Publication ethics

Publication Ethics

BALANCE: Jurnal Akuntansi, Auditing, dan Keuangan follows the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for authors and reviewers.

Ethics For Editor

Editors of journals have responsibilities toward the authors who provide the content of the journals, the peer reviewers who comment on the suitability of manuscripts for publication, the journal’s readers and the scientific community, the owners/publishers of the journals, and the public as a whole.

Ethics for authors

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.  

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results that could damage the journal's trust, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavor.  Maintaining the integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include:

The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration. 

  • The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in whole) unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’)).
  • A single study is not split into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g., ‘salami-publishing’).
  • No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions
  • No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgments to other works must be given (including closely copied material (near verbatim), summarized, and/or paraphrased); quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material. Permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted. 
  • Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
  • Consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors and from the responsible authorities - tacitly or explicitly - at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out before the job is submitted.
  • Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.
  • Upon request, authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data to verify the results' validity. This could be in raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.
  • If there is a suspicion of misconduct, the journal will investigate the COPE guidelines.  If, after investigation, the allegation seems to raise valid concerns, the accused author will be contacted and allowed to address the issue. If misconduct has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, this may result in the Editor-in-Chief’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to: 
  1. The article may be rejected and returned to the author if it is still under consideration. 
  2. If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the

    infraction, either an erratum will be placed with the article, or in severe cases, retraction of the article

will occur.

  1. The author’s institution may be informed.

Ethics for Reviewers

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper.  Peer review is essential to formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of the scientific method.  In addition to the specific ethics-related duties described below, reviewers are generally asked to treat authors and their work as they would like to be treated and observe good reviewing etiquette.

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and decline to participate in the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not share the review or information about the paper with anyone or contact the authors directly without permission from the editor.

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s research without the author's express written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

A reviewer should be alert to potential ethical issues in the paper and bring these to the editor's attention, including any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which the reviewer has personal knowledge. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.

Standards of Objectivity & Competing Interest

Reviews should be conducted objectively.  Reviewers should be aware of any personal bias and consider this when reviewing a paper. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Reviewers should consult the Editor before agreeing to review a paper with potential conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Suppose a reviewer suggests that an author include citations to the reviewer’s (or their associates’) work. In that case, this must be for genuine scientific reasons and not to increase the reviewer’s citation count or enhance the visibility of their work (or that of their associates).