Digital Transformation and Society

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

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.

Article title

A concisely worded title should be provided.

Author details

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

Structured Abstract

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).

Keywords

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. 

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:

• 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.

Notes/endnotes

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.

Figures

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.

Tables

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.

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, 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.

For journals

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.

For published
conference proceedings

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.

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 encyclopedia entries
(with no author or editor)

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)

For newspaper
articles (authored)

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.

For newspaper
articles (non-authored)

Newspaper (year), "Article title", date, pages.

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 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).