Authorship & Contributorship

Archives of Business Research · Policies

Authorship & Contributorship

Who qualifies as an author, how contributions are recorded, and how disputes are handled.

Archives of Business Research expects authorship to be assigned honestly and transparently. This policy follows the principles of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and COPE.

Who qualifies as an author

Authorship should be based on all of the following:

✓A substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; and
✓Drafting or critically revising the work for important intellectual content; and
✓Approving the final version to be published; and
✓Agreeing to be accountable for the work, including the accuracy and integrity of all parts of it.

Those who contributed but do not meet all four criteria (e.g., funding acquisition, general supervision, language editing, or data collection alone) should be recognised in the Acknowledgements rather than listed as authors.

Contributor roles (CRediT)

Authors must specify each individual’s contribution using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) — for example: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. This statement is published with the article.

Corresponding author

The corresponding author manages communication with the journal, ensures all co-authors meet the criteria and have approved the submission, and is responsible for administrative requirements such as ethics documentation and conflict-of-interest disclosures.

Changes to authorship

Any addition, removal, or reordering of authors after submission requires the written agreement of all authors (including any being added or removed), sent to the Editorial Office with the reason for the change. Authorship cannot normally be changed after acceptance; requests at that stage will be handled following COPE guidance.

Guest, ghost, and gift authorship

The journal prohibits ghost authorship (omitting a qualifying contributor), gift or honorary authorship (naming someone who did not contribute), and guest authorship intended to lend prestige. Such practices are treated as misconduct.

Use of AI tools

Generative AI tools cannot be listed as authors, as they cannot take responsibility for the work. Any use must be disclosed (see the Generative AI Policy).

Disputes

Authorship disputes are not adjudicated by the journal on the merits; the journal will ask the authors and, where necessary, their institutions to resolve them, and will follow COPE flowcharts. Publication may be paused until a dispute is resolved.