Scope Fit and Target Readership

BJBM publishes scholarly work in business, management, economics, finance, policy, governance, entrepreneurship, operations, technology and related interdisciplinary fields. The journal serves researchers, educators, practitioners, policymakers, institutional leaders, and other professionally engaged readers interested in analytically rigorous work with academic and practical relevance.

Authors should submit only work that clearly fits the journal’s aims and scope and makes a defensible contribution to knowledge, policy, practice, or institutional decision-making.

Article Types

BJBM may consider the following categories:

• Research Articles
• Review Articles
• Case Studies
• Methodological Papers
• Policy and Practice Papers
• Book Reviews
• Invited Editorials or Commentaries

The journal reserves the right to reclassify a submission where appropriate.

Language

BJBM accepts submissions in English and Dzongkha. Manuscripts submitted in Dzongkha must include an English title, abstract, and keywords. The journal may request language improvement where clarity is insufficient for fair review or production.

Originality and Exclusive Submission

Submissions must be original and must not be under consideration by another journal, book publisher, or substantially overlapping publication venue at the same time. Any prior dissemination, including as a thesis, dissertation, working paper, conference paper, repository version, or preprint, must be disclosed at submission.

Preprints and Prior Dissemination

Posting a manuscript on a recognised preprint server, thesis repository, institutional repository, or similar scholarly platform is not necessarily treated as prior publication, provided that the posting is disclosed at submission, does not breach confidentiality or copyright obligations, and does not involve concurrent formal review by another journal. Authors should disclose any earlier public version and update it responsibly after journal publication in accordance with the journal’s licensing and repository policy.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship is limited to persons who have made a substantial scholarly contribution to the work and who are able to take appropriate responsibility for its integrity. To qualify as an author, each listed author must have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the development of the argument, method, or critical intellectual content of the manuscript.

In addition, each author must have participated in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content, must have approved the version submitted to the journal and any version accepted for publication, and must agree to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the contribution attributed to that author and to cooperate in the investigation and resolution of any question concerning the work.

Guest, gift, honorary, and ghost authorship are not permitted. Supervisory status, institutional position, seniority, funding acquisition alone, general oversight, language correction alone, or administrative support alone do not justify authorship.

Responsibilities of All Authors

All authors are responsible for ensuring that the manuscript is original, that the work has been honestly and accurately reported, that relevant prior work is appropriately cited, that required disclosures are complete, and that any ethics, consent, confidentiality, permissions, and data-related obligations have been addressed. All authors must review and approve the submitted manuscript and any revised version before submission or resubmission.

Responsibilities of the Corresponding Author

The corresponding author acts as the primary contact with the journal and is responsible for ensuring that all eligible contributors are appropriately recognised, that no inappropriate authors are included, that all authors have seen and approved the submitted manuscript and any revised version, that declarations and supporting documentation are accurate and complete, and that all authors are kept appropriately informed of editorial decisions, reviewer comments, and publication-related matters.

Author Contribution Statement

Authors must provide an author contribution statement at the time of submission. The statement should specify the substantive contribution made by each listed author to the work. The journal may use a structured contributorship format, including a recognised contributor taxonomy, where appropriate.

The contribution statement must be accurate, agreed by all authors, and consistent with the authorship list. The journal may publish the contribution statement in the final article.

Acknowledgement of Non-Author Contributions

Contributors who do not meet the journal’s authorship criteria should not be listed as authors but may be acknowledged where appropriate. This may include, for example, technical assistance, language editing, professional writing support, administrative support, data collection assistance, logistical help, or general supervision that did not amount to authorship.

Authors should ensure that any person named in the acknowledgements has given permission to be identified where such permission is appropriate. Sources of non-author support, including editorial assistance, paid writing assistance, or sponsor-funded support, must be disclosed transparently.

Changes to Authorship

Any request to add, remove, reorder, or otherwise amend authorship after submission must be made in writing and must explain the reason for the proposed change. The request must normally be supported by written agreement from all listed authors and, where relevant, from any contributor proposed for addition or removal.

The journal may pause editorial assessment, peer review, or production while an authorship question is being considered. Where the journal considers that an authorship dispute cannot be resolved on the basis of the information provided, the journal may require clarification from the authors’ institution(s) or may suspend further handling of the manuscript until the matter has been resolved by the relevant institution(s). The journal reserves the right to reject a submission or decline publication where authorship is not transparently and credibly established.

Changes to authorship after acceptance will be permitted only in exceptional circumstances.

Manuscript Length

As a general guide, manuscripts should not exceed 16,000 words inclusive of tables, figures, notes, appendices, and references unless specifically invited or approved otherwise. Most standard research articles will normally fall within the 7,000–12,000 word range.

Initial Submission Format

BJBM permits a professionally prepared free-format initial submission, provided the manuscript is complete, readable, and structured for peer review. Authors may also use the journal’s preferred template where available. If a paper is invited for revision or accepted, authors may be required to conform fully to the journal’s formatting and style requirements.

Files to Upload

Authors should normally submit:

• an anonymised main manuscript file for peer review;
• a separate title page containing author names, affiliations, ORCID identifiers where available, and corresponding author details;
• tables, figures, or high-resolution image files if submitted separately;
• supplementary materials, where applicable; and
• a brief cover letter explaining the manuscript’s fit, contribution, and any declarations requiring editorial attention.

Preparing for Double-Blind Review

The anonymised manuscript must not include author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, self-identifying text, or tracked metadata that would compromise anonymous review. Where self-citation is necessary, it should be phrased neutrally during review.

Title Page Requirements

The title page should include:

• full article title;
• short title where relevant;
• full names of all authors;
• institutional affiliations;
• corresponding author email address;
• ORCID identifiers where available;
• funding information;
• acknowledgements; and
• any relevant author notes.

Author-Suggested or Opposed Reviewers

The journal may permit authors to suggest potential reviewers or identify individuals they believe should not review the manuscript, provided reasons are supplied where relevant. The journal is not bound by such suggestions or exclusions, and the final choice of reviewers rests entirely with the editors.

Abstract and Keywords

Research articles should include an informative abstract and appropriate keywords. The abstract should state the purpose, approach, principal findings, and contribution of the work.

Declarations Required at Submission

Where relevant, manuscripts must include or be accompanied by:

• funding statement;
• conflict of interest statement;
• authorship/contributorship information;
• an author contribution statement agreed by all authors;
• author contribution statement;
• ethics approval or ethics exemption statement;
• informed consent statement where applicable;
• data availability statement;
• AI-use disclosure where material generative or assistive tools were used;
• permissions for third-party material; and
• preprint or prior-dissemination disclosure.

Ethical Oversight

Where the research involves human participants, personal data, confidential organisational material, proprietary datasets, interviews, surveys, classroom research, experiments, or other ethically sensitive methods, authors must state what approvals, permissions, consent arrangements, or exemptions applied and must be prepared to supply supporting documentation if requested.

Data Availability and Transparency

Data, Code, and Materials Availability

BJBM supports greater transparency, replicability, and trust in published research. For empirical, experimental, computational, qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and evidence-based studies, the journal expects authors to make the data, code, instruments, protocols, questionnaires, interview guides, appendices, and other materials necessary to understand, evaluate, or replicate the reported work available wherever lawful, ethical, and feasible. Exceptions are permitted where justified, but they must be clearly explained. Where the nature of the study permits, authors should prefer open sharing over access on request.

Authors must include a data availability statement in every submission. The statement should explain whether the relevant data, code, and supporting materials are openly available, available on request, available under controlled access, restricted, confidential, proprietary, or not applicable, and should state clearly how access may be obtained where access is possible. The statement should not promise access that the authors cannot realistically maintain.

Where data or materials are openly available, authors should deposit them in a trusted domain-specific, institutional, or general-purpose repository that provides a stable record and, where possible, a persistent identifier such as a DOI or accession number. Where repository deposit is not feasible, authors should explain how the materials are being preserved and how access will be managed.

Where authors rely on access on request rather than open deposit, the data availability statement should identify the responsible contact point, the basis on which access decisions will be made, any eligibility or confidentiality conditions, and the expected retention period. As a matter of good practice, authors should retain the underlying data, code, and core research materials for at least 5 years after publication unless a longer retention period is required by law, funder, institution, contract, or discipline. Access should not be unreasonably withheld where the statement represents that access is available. If promised access later becomes unavailable and the material is important to editorial verification, the journal may seek clarification and may take proportionate editorial action.

Where full sharing is not possible because of confidentiality, privacy, legal restrictions, commercial sensitivity, contractual obligations, security concerns, third-party ownership, or ethical limitations, authors must explain the restriction in the data availability statement. In such cases, authors should share as much as can responsibly be shared, which may include anonymised, redacted, aggregated, synthetic, excerpted, or metadata-only versions, codebooks, variable lists, analytic scripts, or access conditions for qualified researchers where appropriate.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that any shared data involving human participants or confidential organisational information are appropriately de-identified, anonymised, or otherwise protected before sharing. Where data cannot be shared, authors should still provide sufficient methodological, documentary, and analytical detail to allow readers and editors to understand how the work was conducted and assessed. Questions about data-integrity verification are addressed in the journal’s Research Ethics and Research Integrity policies, while originality and overlap issues are addressed in the Plagiarism Policy.

Data Availability Statement

The data availability statement should appear in the manuscript and should accurately describe the availability status of the underlying data, code, and other relevant materials. Where applicable, the statement should identify the repository name, persistent identifier, access conditions, version information, or the reason why the materials cannot be shared.

Data and Software Citation

Datasets, code, software, instruments, and other reusable research outputs used or generated in the study should be cited in the manuscript where relevant and included in the reference list where they constitute citable research objects. Data and software citations should identify the creator, year, title, version where relevant, repository or publisher, and persistent identifier or accession information where available.

Reporting Integrity

Data, quotations, citations, figures, tables, and methods must be reported accurately and transparently. Fabrication, falsification, deceptive omission, inappropriate image manipulation, misleading statistical presentation, and citation manipulation are prohibited.

Study Registration and Reporting Guidelines

Where a study design is normally expected to be prospectively registered, authors should provide the name of the registry, the registration number, and the date of registration at submission and in the manuscript where appropriate. This expectation may apply not only to clinical-style studies, but also to intervention studies, field experiments, trials, policy experiments, and other designs for which prior registration is a recognised norm. If registration was not completed prospectively where such registration would normally be expected, authors should explain this clearly.

Authors should prepare manuscripts in accordance with recognised reporting standards appropriate to the study design where such standards exist. Depending on the nature of the study, this may include reporting guidance for systematic reviews, observational studies, qualitative research, intervention studies, experimental work, case-based analyses, health economic studies, or other established designs. Authors should ensure that the manuscript reports sufficient methodological, analytical, and procedural detail for editorial and peer review assessment.

Where a recognised reporting checklist is relevant to the study design, authors should normally submit the completed checklist at the time of submission. The journal may request the checklist at revision or before acceptance where it was not supplied earlier or where further clarification is needed. Authors should ensure that all items relevant to their study have been addressed in the manuscript or clearly explained where not applicable.

Datasets, software, instruments, and other reusable research materials should be cited in accordance with the journal’s Data, Code, and Materials Availability requirements.

Use of Generative AI and Similar Tools

If authors use generative AI or similar tools in a material way during drafting, translation, coding, analysis assistance, image preparation, or other parts of manuscript development, that use must be disclosed transparently. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, legality, confidentiality, permissions, and integrity of the submitted work, including the verification of facts, quotations, analyses, images, tables, and references. AI tools may not be listed as authors, and they must not be used to fabricate data, generate fictitious references, create deceptive images, or evade authorship and confidentiality responsibilities.

References and Third-Party Material

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of all citations and references. Any third-party material requiring permission must be lawfully used, appropriately credited, and accompanied by any necessary permission documentation.

Fees

BJBM currently charges no submission fees, article processing charges, publication fees, page charges, or standard online hosting fees for accepted articles. If the journal’s fee policy changes in the future, that change will be clearly stated on the journal website and will not be applied retrospectively to manuscripts already under active consideration unless expressly stated.

Third-Party Material and Intellectual Property

Authors are responsible for ensuring that any third-party material included in a submission, including images, figures, tables, instruments, extended quotations, datasets, or supplementary files, is used lawfully and with any permissions required for publication and reuse. Authors must ensure that publication of the submitted work does not infringe the intellectual property rights, confidentiality obligations, contractual restrictions, or lawful proprietary interests of any third party.

Where the article is published under an open licence, that licence applies only to material for which the journal and authors have the right to license reuse. Third-party material may remain subject to separate rights and permissions.

Research and Publication Ethics

Authors must ensure that submitted work is original, honestly reported, properly attributed, and prepared in accordance with applicable ethical, legal, and professional standards. Where relevant, authors must disclose ethics approval, ethics exemption, informed consent arrangements, permissions, funding, conflicts of interest, prior dissemination, data access limitations, and material use of generative AI or similar tools.

Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, deceptive image manipulation, misleading statistical presentation, undisclosed authorship or writing assistance, inappropriate citation practices, redundant publication, and undisclosed competing interests are prohibited. The journal may request supporting documentation and may take editorial or post-publication action where serious concerns arise.

All authors must disclose any financial, professional, institutional, personal, or other competing interest that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the conduct, interpretation, or presentation of the work. If no such competing interests exist, the submission should state that no competing interests have been declared.

Peer Review and Reviewer Suggestions

Details of the journal’s peer review model, reviewer appointment, editorial decisions, and appeals are set out in the Peer Review Policy and Complaints and Appeals Policy.

Appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision where they believe there has been a material error of fact, process, evidence assessment, or procedural fairness. Appeals must be submitted in writing, must state the grounds clearly, and must be based on substantive reasons rather than mere disagreement with the editorial outcome. Appeals are considered in accordance with the journal’s complaints and appeals policy. Submission of an appeal does not guarantee reconsideration or reversal of the original decision.

Revised Submissions

When submitting a revision, authors should normally provide:

• a clean revised manuscript;
• a tracked-changes or marked version if requested; and
• a point-by-point response to reviewer and editor comments.

Submission Checklist

Before submitting, authors should confirm that:

• the manuscript is original and not under review elsewhere;
• the manuscript fits the journal’s aims and scope;
• the main review file is anonymised;
• all authors approve the submission;
• required declarations are complete;
• ethics and permission issues have been addressed;
• references are accurate; and
• the submission complies with journal policies.

Contact

Questions about submission may be sent to: editorbjbm.gcbs@rub.edu.bt.