Editorial Policies

The Journal of Business Chemistry is published by the Institute of Business Administration at the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Muenster. It is published every four months as an open access journal. In addition to the electronic versions, printed issues are also available (see "For Readers" section for more details). Editorial policies are the responsibility of the  Editor-in-Chief and the Executive Editors under the general authority of the Institute of Business Administration.

The Journal of Business Chemistry publishes original, refereed material concerned with all aspects of business chemistry. It is devoted to developing theories and practices of management and leadership in the chemical industry; the journal is designed to appeal to both practicing managers and academics.

The Journal of Business Chemistry publishes papers based on original research that are judged, after review, to make a substantial contribution to the understanding of any area of business chemistry or closely related areas in strategic management. Manuscripts may be submitted for consideration as:

•     Research Papers
•     Papers for the Practitioner's Section
•     Commentaries

Research Papers

Research Papers are original academic and scientific reports whose conclusions represent a substantial advance in understanding of an important business-chemical problem or business theory. If regular papers have no theoretical impact they should have immediate, far-reaching implications on practical management problems within the chemical industry.

Authors are urged to keep the length of regular papers to 10,000 words of manuscript including a compulsory abstract of max. 150 words.


Practitioner's Section

These articles are reports of tangible chemical or business problems within the industry. They do not need academic or theoretical background – they rather provide solutions and real life business examples.

Authors are urged to keep the length of the papers between 4,000 and 6,000 words including a compulsory abstract of max. 100 words.


Commentaries

Commentaries are short statements regarding current research/business problems or previous articles of the Journal of Business Chemistry. They should encourage the scientific discussion and state the personal opinion of the author.

Authors are urged to keep the length of the papers between 1,500 and 3,000 words.

General conditions

As a condition of publication, all authors must transfer copyright to the Institute of Business Administration at the University of Muenster. Manuscripts submitted under multiple authorship are reviewed on the assumption that all listed authors concur in the submission and that the final version of the manuscript has been seen and approved by all authors.

Authors of papers published in the Journal of Business Chemistry are obligated to honor any reasonable request by qualified investigators for materials or theories used to obtain the published results (e.g. calculation models).
 

Reviewing process

All manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Business Chemistry are reviewed critically. It is the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief, the Executive Editors, and the Editorial Board to determine their suitability for publication. After receipt of a manuscript of a regular paper by the Editorial Office, it is sent to an Executive Editor who usually assigns it to one or two anonymous reviewers. The Board members then make a definitive recommendation for acceptance, revision, or declination based on the scientific/academic merit and quality of the studies reported. Referees may be consulted when additional expertise is required; decisions on manuscripts are usually made on the basis of a peer-review.

All Board members and referees who review a manuscript remain unknown to the authors. Every manuscript is treated by the Editors and referees as privileged information, and they are instructed to exclude themselves from review of any manuscript that might involve a conflict of interest or the appearance thereof.

The primary criteria for judging the acceptability of a manuscript are its originality and academic or practical importance. Manuscripts judged lacking in these respects will be declined. If a manuscript is not recommended for publication by one of the reviewers, the Executive Editor can decline it without further review. In some instances, the Executive Editor may also seek a second/third opinion from another reviewer but is not obligated to do so.


Guidelines for editorial decisions

The members of the Editorial Board use flexible guidelines, set forth below, to assist them in making editorial decisions.

The primary criteria for judging the acceptability of a manuscript are originality and scientific/academic importance.

Manuscripts failing to deal with management issues in a chemical context in the widest range (including biotechnology or similar industries) are usually inappropriate for the Journal of Business Chemistry. In the absence of novelty and scientific significance, strategic management relevance or innovation potential alone will not be considered sufficient to justify publication.