant Professor Rui Quaresma
      Management Department and CEFAGE, Évora University (Portugal)
    • Associate Professor Tiago Ratinho
      IESEG School of Management at Catholic University of Lille (France)
    • Professor Christian M. Ringle
      Executive Director of International Affairs at the Hamburg University of Technology (Germany)
    • Dr Marc Teerlink
      SAP (The Netherlands)
    • Professor Steven Weber
      Berkeley School of Information at Berkeley University (USA)
    • Professor Len Tiu Wright
      De Montfort University (UK)
    • Associate Professor Lan Xia
      Bentley University (USA)
    • Professor Mark Xu
      University of Portsmouth (UK)
  • Editorial Board

    • Professor Mohammed Abubakar
      Antalya Bilim University (Turkey)
    • Professor Muhammad Arif
      Allama Iqbal Open University (Pakistan)
    • Brigitte Bell, MBA
      Director of Library Services at University of St. Francis (USA)
    • Professor Rohaizat Bharun
      Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Malaysia)
    • Professor Kirk Chang
      University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates)
    • Dr Kate Davis
      Kingston University (UK)
    • Dr Yuksel Ekinci
      University of Portsmouth (UK)
    • Dr Geraint Evans
      St Mary's University (UK)
    • Professor Arpan Kumar Kar
      IIT Delhi (India)
    • Dr José Edson Lara
      Pedro Leopoldo Foundation (Brazil) and Bentley University (USA)
    • Mr Paul Laughlin
      Laughlin Consultancy (UK)
    • Professor Sebastian Molinillo
      University of Malaga - Spain
    • Mr Tony Mooney
      Decision Box (UK)
    • Mr Joff Morgan
      Senior Global Director - Design Thinking, SAP (UK)
    • Associate Professor Sanjit Kumar Roy
      The University of Western Australia (Australia)
    • Senior Lecturer Aidin Salamzadeh
      University of Tehran (Iran)
    • Dr Nektarios Tzempelikos
      Anglia Ruskin University (UK)
    • Professor Jorge A. Wise
      CETYS Graduate School of Business (Mexico) and IESEG Business School (France)
    • Professor Allen Xiaoyu Yu
      Shanghai University (People's Republic of China)
  • Editorial Review Board

    • Professor Esra Saleh Al Dhaen
      Ahlia University (Bahrain)
    • Dr Marian Hani Amin
      German University in Cairo (Egypt)
    • Senior Lecturer Eleni Aravopoulou
      St Mary's University (UK)
    • Assistant Professor Eugene Cheng-Xi Aw
      UCSI Graduate Business School at UCSI University (Malaysia)
    • Mr Robin Birn
      St Mary's University (UK)
    • Dr Cheng-Hao Steve Chen
      Southampton University (UK)
    • Dr. Mayanka Singh Chhonker
      Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester (UK)
    • Senior Lecturer José Osvaldo De Sordi
      Federal University of São Paulo, UNIFESP (Brazil)
    • Dr Marek Deja
      Jagiellonian University (Polland)
    • Dr Ana Domingos Canhoto
      Brunel University (UK)
    • Associate Professor Rui Fragoso
      Management Department and CEFAGE, Évora University (Portugal)
    • Dr Ezlika Ghazali
      University of Malaya (Malaysia)
    • Assistant Professor André Grützmann
      Department of Computer Science and Graduate Program in Management at the University of Lavras, UFLA (Brazil)
    • Associate Professor Bruce Chien-Ta Ho
      Institute of E-Commerce at National Chung Hsing University (Taiwan)
    • Professor Alireza Isfandyari-Moghaddam
      Islamic Azad University (Iran)
    • Dr Arnold Japutra
      Business School, University of Western Australia, Australia - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0513-8792
    • Assistant Professor Flávio Hourneaux Junior
      University of São Paulo, FEA-USP (Brazil)
    • Dr Brian Low Koon Huat
      Monash University Malaysia (Malaysia)
    • Mrs Liz Machtynger
      Kingston University and University of Portsmouth (UK)
    • Assistant Professor Frederico Cesar Mafra-Pereira
      School of Information Science at UFMG (Brazil)
    • Assistant Professor Cristina Galamba Marreiros
      Management Department and CEFAGE, Évora University (Portugal)
    • Mr Mauricius Munhos de Madeiros
      Governo de Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil)
    • Professor Nouf Musaeid
      Kuwait College of Science and Technology (Kuwait)
    • Dr Dilip Mutum
      University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (Malaysia)
    • Mr Brett Parnell
      MI-GSO PCUBED (UK)
    • Mr Mark Payton
      Principal, Mark Payton Consulting (USA)
    • Dr Sonia Royo
      University of Zaragoza (Spain)
    • Professor Norazah Mohd Suki
      Universiti Utara Malaysia (Malaysia)
    • Professor Scottie Wang
      Chinese Culture University (Taiwan)
    • Dr Jintao Wu
      Sun Yat-Sen University (People's Republic of China)
    • Lecturer Ahsan Zubair
      University Teknologi Malaysia (Malaysia)
  • Commissioning Editor

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The Bottom Line is a multidisciplinary international top leading journal publishing cutting-edge research that explores theoretical and practical aspects of information, knowledge and innovation and examines how sustainability and value are derived from these aspects by different actors from business and society.

ISSN: 0888-045X
eISSN: 0888-045X

Aims and scope

The Bottom Line is the first journal aiming to provide an exciting mix of work from academics and practitioners, focused on the latest developments in information, knowledge, and innovation; accentuating how sustainability and value can be derived from it, by analysing managerial, economic, informational, technological, organisational, legal and social aspects. The Bottom Line, however, is not just a peer-reviewed journal, which aims to bring its readers the best analyses and discussions related to the areas of information, knowledge, and innovation management, but also a unique journal that seeks to attract and publish high-quality articles that have significant implications for the theory and practice of information, management, economics, law, and business.

The journal is particularly interested in research articles (of all types and approaches) that are original, innovative, relevant, and impactful, well-grounded in rigorous previous research, promoting advanced conceptual, theoretical, and/or empirical knowledge, assisting in the development and improvement of theory and subject's applicability. This includes investigations into one (or at the interface) of the following three categories:

  1. Information, Knowledge, and Innovation in Organisations, helping to understand how these aspects can and should be used by managers and decision-makers in the public and private spheres to create value, foster more sustainable processes, or promote strategic, economic, financial, organisational, human, intellectual, technological, social, and/or environmental development.
  2. Management, Accounting, and Business expanding understanding of how the different functional areas of Administration (accounting and finance, strategy, marketing, human resources, research and development, project management, operations, logistics and distribution, information systems and technologies, among others); or business activities, systems, processes, technologies, and structures can and should be used by managers and decision-makers in organisations to create value or sustainability, considering the perspectives (theories, taxonomies, approaches, models, processes, systems, technologies, tools, among others) of information, knowledge, intellectual capital, and/or innovation. Research on quintuple helix, competitiveness, performance, efficiency and efficacy, or focusing on the triple bottom line, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and environmental, social, and corporate governance issues, among others, also integrate this category.
  3. Multidisciplinary studies in Management, Information, Law, Economics, and Business that help to understand, expand and consolidate the relationship between these five areas, focusing on the interface between two or three of them, in research aimed at (i) creating value or sustainability in organisations or (ii) analysing the topic under the organisational, informational, technological, cognitive, innovative or normative perspectives. Research on law, economics, or management focusing on information, engineering and systems, or science and [new] technologies, including digital economy, digital transformation, knowledge-based economy, digital business, artificial intelligence, intellectual property, and governance of information and technology, among others, can also be considered.

Benefits for authors

Aiming to minimise response delay, we are committed to a quick but rigorous double-blind peer-review process and rapid publication. Real Impact Articles will receive priority allocation of editors and reviewers, faster double-blind developmental review, and will be published as soon as possible.

We advise academic and practitioner authors on how to increase the socioeconomic, theoretical, practical, and managerial impact of their work, helping them to become innovative references for scholars, entrepreneurs, managers, and other stakeholders.

Benefits for readers

We aim to provide a mix of readable practitioner-focused articles and "classic" academic articles, so that readers can in one journal see how academic and practitioner thinking is evolving.