EDITORIAL POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

The Journal operates a double-blind peer review process, in which the identities of both the authors and the reviewers are kept confidential throughout the evaluation. This mechanism is fundamental to safeguarding the objectivity, fairness, and scholarly quality of all published articles.

The peer review procedure is carried out through the following stages:

•      Manuscript receipt and preliminary screening: The Editorial Secretariat receives manuscripts through the online submission management system, verifies the completeness of the submission, assesses its alignment with the Journal’s scope, and screens for textual overlap using dedicated software (Turnitin or equivalent).

•      Initial assessment by the Editor-in-Chief or the Handling Editor: The manuscript is evaluated with respect to scholarly quality, novelty, methodological rigour, and alignment with the Journal’s editorial mission. Manuscripts that fail to meet the minimum standards are declined at this stage (desk rejection).

•      Assignment of reviewers: Manuscripts that pass the initial screening are sent to at least two (02) independent expert reviewers whose expertise corresponds to the subject of the manuscript. The authors’ identities are masked.

•      Synthesis of reviewer comments: The Editorial Board consolidates the reviewers’ comments and issues a decision: accept, accept with minor revisions, major revisions required, or reject.

•      Author revision and response: When revisions are requested, the authors are required to revise the manuscript and to provide a detailed point-by-point response to each reviewer comment.

•      Final decision: The Editor-in-Chief renders the final decision based on the revised manuscript and, where necessary, on a further round of review.

•      Editing and publication: Accepted manuscripts undergo technical editing and typesetting, and are subsequently published in accordance with the Journal’s publication schedule.

The average peer review turnaround time, from submission to first decision, is expected not to exceed 60 days, subject to the availability of suitably qualified reviewers.

The Journal considers for publication only original manuscripts that have not been published, in whole or in substantial part, in any other outlet, and that are not under simultaneous consideration elsewhere. Limited exceptions are permitted, including manuscripts previously deposited as preprints in reputable academic repositories and abstracts previously presented at scholarly conferences, provided that such prior dissemination is explicitly disclosed at the time of submission.

All manuscripts submitted to the Journal are screened with plagiarism-detection software (Turnitin, iThenticate, or Crossref Similarity Check). The maximum permissible similarity index is 20%, with no single source exceeding 5%, after the exclusion of reference lists and conventional academic phrases.

Plagiarism in any form constitutes a serious breach of publication ethics. Such breaches include verbatim copying without citation, unattributed paraphrasing, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, and the use of images or data belonging to others without permission. Any suspected case of plagiarism is investigated and managed in accordance with the procedural guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

AJEB encourages authors to adopt open research practices in order to enhance the transparency, verifiability, and reproducibility of research findings. The Journal endorses the principles set out in the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines.

Authors are encouraged to:

•      Cite, in full, all datasets, computer code, and methods employed in the research;

•      Assign persistent identifiers (Digital Object Identifiers – DOIs) to datasets and code;

•      Deposit original data and analytical code in public repositories (such as Mendeley Data, Harvard Dataverse, Zenodo, or OSF), provided that doing so does not contravene regulations governing the protection of personal data, commercial confidentiality, or other legal constraints;

•      Provide supplementary materials where these are necessary to support the reproducibility of the results.

Where data cannot be shared publicly, authors are required to state the reasons clearly in the “Data Availability Statement” of the manuscript. The Editorial Board reserves the right to request original data from the authors for verification purposes whenever the accuracy of the reported results is called into question.

The Journal acknowledges the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, in particular large language models, in scholarly research and academic writing. The following principles are applied to ensure the responsible and transparent use of AI:

1.5.1.  General Principles

(i) Responsibility and accountability: Authors and reviewers bear full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and academic integrity of their work, irrespective of whether AI tools have been used.

(ii) Transparency: Any use of AI tools in the preparation of a manuscript must be clearly disclosed in the Methods or Acknowledgements section, specifying the name of the tool, its version, and the scope of its use.

(iii) Supportive, not substitutive: AI tools may be used only to support, and not to replace, the creative and scholarly judgement of authors or reviewers.

1.5.2.  Provisions for Authors

The use of generative AI for copywriting — that is, the generation, drafting, or composition of any part of the manuscript’s content — is not permitted.

The use of AI for copy-editing — that is, the correction of spelling and grammatical errors and the improvement of sentence structure and clarity of text originally authored by the human author — is permitted, provided that the author thoroughly verifies, and remains accountable for, the final output.

AI tools do not satisfy the criteria for authorship because they cannot be held accountable for the content; AI is therefore not credited as a co-author of any manuscript.

Standard spell-checking and grammar-checking utilities fall outside the scope of this policy.

1.5.3.  Provisions for Reviewers

Reviewers must not upload any manuscript, or any portion of a manuscript under review, into public AI tools, as such uploading constitutes a breach of confidentiality.

Review reports must be composed personally by the assigned reviewer and must not be delegated to AI.

A conflict of interest arises in any situation in which financial, personal, academic, or political interests may influence — or may appear to influence — the objectivity of an individual’s professional judgement. All parties involved in the Journal’s publication process are required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest in full.

Conflicts of interest subject to disclosure include:

•      Financial conflicts: research funding, salaries, paid consultancies, equity holdings, and intellectual property rights related to the subject of the research;

•      Personal conflicts: family relationships and close personal relationships with the parties concerned;

•      Academic conflicts: recent research collaborations and direct academic competition;

•      Institutional conflicts: shared affiliation with the same institution or governing body.

Authors are required to declare any conflicts of interest at the point of submission. Reviewers must decline a review invitation whenever a conflict of interest exists. Any editor with a conflict of interest in relation to a given manuscript must transfer the handling of that manuscript to another member of the Editorial Board.

The Journal safeguards the integrity of its published record through the following post-publication correction mechanisms:

(i) Correction / Corrigendum: applied to minor errors that do not affect the scientific conclusions of the article — such as typographical errors, errors in secondary figures, or mistakes in author information.

(ii) Expression of Concern: issued when the Editorial Board has credible evidence of possible misconduct but the investigation has not yet reached a definitive conclusion.

(iii) Retraction: applied in serious cases such as confirmed plagiarism, data misconduct (falsification or fabrication), breaches of research ethics, duplicate publication, or fundamental errors that invalidate the conclusions of the article.

Retraction notices are published openly, are linked directly to the original article, and clearly state the reasons for retraction. The retracted article is not removed from the publication record but is clearly marked as retracted, in order to preserve the transparency of the scholarly record.

The Journal is committed to maintaining long-term accessibility to all published content. Preservation measures include archiving on the server systems of Ho Chi Minh University of Banking, registration of a DOI for every article through Crossref, and participation in reputable digital preservation programmes such as Portico, LOCKSS, and CLOCKSS.

The Journal maintains a transparent procedure for the receipt and handling of complaints and appeals relating to editorial decisions, the peer review process, or the conduct of any party involved in publication.

Authors have the right to appeal a rejection decision where they believe that the decision was based on a misreading of the manuscript or on manifestly flawed reviewer comments. Appeals must be submitted in writing to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 days of receipt of the decision and must include a detailed justification.

All complaints are examined fairly, without prejudice, and in accordance with the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief and is, as a rule, not subject to further appeal.

The Journal periodically publishes special issues devoted to topics or research methods of contemporary significance. Special issues are subject to the same peer review process, ethical standards, and quality requirements as regular issues. Guest editors are appointed on the basis of recognised scholarly standing and are required to disclose any conflicts of interest in respect of the manuscripts they handle.

The Journal upholds editorial independence. Decisions to accept or reject manuscripts are based solely on scholarly quality, originality, alignment with the Journal’s scope, and compliance with ethical standards; such decisions are not influenced by commercial, political, or personal considerations. The publishing institution does not interfere with substantive editorial decisions.