Journal Policy and Publication Ethics

Editorial and Publishing Policy

The Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration is published by Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. The journal is committed to upholding high standards of academic integrity, transparency and editorial quality. These principles apply to authors, reviewers, editors and members of the editorial board.

The journal’s publisher and members of the editorial board adhere to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), including its Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

1. Editorial Oversight and Decision-Making

1.1. General provisions regarding editorial oversight:

(a) Compliance with the principles of publication ethics, academic integrity and the anti-plagiarism policy is monitored;

(b) editorial decisions are made solely on the basis of scientific merit, originality, relevance and compliance with the journal’s standards;

(c) editors assess manuscripts impartially and without regard to race, gender, nationality, political views, organisational affiliation or commercial considerations;

(d) editors must ensure the high academic standard of published material, compliance with international standards of academic publishing, and safeguard authors’ ownership rights to their articles (in accordance with the provisions of Clauses 6.2 and 4.2);

(e) During the manuscript review process, communication between the editorial board, the corresponding author and the reviewers takes place via the Open Journal System (OJS), an online submission and peer-review platform;

(f) Members of the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration do not disclose information about manuscripts accepted for consideration to third parties prior to their publication. Furthermore, the editorial board does not disclose details of reviewers to authors or other parties.

1.2. Criteria for publication decisions:

(a) The journal accepts previously unpublished articles by the author(s) in Kazakh, Russian or English that fall within the journal’s subject areas (link to the home page listing subject areas) and are formatted strictly in accordance with the manuscript submission guidelines (link to ‘Information for Authors’ and the template);

(b) High-quality articles that make a significant contribution to theory and/or practice are published. Articles may be of any type: original results of empirical research, methodological and conceptual developments, thematic, interdisciplinary and practical studies, or review articles;

(c) AI-powered text-generation tools may not be listed as authors (in accordance with the provisions of clauses 6.2 and 4.2 and Section 9 (sub-clauses 9.1–9.7). Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be assigned to and carried out by human beings. Authors bear full responsibility for the content of the manuscript;

(d) Decisions regarding the publication, rejection or revision of manuscripts are made on the basis of the results of the peer review process and the recommendations of the editorial board and the editor-in-chief.

(d) decisions regarding the publication, rejection or revision of manuscripts are made on the basis of the results of peer review and the recommendations of the editorial board and the editor-in-chief.

1.3. Appeals

Authors who believe that an editorial decision was made in error may lodge a formal appeal.

An appeal must:

(a) be submitted in writing to the editorial office;

(b) clearly explain the academic grounds for reconsideration;

Appeals are assessed by the Editor-in-Chief and, where necessary, by members of the editorial board. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final and cannot be further appealed.

2. Authorship

Criteria for authorship:

(a) authorship must be restricted to those who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the research and preparation of the manuscript (in accordance with the provisions of Clause 5.4.2);

(b) a scientific article manuscript must be submitted to the editorial board by the corresponding author (selected from among the authors of the manuscript where there are between 2 and 4 co-authors). Changes to the list of authors after the manuscript has been accepted are not permitted, except in exceptional cases approved by the Editor-in-Chief;

(c) Authors must attach a cover letter to the manuscript. In the cover letter, authors must state that the article is an original piece of research and is not currently under consideration by any other journals. Information regarding funding may also be included. (link to the cover letter);

(d) Information about the authors – their names, affiliations, contact details, details of their positions and academic qualifications, as well as links to the authors’ profile identifiers in international databases – should be included in the article under the section ‘Author Information’ (link to this point in the information for authors).

3. Submissions, resubmissions and publication conditions:

(a) Manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s official online platform,

the Open Journal System (OJS);

(b) When reviewing a manuscript for compliance with formal requirements (manuscript formatting), the journal’s editors also check for plagiarised text using the kaznu.antiplagiat system, access to which is provided through the Publisher’s subscription;

(c) Only original manuscripts and/or those manuscripts which, according to the results of the anti-plagiarism check, have a uniqueness score of 80 per cent or higher are forwarded for further peer review. If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s formatting requirements and is found, following a plagiarism check, not to be an original work, the article is returned to the author for correspondence regarding the necessary amendments and for the manuscript to be resubmitted for consideration by the editorial board via the journal’s electronic platform;

(d) the journal’s editorial board reviews the manuscripts received from the author(s), organises their peer review and decides whether to accept or reject them for publication within three months of the date of receipt of the manuscript via the electronic platform;

(e) The date on which the editorial team receives the manuscript corresponds to the date of its submission via the journal’s Open Journal System (OJS) platform. This date is recorded in the journal’s system and is stated in the published article. If substantial changes are made during the peer-review process, the revised submission date may also be indicated in the publication record. In cases of major restructuring or prolonged delays, a new submission date may be assigned at the editors’ discretion.

4. Peer Review

4.1. Purpose of peer review:

(a) Manuscripts submitted to the journal’s editorial office that meet the formal requirements, formatting requirements and originality criteria as verified by the plagiarism detection system are mandatorily forwarded to the next stage – peer review;

(b) The peer review process ensures that submitted manuscripts are relevant to the journal’s scope and meet its standards regarding originality, methodological rigour, clarity of presentation, economic analysis and relevance to the journal’s subject areas. Peer review also provides authors with constructive feedback to improve the quality of their work.

4.2. Peer-review procedure:

(a) The Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration employs a ‘double-blind’ peer review process, carried out by at least two academics holding a Candidate of Sciences, Doctor of Sciences or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree and specialising in the subject area of the manuscript under review;

(b) reviewers are selected on the basis of their expert knowledge in the subject area, academic qualifications and research experience relevant to the submitted manuscript. Reviewers are required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and to decline to review if an impartial assessment cannot be guaranteed (in accordance with the provisions of Clause 5.2);

(c) the peer review process is conducted confidentially: the manuscript is sent to reviewers via the journal’s electronic platform without any details of the authors. Reviewers are required to provide a clear, objective and reasoned assessment of the manuscript’s compliance with key scientific criteria, as well as its quality and significance (in accordance with the provisions of Clause 5.1.2);

(d) Manuscripts authored by members of the editorial board are reviewed on the same basis as all other submissions. Such an editor does not take part in the editorial processing of their own article, the selection of reviewers, or the decision on publication. The review is carried out by an independent editor in accordance with the standard peer-review procedure.

(e) Reviewers must not use GenAI tools during the review process. Reviewers bear sole responsibility for the content of their reports. Under no circumstances should reviewers upload manuscripts, in whole or in part, images, figures, tables or any other information relating to the manuscripts under review into any GenAI tools (in accordance with the provisions of Clauses 6.2 and 6.2);

(e) each article is peer-reviewed by at least two experts: one internal reviewer (a member of the editorial board or editorial council, provided there is no conflict of interest) and one external independent reviewer from another organisation;

(g) upon receipt of the reviewers’ reports, the editor-in-chief forwards them to the corresponding author without disclosing the reviewers’ details, so that the author may make the necessary changes and revisions. The author(s) may, without providing any explanation, decline to respond to the comments, make changes to the manuscript or resubmit it to the journal’s editorial office at any stage of the process, and may withdraw the article;

(h) Once all comments have been addressed, the manuscript has been amended to incorporate the reviewers’ comments, and it has been resubmitted to the journal’s editorial office, the editor-in-chief forwards all materials to the reviewer(s) for re-review. The review process may take up to two months or longer. The author must attach a detailed response letter to the revised version of the manuscript, describing how all the reviewers’ comments have been addressed. In the revised article, the amended or corrected sections should be highlighted using the ‘Track Changes’ function (in Word) or a different font colour;

(i) Manuscripts that have received positive reviews from two reviewers, as well as approval from the editorial board and the editor-in-chief, are recommended for publication in the Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration (‘Bulletin of KazNU. Economic Series’) in the order in which they were accepted for publication. Manuscripts approved by the editorial board are forwarded to the managing editor and technical editor for the preparation of the journal issue;

(k) If one reviewer has given a favourable opinion on the manuscript and the other a negative one, the manuscript is sent to a third reviewer who is an expert in the subject area of the manuscript. If the third reviewer provides a favourable opinion, the final decision on whether to accept or reject the manuscript for publication is taken by the Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration (‘Bulletin of KazNU. Economic Series’);

(l) in the event of two negative reviews, the manuscript is rejected for publication in the journal. Manuscripts rejected following the peer-review process are not used by the editorial board for its own purposes. The editor-in-chief notifies the author via the journal’s official online platform, Open Journal System (OJS), of the rejection and sends the reviewers’ reports. A rejected manuscript is automatically withdrawn from further consideration.

5. Ethics and Integrity in Research

The Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration is committed to upholding high principles and standards of research practice in accordance with the international ethical guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available at: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices, as well as the Publisher’s ethical guidelines for publishing, in particular those set out in the Regulations on the Scientific Periodical of the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (2025).

The publication ethics policy sets out the norms, principles and standards of ethical conduct for editors, reviewers and authors, measures for identifying unethical behaviour and conflicts of interest, guidelines on the retraction, correction and retraction of articles, the use of generative AI in publications, and the conduct of research involving human subjects.

It is expected that at all stages of the article’s processing, from submission to publication, all parties involved in the process – the author(s), editors and reviewers – will adhere to high ethical standards.

5.1. Responsibilities of authors, reviewers and editors regarding ethics and conduct

5.1.1. Responsibilities of authors:

(a) must state in the cover letter that the work has not been published elsewhere;

(b) must ensure that all data in the publication are reliable, accurate and free from incorrect borrowing or plagiarism, which may be identified during the manuscript review process using a plagiarism detection system;

(d) must notify the editors of any inaccuracies discovered prior to the publication of the manuscript;

(e) must adhere to ethical standards relating to criticism or comments regarding research, as well as to interactions with the editorial board concerning peer review and publication;

(f) the article must contain a precise statement of authorship (in accordance with the provisions of Clauses 2 and 5.4.1);

(g) all sources used in the preparation of the work must be identified by the authors;

(h) where human participants are involved in the research (interviews, surveys, etc.), the authors must obtain ethical approval to conduct such research from their organisation (in accordance with the provisions of Clause 7);

(i) the use of generative AI tools and chatbots in articles should be avoided (in accordance with the provisions of Clauses 6 and 6.1).

Failure to comply with ethical standards may result in rejection, retraction or temporary restrictions on publication.

5.1.2. Responsibilities of reviewers:

(a) Any manuscript received for review, and its details, must be treated as confidential;

(b) The review of the manuscript must be objective, constructive, well-reasoned, impartial and free from personal attacks on the author;

(d) must seek out relevant published works that may have influenced the research findings of the manuscript under review but have not been cited by the author(s);

(e) must notify the Editor-in-Chief of any significant similarity or overlap between the article under review and any other published article of which they are aware;

(f) if a reviewer has sufficient grounds to believe that the manuscript contains plagiarism, improper borrowing, or false or fabricated material or research results, they must not allow the manuscript to be published and must inform the editor-in-chief of the journal of the identified breaches of the principles, standards and norms of publication and research ethics;

(g) must not use unpublished material for personal research purposes;

(h) should avoid reviewing material in which experts have a competing, collaborative or other relationship with the authors, corporations or institutions associated with the articles;

(i) the assessment of articles during the peer-review process must be based solely on approved evaluation tools (reference to the Recommendations for the Structural Review of a Scientific Article), without the use of generative AI tools or chatbots (in accordance with the provisions of Clauses 6 and 6.2).

(k) A reviewer who considers that their qualifications are not appropriate or sufficient to make a decision on the review of a submitted manuscript must immediately inform the Editor-in-Chief of this and decline to review the manuscript.

5.1.3. Responsibilities of the editor(s):

(a) to make decisions solely on the basis of the significance, originality, clarity and relevance of articles to the journal’s subject area;

(b) to ensure that every research article they publish complies with internationally recognised ethical standards;

(c) must respond if they suspect misconduct in a manuscript, regardless of whether it has been published or not, and make every reasonable effort to resolve the issue;

(d) must not reject articles on the basis of mere suspicion; evidence of misconduct must be provided;

(e) carry out work on articles (including initial and technical reviews, as well as subsequent stages) without the use of generative AI or chatbots (in accordance with the provisions of Clauses 6 and 6.1).

5.2. Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest, as defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), refers to situations in which authors, reviewers or editorial board members have hidden interests that may influence their judgements regarding the material to be published. A conflict of interest arises when there are financial, personal or professional circumstances that may influence the scientific judgement of reviewers and editorial board members and, as a result, the editorial board’s decision regarding the publication of a manuscript.

The following outlines the key actions to be taken by authors, editors and reviewers in the event of a conflict of interest and to prevent such conflicts:

(a) When submitting a manuscript for consideration by the journal, the corresponding author must notify the Editor-in-Chief of any potential conflicts of interest that may influence the authors’ interpretation of the data. Any potential conflict of interest should be stated in the cover letter. Examples of such conflicts include financial support or private ties to organisations, political pressure from interest groups, or scientific issues. The corresponding author must also declare that the manuscript discloses all sources of research funding; they must also indicate any commercial, financial, personal or professional factors that could give rise to a conflict of interest in relation to the manuscript submitted for consideration;

(b) Editors and reviewers must decline to work on a manuscript if there is an actual or perceived conflict of interest. The Editor-in-Chief, members of the editorial board and reviewers must disclose any potential conflict of interest that might in any way influence the editorial board’s decision. Members of the editorial board must decline to review a manuscript if they have any competitive relationship relating to the research findings of the manuscript’s author(s), or if there is any other conflict of interest.

The existence of a conflict of interest amongst those involved in the review and peer-review process does not necessarily mean that the manuscript will be rejected.

5.3. Unethical conduct

Unethical conduct is defined as actions by authors, editors or the publisher in the following cases: self-reviewing one’s own articles; collusive and fraudulent peer review; using agency services to publish the results of scientific research; ghost authorship; falsification and fabrication of research results; publication of unreliable pseudo-scientific texts; submission of article manuscripts to other publications without the authors’ permission; disclosure of authors’ materials to third parties; infringement of copyright and breaches of the confidentiality of editorial processes; manipulation of citations and plagiarism.

5.4. Research and Publication Ethics

5.4.1. Authorship and Contribution

Each author listed in a publication must have made a significant contribution to the research. In this regard:

(a) the person who has made the greatest intellectual contribution to the preparation of the manuscript (where there are two or more co-authors) shall be listed first in the list of authors;

(b) the relevant ‘Authors’ Contributions’ section of the article must clearly specify each author’s contribution to the work;

(c) only those who strictly meet the criteria for authorship should be listed as authors of the article, as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content of the article. Examples of contributions may include:

- a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution, data collection or analysis/interpretation of the research;

- drafting the manuscript or critically revising it to ensure it has meaningful intellectual content;

(d) All authors must have seen and approved the final version of the article, for which they are equally responsible for the content, and must consent to its publication.

All individuals who have contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship (e.g. technical assistance, editorial assistance, general support) must be acknowledged in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section of the article, after obtaining written permission to be listed. The corresponding author must ensure that the list of authors includes all eligible co-authors (as defined above), and that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the final version of the article prior to its submission for publication.

5.4.2. Duplicate publication

When submitting an article, authors must include a note informing the editor of any potential overlaps with previously published or currently under review material, as well as how the work submitted to the journal differs substantially from that material. If all or part of the authors’ data has been previously published, it should be included in the ‘Methodology’ section.

5.4.3. Plagiarism and withdrawal of an article

Plagiarism is the use of another person’s ideas, texts or research findings, incorporating them into one’s own work and presenting them as one’s own without properly acknowledging the original author. Even if permission has been obtained to use the material, failure to give proper acknowledgement of authorship constitutes plagiarism. The requirements for formatting text borrowed from other works, as well as the citation of previous research, must be clearly stated if the design or structure of the work has been influenced by them (please refer to the formatting requirements via the link).

Plagiarism is not permitted in submissions. An article will be rejected if plagiarism is detected:

(a) at the initial screening stage (prior to the peer-review process, all received articles are checked for plagiarism using the [name] software);

(b) during the peer-review process;

Responding to feedback and expressions of concern in accordance with the principles of the СОРЕ is mandatory for the journal.

Should the principles of publication and/or academic ethics have been breached during the writing of an article, the editor-in-chief of the journal must, on the basis of a decision by the editorial board, retract the publication. Articles may be retracted by the author(s) or by the journal’s editorial board. The editorial board carries out the retraction of published articles in the event of a breach of publication and/or scientific ethics, based on the recommendations of the COPE. An article shall be retracted in the following cases:

(a) if there is clear evidence that the data obtained are unreliable or were obtained through improper conduct, such as data fabrication;

(b) discovery that the manuscript was published in another publication prior to its publication in the Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration;

(d) the presence in the article of gross errors capable of adversely affecting other researchers and their work, for example, a miscalculation or an experimental error;

(e) the emergence of copyright claims regarding the article or parts thereof by third parties;

(f) the presence in the article of information that contravenes the principles, standards and norms of publication and/or academic ethics.

5.5. The Process for Handling Research and Publication Misconduct

If the Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration receives reports of research and publication misconduct, such as: plagiarism, fabricated data, authorship changes, or undisclosed conflicts of interest; an ethical issue identified in a submitted manuscript; a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data; complaints against editors; or other matters, the resolution process follows the procedure provided by the Publication Ethics Committee (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts) and the key requirements of the journal’s Publisher’s Operating Regulations.

6. Recommendations on the use of generative AI

The potential applications of generative AI in research are diverse and extensive, including the creation of various forms of content, text generation, image synthesis, synthetic data and graphics, all of which can enhance authors’ creativity in the writing process and in the presentation of their arguments. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend refraining from using generative AI for data analysis and insight extraction during research; attention should be paid to the potential risks associated with current generations of generative AI tools or chatbots, which may give rise to issues relating to:

(a) confidentiality and intellectual property;

(b) inadequate attribution practices;

(d) unintended uses.

6.1. For authors:

Authors bear full responsibility for the originality, accuracy and integrity of the material published, in accordance with the journal’s editorial and publication policies. To ensure that the integrity of the work is not called into question, please note the following:

(a) Generative AI tools and chatbots are not authors or co-authors;

(b) authors are required to fully disclose any use of generative AI or chatbots in the writing of the article, including, but not limited to, text, figures, images and code. A detailed description of their use and disclosure of the tools must be included in the ‘Methodology’ section;

(c) the specific generative AI tool used in the manuscript must be clearly identified in the description of the relevant sections or parts thereof;

(d) the scope and nature of the generative AI used in the work should be briefly explained;

(e) the main conditions for the use of AI are set out in the Regulations on the Scientific Periodical Journal of the National Academic Organisation ‘Al-Farabi Kazakh National University’ (2025), Section 9.

6.2. For editors and reviewers:

Editors and reviewers must monitor the risks associated with the use of generative AI tools and chatbots.

Editors and reviewers must not input any files, images or data from unpublished articles into generative AI tools or chatbots, thereby safeguarding the authors’ intellectual property rights.

7. Ethical guidelines on the use of human subjects in research

Research must be conducted with a clearly defined scientific objective. From an ethical perspective, all research involving human subjects must be based on:

(a) the protection of the human dignity, rights and well-being of all individuals participating in the research;

(b) informed consent, which implies transparency regarding the purpose, procedures and potential risks, as well as disclosure of the specific features of the research or intervention that are likely to influence willingness to participate;

(c) confidentiality and the protection of participants’ personal information and identity. All participants must consent to take part in such activities, whilst their anonymity is safeguarded. Information obtained in confidence, for example during a conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties, must not be used or disclosed without the explicit written authorisation of the source;

(d) protection from physical and psychological distress, harm and danger. Failure to provide full information prior to obtaining informed consent requires additional precautions to safeguard the well-being and dignity of participants.

Incomplete disclosure of information prior to obtaining informed consent may result in the delay or rejection of a manuscript.

Further details on the standards and principles of research ethics can be found in the following sources, which formed the basis for Section ‘5. Ethics and Integrity in Scientific Research’.

Please follow the links below for further information on publication ethics; the conduct of authors, reviewers and editors; the retraction of publications; guidelines on the recruitment of human volunteers for research; and other issues relating to ethical conduct in research practice:

· ELSEVIER: Ресурсный набор по этике издательства Elsevier

· COPE: Ответственная исследовательская публикация: международные стандарты для авторов

· Welcome to COPE - https://publicationethics.org/

· COPE: Короткое руководство Cope по этичному редактированию для новых редакторов

· COPE: Кодекс поведения для издателей журналов

· https://ethics.praiseworthyprize.org/docs/ethics/COPE_editors_retraction_guidelines.pdf

· https://web.sciedu.ca/images/COPE/retraction_guidelines_0.pdf

· https://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/care-animal-guidelines.pdf

· https://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/guidelines

· https://www.eara.eu/animal-research-law

· https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/national-statement-ethical-conduct-human-research-2007-updated-2018

· https://media.ffycdn.net/eu/elsevier/d/509986abd8154fb28f3a5ba7bb41be5c