Kafkas University Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences Faculty (KAUJEASF) observes the publication ethics principles, standards and recommendations determined by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors). Accordingly, all articles that do not comply with accepted ethical standards are removed from the publication. This includes articles with possible irregularities and inconsistencies detected after publication. Within the scope of publication ethics, all stakeholders are expected to have the following ethical responsibilities, and all ethical cases will be evaluated in accordance with COPE rules.

The ethical principles of KAUJEASF regarding publishing and editorial issues, ethical responsibilities towards authors, referees and editorial board, and publication policy have been prepared by taking into account the suggestions, guidelines and policies published by COPE and ICMJE as open access.

Click here for COPE's suggestions, guidelines and policies on publishing and editorial issues.
Click here for ICMJE's suggestions, guidelines and policies on publishing and editorial issues.

As KAUJEASF, we are committed to maintaining the highest standards of quality and impact in the research that we publish. To that end, we use a rigorous set of selection criteria to ensure that only the most significant and innovative research makes it into our journal.

Our selection criteria include:

Originality: We seek research that presents novel ideas and approaches to problems in the fields of economics and administrative sciences.
Significance: We look for research that has the potential to make a significant impact on its field and beyond.
Rigor: We prioritize research that is based on sound methodology, robust analysis, and comprehensive review of relevant literature.
Clarity: We favor research that is presented in a clear and concise manner, with well-organized arguments and data visualizations.
Ethics: We require that all research submitted to our journal adheres to the highest ethical standards, as outlined by internationally recognized organizations such as COPE and WAME.

Our editorial team carefully evaluates each submission against these criteria to determine its suitability for publication in our journal. We encourage authors to review our selection criteria and ensure that their research meets these standards before submitting to our journal.

KAUJEASF references the recommendations submitted by the ICMJE and guidelines  published by COPE on authorship.

The author is considered as an independent intellectual contributor to a published work and must meet the following four criteria as authorship criteria.

• Make a significant contribution to the concept or design process of the study or make a significant contribution to the acquisition of data, presentation, evaluation or interpretation of findings.
• Must have a critical point of view towards the preparation stage and content of the study, and should organize the study conceptually in this direction.
• It should give final approval to the work whose layout is completed and ready for publication.
• Accept responsibility for all parts of the work and ensure that concerns regarding the accuracy and integrity of any of the parts are duly investigated, dutifully investigated, addressed and resolved.

• All authors must have made significant contributions to the article, have read and approved the final version.
• All authors should declare any conflicts of interest and financial support and ethics committee approval, if necessary. 

Anyone designated as an author must meet the aforementioned criteria for authorship. The names of those who meet these criteria and are identified as authors should be listed in the study.

As KAUJEASF, we encourage co-authorship, but the authors of the study are responsible for determining who meets the authorship criteria and are responsible for making appropriate changes during the planning process or as the work progresses. In addition to being responsible for all parts of the work, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for the relevant parts of the work. All authors should have no doubt that author contributions are for the integrity of the work. The order of the authors in the study should be determined by the relevant author group.

If authors request the removal or addition of an author after submission or publication of the article, KAUJEASF will receive an explanation and a signed agreement statement for the requested change from all listed authors and the author to be removed or added.

The corresponding author is primarily responsible for article submission, as well as the sole responsibility for communication with the journal during the peer-review and publication process. The corresponding author will typically ensure that requirements such as providing authorship details, ethics committee approval if necessary, and copyright form are properly completed and reported. The corresponding author should be available to respond to editorial questions in a timely manner, to cooperate with requests for data or additional information from the journal during the submission and peer-review process, or to respond to positive/negative criticism if questions arise about the article after publication. Although the corresponding author has primary responsibility for correspondence with the journal, KAUJEASF provides information to all authors throughout the article evaluation and publication process.

Any contribution that does not meet the criteria for authorship should be mentioned in the "Acknowledgements" or "Financial Support" section of the study. should be mentioned. Fundraising, data collection, general consultancy of the research group, literary and technical editing, language editing and corrections are the topics to be mentioned in the "Acknowledgements" or "Material Support" section, as they do not provide the right to authorship alone.

Under the title of “Author Contributions” of the study, the type of contributions of the authors should be clearly written using the abbreviations of the names and surnames of the authors.

For example,

IN: Idea;
IN, EK: Design;
EK: Supervision;
IN, EK: Collection and/or processing of resources;
IN, EK: Analysis and/or interpretation;
IN: Literature review;
IN, EK: Written by;
EK: Critical review

Post-Publication Corrections and Retractions

KAUJEASF references COPE and ICMJE recommendations/guidelines regarding post-release corrections and withdrawals.

• When the work is published, the post-editing period is 5 days.

• The editor will make every effort to correct errors in published articles as soon as possible.

• Corrections will be made as a corrigendum or an erratum, depending on the nature and extent of the error.

• Corrections will be reviewed and approved by the editor.

• Retractions will be made in cases of serious scientific misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, or falsification.

• Retractions will be reviewed and approved by the editor.

• A retraction notice will be published and clearly linked to the original article.

Authors should have the following ethical responsibilities based on the COPE  and ICMJE guidelines. In this direction, click here to access the guidelines published by COPE for the authors.

1. Uploaded articles must comply with the journal's spelling rules.

2. Publication languages ​​are Turkish and English. Scientific and linguistic responsibility of the works published in the journal belong to the author(s).

3. The undertaking should be filled and signed by the author and uploaded together with the article through the DergiPark system.

4. The iThenticate similarity report should not exceed 20%, excluding references.

5. The opinions and responsibilities in the articles published in the journal belong to the authors.

6. If the article and article that is the subject of the research is supported by any institution or produced from the thesis, this should be stated in the article in accordance with the spelling rules.

7. The submitted work must not have been previously rejected in KAUJEASF, not peer-reviewed, not published anywhere, or not under review by another journal. Previously submitted papers can be sent by expanding and specifying this situation by giving footnotes to the article title.

8. The authors should have cited all the quotations they used in their articles.

9. The authors declare that the article is their own work, that they do not plagiarize in any way, that all responsibilities arising from plagiarism belong to them, and that the journal has no responsibility in this regard.

10. Authors should guarantee that they have contributed scientifically to the article and it should be known that all authors have equal responsibility for the article.

11. Corresponding author must ensure that all co-authors named in the article consent to publication and to be named as co-authors. All persons making significant contributions to the work should be named as co-authors.

12. Authors are obliged to declare the organizations that support the studies they submit, their financial resources or conflict of interest.

13 · Authors should provide access to the data sets in the article if deemed necessary.

14 · Authors must have prepared the articles submitted for publication in the journal in accordance with the rules of research and publication ethics. Ethics committee approval should be obtained separately for the researches carried out and for the studies that require obtaining data from human participants (survey studies, laboratory experiments, field experiments, interviews, examinations, etc.)

15. Within the framework of intellectual property and copyrights, it is necessary to obtain permission from the owners for the use of scales, surveys, photographs belonging to others and this should be stated in the article.

All articles submitted to KAUJEASF are evaluated by double-blind peer-review process. Double-blind refereeing means keeping the authors confidential from the referees and the referees from the authors in order to ensure an impartial, objective and independent evaluation process. Our journal has a referee and advisory group consisting of faculty members from various universities. The ethical responsibilities of referees are listed below on the basis of COPE and ICMJE recommendations/guidelines.

1. Any selected reviewer who is not qualified to review the research or who knows that it will be impossible to evaluate the article quickly should notify the editor of this situation and seek excuses from the review process.

2. The referees are obliged to keep the articles they receive confidential and not to use the information obtained from the refereeing process for their personal benefits.

3. Reviewers should not share their reports or information about the article with others and should not communicate directly with the authors without the permission of the editor.

4. Reviewers should be mindful of potential ethical issues in the manuscript and bring them to the attention of the editor. This includes substantive similarity and overlap between the review article and any other published work of which the reviewer has personal knowledge.

5. Refereeing should be done in an objective manner. Personal criticism of the authors should not be made, evaluations should be constructive, honest and polite.

6. Reviewers should consult the editor before agreeing to review a manuscript for which they have a potential conflict of interest, which may arise from a competitive, collaborative, or other relationship or affiliation with any of its authors.

The editor is responsible for all articles published in the journal. Editor's ethical duties and responsibilities, based on COPE and ICMJE recommendations/guidelines, are as follows:

1. The editor is responsible for making efforts to increase the quality of the journal and contribute to its development.

2. The editor must support the authors' freedom of expression.

3. The editor should ask the referees to evaluate the articles according to their knowledge and expertise. Thus, it should be ensured that the articles are evaluated appropriately by experts in the field.

4. The editor is obliged to request the referees to state that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the article before evaluating an article.

5. The editor is required to convey to the referees all necessary information regarding the referee evaluation process and what the referees are expected to do.

6. The editor should ensure that the peer-review process is carried out with double-blind peer-review and should not disclose the referees to the authors and the authors to the referees.

7. The editor should evaluate the referees according to their timing and performance.

8. The editor should create a database of referees and update the database according to the performance of the referees.

9. The editor should remove the referees who make rude and unqualified comments or return late from the referee list.

10. The editor should constantly renew and expand the list of referees according to their fields of expertise.

11. The editor should provide the authors with the editorial and writing guidelines and the sample template regarding what is expected of them.

12. The editor should evaluate the articles sent to the journal in terms of journal writing rules, the importance of the work, and originality, and if he decides to reject the article during the first

submission process, he should clearly and impartially convey to the authors the reason for this. During this process, if it is decided that the article needs to be revised in terms of grammar, punctuation and/or spelling rules (margins, appropriate reference, etc.), the authors should be informed about this and given time to make the necessary corrections.

13. When there is a request for information on the status of the authors' articles, the authors should be informed about the status of their articles in a way that does not disturb the double-blind peer-review process.

Publication Ethics

KAUJEASF takes into consideration the COPE and ICMJE recommendations/directives during the publication process.

1. Non-Discrimination: It is the editorial board's responsibility to decide which articles will be published in the journal. The editorial board evaluating the articles of the authors; should evaluate regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnicity, citizenship or political philosophies. The decision to be taken should be based on the accuracy, validity and importance of the article and the appropriateness of the scope of the journal. Current legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.

2. Confidentiality: The editor or any editorial board member should not disclose information about an article to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisors, and publishers. Unpublished material described in a submitted article should not be used in the editor's or editorial board's own research without the express written consent of the author.

3. Authorship/Ownership: The editor or any member of the editorial board should take action, taking into account the COPE and ICMJE recommendations/guidelines, if the list of authors is incomplete or suspected to include undeserving (guest or favor) authors.

4. Conflict of Interest: The editor or any member of the editorial board should take into account the COPE guidelines whenever a conflict of interest is suspected regarding both published and unpublished manuscripts.

5. Originality and Plagiarism: Manuscripts to be sent to the journal must be the work of the author(s). Using someone else's published or unpublished work or ideas without reference (ie plagiarism) is not acceptable. If plagiarism is detected, the editor or any member of the editorial board should take action, taking into account the COPE guidelines, depending on the degree of plagiarism.

Articles sent to the journal through the DergiPark system are first reviewed by the editors and assistant editors. In the general review phase, first of all, the compliance of the study with the journal's publication field and publication ethics / principles, as well as the complete implementation of the journal writing rules and the adequacy of the study within the framework of journal publication standards are examined. After the general review, the opinion of the field editor suitable for the field of study is taken for the article. With the detailed examination of the field editor, it is determined whether the submitted article is qualified to go to the referee, and the decision to pass to the evaluation stage is made.

* The submitted work must not have been previously rejected in KAÜİİBFD, not peer-reviewed, not published anywhere, or not under review by another journal.

* Not only studies from academicians, but also studies from researchers and practitioners are taken into consideration.

* More than one article by the same author in two volumes is not published.

* A maximum of three articles from the same university are included in one issue.

* A maximum of three review articles are included in one issue.

* Publication languages ​​are Turkish and English.

* Uploaded articles must comply with the journal's spelling rules.

* The iThenticate similarity report should not exceed 20%, excluding the bibliography.

* Research articles written in English and containing in-depth analysis and method (qualitative/quantitative research) are in priority.

* Previously submitted papers can be sent by expanding and specifying this situation by giving footnotes to the article title.

* Articles derived from master's or doctoral thesis must be submitted in English. Footnotes should be given in the title of the article from which these studies are derived from the thesis.

* Authors must have prepared the articles submitted for publication in the journal in accordance with the rules of research and publication ethics. Ethics committee approval should be obtained separately for the researches carried out and for the studies that require obtaining data from human participants (survey studies, laboratory experiments, field experiments, interviews, examinations, etc.) For the use of scales, questionnaires and photographs belonging to others, permission must be obtained from the owners and this must be stated in the article.

* Manuscripts that are not submitted in accordance with the spelling rules, whose ethics committee approval is not documented when necessary, and/or have a high similarity rate (maximum 20% excluding references) can be rejected by the editor.

* The rule of "anonymous author anonymous referee" is applied in the refereeing process. Articles are sent to at least 2 referees who are experts in their fields. If the opinions of the two referees differ, the opinion of the third referee is taken. The final decision is made by the editor.

* No royalties are paid for the works published in the journal.

* Article submissions are welcomed and no publication fee is charged at any stage.

* Published articles can be used in accordance with our Open Access Policy and Creative Commons license, provided that the source is indicated.

* The opinions and responsibilities in the articles published in the journal belong to the authors.

* For article submissions, *Commitment must be filled in, signed and uploaded through the DergiPark system.

* Articles must be uploaded to the system in MS Office Word program, in .doc or .docx format after user registration in DergiPark system.

* In order for the presented studies to be accepted as research articles, it is necessary to make an in-depth analysis, explain the method (qualitative or quantitative) in detail, or be of a type that will contribute to the literature.

* The method (qualitative or quantitative) used in research articles should be explained in detail.

* Research articles must contain new or original views on the subject.

* Authors submitting a research article should pay attention to the fact that the content of the article contains findings, results, evaluations or discussions that will contribute to the literature on the subject of the study, and that they explain the method or methods they use in the text.

* The content of the review articles should be objective and concrete.