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.
Generative AI usage key principles
- Copywriting any part of an article using a generative AI tool/LLM would not be permissible, including the generation of the abstract or the literature review, for as per Emerald’s authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.
- The generation or reporting of results using a generative AI tool/LLM is not permissible, for as per Emerald’s authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the creation and interpretation of their work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.
- The in-text reporting of statistics using a generative AI tool/LLM is not permissible due to concerns over the authenticity, integrity, and validity of the data produced, although the use of such a tool to aid in the analysis of the work would be permissible.
- Copy-editing an article using a generative AI tool/LLM in order to improve its language and readability would be permissible as this mirrors standard tools already employed to improve spelling and grammar, and uses existing author-created material, rather than generating wholly new content, while the author(s) remains responsible for the original work.
- The submission and publication of images created by AI tools or large-scale generative models is not permitted.
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 iThenticate 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 information
This is a sponsored open access journal, also referred to as platinum open access. Because it is published in partnership with an organisation, your article will be published open access, but you will not have to pay an APC (article processing charge) - publication is free. Your article will be published with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence, which outlines how readers can reuse your work.
You can find out more about our open access routes 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
The journal's policy is open access and creative commons. Authors retain their rights to republish this material in other works written or edited by them, subject to full acknowledgement of the original source of publication.
Please prepare your manuscript before submission, using the following guidelines:
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Format
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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.
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Article length
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Articles should be between 6000 and 9000 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.
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Article title
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A concisely worded title should be provided.
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Author details
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All contributing authors’ names should be added to the ScholarOne submission, and their names arranged in the correct order for publication.
- Correct e-mail addresses should be supplied for each author in their separate author accounts
- The full name of each author must be present in their author account in the exact format they should appear for publication, including or excluding any middle names or initials as required
- The affiliation of each contributing author should be correct in their individual author account. The affiliation listed should be where they were based at the time that the research for the paper was conducted
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| Biographies and acknowledgements |
Authors who wish to include these items should save them together in an MS Word file to be uploaded with the submission. If they are to be included, a brief professional biography of not more than 100 words should be supplied for each named author. |
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Structured Abstract
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All submissions must include a structured abstract, both via the online submission system and within the Word document, following the format outlined below.
These four sub-headings and their accompanying explanations must always be included:
- Purpose
- Design/methodology/approach
- Findings
- Originality
The following three sub-headings are optional and can be included, if applicable:
- Research limitations/implications
- Practical implications
- Social 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).
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Keywords
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Authors should provide appropriate and short keywords in the ScholarOne submission that encapsulate the principal topics of the paper (see the How to... ensure your article is highly downloaded guide for practical help and guidance on choosing search-engine friendly keywords). The maximum number of keywords is 12.
Whilst Emerald will endeavour to use submitted keywords in the published version, all keywords are subject to approval by Emerald’s in house editorial team and may be replaced by a matching term to ensure consistency.
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Article classification
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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:
- Research Paper
- Practitioner Paper
- Book Review
For the first two types of submissions, the following paper structure is recommended:
Research Paper
- Title
- Abstract
- Keywords
- Introduction
- Background
- Research Methodology
- Results & Findings
- Discussions
- Conclusions
Practitioner Paper
- Title
- Abstract
- Keywords
- Introduction
- Background
- Solutions
- Results and Discussions
- Conclusions
However, your paper structure is allowed to be flexibly adjusted to disciplines dominant practices.
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. This category covers papers which report on any type of research undertaken by the author(s). The research may involve the construction or testing of a model or framework, action research, testing of data, market research or surveys, empirical, scientific or clinical research.
Viewpoint. Any paper, where content is dependent on the author's opinion and interpretation, should be included in this category; this also includes journalistic pieces.
Technical paper. Describes and evaluates technical products, processes or services.
Conceptual paper. These papers will not be based on research but will develop hypotheses. The papers are likely to be discursive and will cover philosophical discussions and comparative studies of others' work and thinking.
Case study. Case studies describe actual interventions or experiences within organizations. They may well be subjective and will not generally report on research. A description of a legal case or a hypothetical case study used as a teaching exercise would also fit into this category.
Literature review. It is expected that all types of paper cite any relevant literature so this category should only be used if the main purpose of the paper is to annotate and/or critique the literature in a particular subject area. It may be a selective bibliography providing advice on information sources or it may be comprehensive in that the paper's aim is to cover the main contributors to the development of a topic and explore their different views.
General review. This category covers those papers which provide an overview or historical examination of some concept, technique or phenomenon. The papers are likely to be more descriptive or instructional ("how to" papers) than discursive.
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| Headings |
Headings must be concise, with a clear indication of the distinction between the hierarchy of headings.
The preferred format is for first level headings to be presented in bold format and subsequent sub-headings to be presented in medium italics |
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Notes/endnotes
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Notes or endnotes should be used only if absolutely necessary and must be identified in the text by consecutive numbers, enclosed in square brackets and listed at the end of the article.
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Figures
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All Figures (charts, diagrams, line drawings, web pages/screenshots, and photographic images) should be submitted in electronic form.
All figures should be of high quality, legible and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Graphics may be supplied in colour to facilitate their appearance on the online database.
- Figures created in MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, Illustrator should be supplied in their native formats. Electronic figures created in other applications should be copied from the origination software and pasted into a blank MS Word document or saved and imported into an MS Word document or alternatively create a PDF file from the origination software.
- Figures which cannot be supplied as above are acceptable in the standard image formats which are: .pdf, .ai, and .eps. If you are unable to supply graphics in these formats then please ensure they are .tif, .jpeg, or .bmp at a resolution of at least 300dpi and at least 10cm wide.
- To prepare web pages/screenshots simultaneously press the "Alt" and "Print screen" keys on the keyboard, open a blank Microsoft Word document and simultaneously press "Ctrl" and "V" to paste the image. (Capture all the contents/windows on the computer screen to paste into MS Word, by simultaneously pressing "Ctrl" and "Print screen".)
- Photographic images should be submitted electronically and of high quality. They should be saved as .tif or .jpeg files at a resolution of at least 300dpi and at least 10cm wide. Digital camera settings should be set at the highest resolution/quality possible.
- 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.
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Tables
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Tables should be typed and included in a separate file to the main body of the article. The position of each table should be clearly labelled in the body text of article with corresponding labels being clearly shown in the separate file.
Ensure that any superscripts or asterisks are shown next to the relevant items and have corresponding explanations displayed as footnotes to the table, figure or plate.
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Supplementary files
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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).
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References
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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.
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For books
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Surname, Initials (year), Title of Book, Publisher, Place of publication.
e.g. Harrow, R. (2005), No Place to Hide, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.
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For book chapters
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Surname, Initials (year), "Chapter title", Editor's Surname, Initials, Title of Book, Publisher, Place of publication, pages.
e.g. Calabrese, F.A. (2005), "The early pathways: theory to practice – a continuum", in Stankosky, M. (Ed.), Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp. 15-20.
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For journals
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Surname, Initials (year), "Title of article", Journal Name, volume issue, pages.
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.
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For published
conference proceedings
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Surname, Initials (year of publication), "Title of paper", in Surname, Initials (Ed.), Title of published proceeding which may include place and date(s) held, Publisher, Place of publication, Page numbers.
e.g. Jakkilinki, R., Georgievski, M. and Sharda, N. (2007), "Connecting destinations with an ontology-based e-tourism planner", in Information and communication technologies in tourism 2007 proceedings of the international conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2007, Springer-Verlag, Vienna, pp. 12-32.
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For unpublished
conference proceedings
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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).
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For working papers
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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.
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For encyclopedia entries
(with no author or editor)
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Title of Encyclopedia (year) "Title of entry", volume, edition, Title of Encyclopedia, Publisher, Place of publication, pages.
e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1926) "Psychology of culture contact", Vol. 1, 13th ed., Encyclopaedia Britannica, London and New York, NY, pp. 765-71.
(For authored entries please refer to book chapter guidelines above)
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For newspaper
articles (authored)
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Surname, Initials (year), "Article title", Newspaper, date, pages.
e.g. Smith, A. (2008), "Money for old rope", Daily News, 21 January, pp. 1, 3-4.
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For newspaper
articles (non-authored)
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Newspaper (year), "Article title", date, pages.
e.g. Daily News (2008), "Small change", 2 February, p. 7.
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For archival or other unpublished sources
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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.
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For electronic sources
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If available online, the full URL should be supplied at the end of the reference, as well as a date that the resource was accessed.
e.g. Castle, B. (2005), "Introduction to web services for remote portlets", available at: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-wsrp/ (accessed 12 November 2007).
Standalone URLs, i.e. without an author or date, should be included either within 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).
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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 blind 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.
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 at least two independent referees for double blind peer review. Once these reviewers have provided their feedback, the editor may decide to accept your manuscript, request minor or major revisions, or decline your work.
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
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
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Is there a submission fee
for the journal?
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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.
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How can I become
a reviewer for a journal?
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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.
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Who do I contact if I want to find out which volume and issue my accepted paper will appear in?
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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.
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Who do I contact if I have
a query about my submission?
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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.
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Is my paper suitable
for the journal?
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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.
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How do I make a change to the list of authors once the manuscript has been submitted?
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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.
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