Author Guidelines

INSTRUCTION TO AUTHORS

Before Breparation of Manuscript

Ethics in publishing

The author, editor, peer reviewer and publisher are the four essential parties involved in the act of publishing.  Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the new and interesting works through scholars, referees and reviewers.  It is therefore important to agree upon standards ethical behaviour from all the parties. Hence the Abyssinia Journal of Business and Social Sciences (AJBS) follow Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE) publishing ethics to maintain standard in the area of publishing ethics. 

Conflict of interest

All authors should disclose sources of funding for the project through which the investigations were carried out; all authors should also disclose financial or other conflict of interest that might be taking to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript.  Conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any institutions connected to the papers of the authors, companies, or conflicts among authors; issues linked with employment, honorarium, patent applications or registrations, and grants or other funding that comes under conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the time of submission. For conflict of interest form. Click here 

Submission declaration and verification

AJBS publish original works and submission of an article to AJBS implies that the work portrayed in the article has not been published previously in any research journal, the article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere and the work must be approved by all authors tacitly or evidently by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out.  Acceptance also implies that the present work will not be published elsewhere in the same form or in any other languages, including electronically without the written consent from the copyright-holder. For submission declaration form. Click here

Changes to authorship

After acceptance and before publication: Any requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the order of author details, must be communicated to the Editor-in-Chief from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript along with statement of a valid reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and undersigned declaration in the form of scanned copy through e-mail or consent letter from all authors stating that they agree with the rearrangement, addition or removal. In the case of addition or removal of authors also insists on the confirmation from the author being added or removed. Editor in chief suspends the publication of the accepted manuscript until the authorship issue (addition, rearrangement or deletion) is resolved.

After the publication: Any request from corresponding author to add, delete, or rearrange order of author names in an article already published in an online issue will follow erratum publication in the future issue of the publication.

Copyright

Upon the acceptance of manuscript, authors will be asked to complete and undersign a copyright form and submit it’s scanned copy via e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief.  Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles that including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions followed by proper citation and acknowledgements. Resale, distribution outside the institution (external circulation) and for other derivative works that include compilations and translations AJBS insists on permission from the publisher. For those who are interested to produce excerpts from other copyrighted works; the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article for such works. For copyright form. Click here

Language

Please write your manuscript in lucid and good English, authors can use American or British usage according to their convenience, but not a mixture of this two in one article.

Content of the manuscript

AJBS publishes manuscripts in three categories, such as original investigations, short communications, or reviews, occasionally. In the case of longer articles such as reviews, authors are advised to contact the Editor in chief before the submission.

Original investigations: Original investigations should include illustrations, tables and references in addition to the main text. The main text should be divided into: Abstract, Introduction, Review of Literature, Research methodology, Results & Discussion, Conclusions & Recommendations and References. Word count of the whole manuscript should not exceed 6000 words.

Short communications: Short communications should include an Abstract and its contents without any structure like original articles. Such short communications should not include any subheadings like Introduction, Material and methods etc. Word count of the whole manuscript should not exceed 3000 words.

Reviews: Manuscripts that review and integrate the current state of knowledge in a special field of business and social sciences are also welcome. The review article text must provide an Abstract, Special headings in the review area, Acknowledgements and References.

Submission

The article should be submitted to submit.ajbs@wu.edu.et as per the guidelines for authors

Review process

After the submission, AJBS follows double blinded peer review procedure. For more details, please refer peer review policy.

DURING PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT

Use of word processing software

Save the article file in the default format of the word processor platform (Microsoft Word), keep the text in a single-column format and maintain the layout of the text as simple as possible. Processing the article involves the removal of the formatting codes, don’t hyphenate words or justify text through word processing platform.  However, keep using bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. at necessary fields. During the preparation of the tables, if you are using a table grid, use one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row.  Preparation of the electronic text should be just very similar to that of preparation of conventional manuscript.  Use ‘spell- check’ and ‘grammar- check’ functions provided in your word processing platforms to avoid unnecessary errors.  Apply line numbering throughout the text.

Form

The manuscript should be typed (12-point font, Times New Roman), 1.5 spaced (Including abstract and references) on A4 size white paper with 1 inch margins. The title page along with author names and their affiliation should appear in the first page and nowhere else in the manuscript.

Article structure

Manuscript should be structured clearly with specific defined sections.

Introduction: It should explain the objectives of the research work with an adequate background of the study.The intention are to provide the readers a mental warm-up, thus giving them information and readiness as to what the research is all about and introduce the study. It carries the statement of the problem can best be used as frame of reference. to write this paragraph.  It is simply telling the readers the scope and coverage of the study.  An introduction is a portion that is intriguing and challenging the readers to become interested in knowing the results of the study. 

Review of Literature: The Literature Review should critically analyze the existing knowledge on the research topic. It should include the strengths, limitations, gaps of previous studies and justifies the need for the current research. The Literature Review must be relevant with recent citations. A careful, lengthy and comprehensive study of today’s publications on the Internet and in the library will lead to a limited use of older references. The decade or older references can be used sparingly and only for historical purposes. The literature review should present a review of the literature related to the problem and purpose. The literature review section should therefore be organized or categorized according to the research questions or specific objectives in order to ensure relevance to the research problem.

 Research Methodology: In this section, sufficient necessary details need to be provided so that work can be reproduced. The methods already published elsewhere should be acknowledged with appropriate reference with necessary modification, if any. In addition to this, the necessary details of software such as SPSS, AMOX, STATA, etc., should be provided in this section

Results and Discussion: Data should be clear and concise and presented preferably in the form of tables or figure or text as per the need of the manuscript; but do not try to present same data in more than one form. Do not include too many tables and try to combine wherever possible. Use Arabic numerals for the table and figures and they should not exceed in specified margin area. Discussion should investigate the significance of the results obtained during the work, not repeating them in words or with units. Try to avoid extensive citations, review and discussion of published literature in Discussion section.

Conclusions and Recommendations: Conclusions section should presents substantial discoveries, by telling the reader what you have learned from the study. Open with a clear statement on the support or nonsupport of the hypotheses or the answers to the questions you first raised in the introduction.

Recommendations offers vivid and specific solutions based from the results of the study. The recommendations should be action words or interventions which would partially or wholly eliminate the problem areas found in the results. Write your recommendations thoughtfully, comprehensively in a narrative. What recommendations   from   your   research   findings   can   you   make   to   practitioners   and academicians in your field of study from this thesis effort? How can your research findings contribute to the body of knowledge in the discipline in Ethiopia, Africa, or globally? This section offers vivid and specific solutions based from the results of the study.

Appendices: Appendix should be identified as A, B, C etc. Equations or formulae in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. 1: and Eq. 2: etc.; in a successive appendix similarly for figures and tables: Fig. 1; and Table 1, etc.

Essential title page information

Title: Title of the manuscript should be meaningful and precise. Preferably, title should not contain any kind of abbreviations and formulae.

Author names and affiliations: Corresponding author should clearly specify and endorse the accurate spelling of all authors full first, middle and last name(s). Precise authors' affiliation, details of the addresses, should be provided by corresponding author just below the all names. In addition to this, provide the full postal address of each affiliation and the e-mail address of each author. Indications such as a, b, c needs to be used to denote the different organizations if authors belong to different organization. Author should provide the affiliation or address details where the actual work was done. 

Corresponding author: Corresponding author is one who will handle correspondence at all stages of publication and after publication process. Corresponding author should use valid email address and he should make ensure that he is using the same email address throughout the publication process. Otherwise, he must provide a valid reason for changing his email address, if any.

Abstract

The abstract should contain a brief summary of the manuscript not more than 250 words. It should state the purpose of the research and ascertain the paper's purpose with the principal results and major conclusions. Abstract should be presented separately from the article without references. If any essential abbreviations are required in abstract they must be defined at its first mention. Non- standard and uncommon abbreviations should be avoided in abstract. 

Keywords

As keywords helps to display the paper to interested readers, other researchers and browsers abstract should be followed with maximum of six keywords in chronological order Always avoid common words such as ‘of’ ‘and’, and plural terms. Use abbreviations that are firmly established in the field of investigation.

Abbreviations

Use appropriate and standard abbreviations where and when required, regardless of how well known they are, always write a long name in full at very first time you use them. Abbreviations that are unavoidable must be defined at their first mention; First abbreviated term should be used in full with the abbreviation included in brackets. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article. Abbreviations should not be used in the title.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements are polite gestures that enable authors to thank all those who helped in carrying out the research. Express your acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references.   

Units

In the modern metric system of measurement and scientific reporting use of international system of units (SI) is widely accepted.  Hence the authors are advised to use only the SI units thought out the length on the article. 

Tables, figures and images

Submit tables and figures only in the editable default format and not in images format.  It is mandatory to place tables in separate page(s) at the end of the article with caption. Give numbering to the tables consecutively as mentioned in appendix and accordance with their appearance in the text. If there were any table notes write it below the table body.  Ensure that the data presented in table do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Images (if any) should be provided in JPEG format with necessary number and annotation.

References

Citation: It is mandatory that the citation of every reference in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Citation of a reference in the reference section as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication and same can be mentioned in the reference section. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the text as well as reference list. Web references and secondary references are not accepted. Citations in the text provide brief information, usually the name of the author and the date of publication, to lead the reader to the source of information in the reference list at the end of the paper.  All citations must be in the Hanging Indent Format with the first line flush to the left margin and all other lines indented. This journal follows the American Psychological Association (APA) style in reference list.

Writing in the Proper Tense for an APA Styled Paper: Verb tense is an indicator that distinguishes papers in the humanities from those in tile natural sciences. APA style requires the use of the past tense or present perfect tense ("Marshal stipulated" or the "work of Elmford and Mills has demonstrated"). APA style requires the present tense when you discuss the results (e.g., "the results confirm: or the study indicates"') and when you mention established knowledge (eg., “the therapy offers some hope” or “salt contributes to hypertension”). APA style requires that you use present tense for generalizations and references to stable conditions, but it requires the past tense for sources cited: the sources have tested (present perfect) a hypothesis or the sources reported (past tense) the results of the test. 

Reference citation in the reference section: Author surname(s) or family name(s) or last name (as they appear on the actual publication) need to be mentioned in full and first and second names as initials. The journal complete name and the volume number are in italics. Issue numbers are not required if the journal is continuously paged. If paged individually, the issue number is required in parentheses adjacent to the volume number.

General Form  

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Name of article. Title of Journal, xx, xxx-xxx. 

Personal Communication:

Chabala, E. M. (2008). Personal Communication, School of Business, Copperbelt University, Kitwe, P.O Box 21692.

Contribution to an Edited Volume/ Book:

Mwila, L. L., Kashweka, H. and Maseka, K. K. (2006): The effects of the financial markets crash on the Zambian mining industry’s competitiveness. In S.K. Silumbu, F.G. Kayula and W. L. Muti (eds.), Global Financial Markets and the World Economy. Mission Press, Ndola, Zambia.

A Journal article:

Mesquita, L. F., Anand, J. and Brush, T. H. (2008): Comparing the Resource – Based and Relational Views- Knowledge Transfer and Spill- over in Vertical Alliances. Strategic Management Journal, 29 (9), 913 – 941.

A Book:

Cooper, D. R. and Schindler, P. S. (2006): Business Research Methods. Ninth Edition. McGraw-Hill, Boston, USA.

A Newspaper article:

Maliti, B. (2008): The Causes of the endemic poverty in Zambian Households. The Post, October 24, p.4

An unpublished report:

Maliti, B. (unpubl.): Examining performance variables in the Zambian Food and Beverage Industry using the action – profit linkage (APL) model. Cleveland State University, Ohio, USA.

Submission checklist

The following list will be very useful to authors for the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review.

• Make sure that one author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details.
• Ensure that E-mail address and Full postal address of the corresponding author
• All necessary information is mentioned in the manuscript such as:
• Keywords
• Figure numbering and captions
• Tables numbering, title or description and footnotes
  • Ensure that 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' applied to the manuscript
  • Ensure that all references are in the correct format exemplified in reference style
  • Cross check that all references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
  • Make sure that permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources.
  • All images should be provided in the form of black and white versions.

Revisions

After receipt of the reviews, the authors should return their revised version of article or paper to the editorial office within 15 days; Otherwise the article or paper will be treated as new submissions.

AFTER ACCEPTANCE OF MANUSCRIPT

Proofs

One set of galley proofs in PDF format will be sent to corresponding author.  If authors have any problem with using the PDF annotations function, they may contact editor in chief with reference ID number of your manuscript.  Please use galley proof only for checking the typographical errors in editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures.

Reprints

The corresponding authors can download his electronic form of article without any charges from the official journal website. Authors need to request Editor-in-Chief for print version (Charges are applied). For more details contact Editor-in-Chief at editor.ajbs@wu.edu.et