Author Guidelines
Sustainable Trends and Business Research (STBR) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed open access journal situated within the field of Business, Management and Accounting. The journal publishes rigorous scholarship that advances sustainable practices, governance frameworks, innovation systems, environmental strategy, and emerging global business dynamics. The journal’s intellectual orientation, thematic coverage, and disciplinary positioning are articulated in its Aims & Scope, which defines the range of research considered appropriate for publication.
The following guidelines summarize the journal’s expectations concerning manuscript preparation, submission, editorial review, publication governance, and author responsibilities.
Manuscripts must be prepared in professional academic English and submitted in Microsoft Word format. Submissions are expected to demonstrate conceptual clarity, methodological rigor, analytical coherence, and engagement with relevant international literature. To preserve the integrity of the journal’s double-anonymized review model, the manuscript file must exclude author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, and identifying metadata. References must follow the STBR-adapted Harvard style, and tables and figures must be provided in editable format.
In addition to stylistic preparation, submissions must comply with defined structural and technical standards, including word limits, abstract format, keyword requirements, referencing consistency, figure and table formatting, and metadata accuracy. These technical and structural specifications form part of the journal’s formal Manuscript Preparation and Manuscript Requirements framework and are integral to editorial consideration.
All manuscripts are submitted through the journal’s Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform. Submission requires accurate entry of metadata, including author sequence, institutional affiliations, funding disclosures, conflict of interest statements, and ORCID identifiers where applicable. The corresponding author assumes responsibility for the completeness and accuracy of submission information. The procedural structure governing submission, author declarations, and compliance confirmation is defined within the journal’s Submission Process.
Following submission, manuscripts undergo preliminary editorial screening to assess alignment with scope, methodological soundness, policy compliance, and scholarly contribution. Eligible manuscripts proceed to rigorous double-anonymized peer review by independent expert reviewers. Evaluation criteria include originality, theoretical robustness, analytical validity, clarity of argumentation, and contribution to sustainable business research. Editorial independence, reviewer governance, decision categories, revision procedures, and appeals are formally established within the journal’s Peer Review Process.
Upon acceptance, manuscripts enter formal production, including professional copyediting, typesetting, proof review, DOI registration, and online publication. Authors are responsible for carefully reviewing proofs to ensure accuracy prior to final release. The workflow governing production standards, publication sequencing, metadata registration, and post-publication corrections is structured within the journal’s Post-Acceptance procedures.
STBR operates under strict standards of publication ethics, research integrity, and editorial independence. Submission confirms that the manuscript is original, not under consideration elsewhere, and free from plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, or redundant publication. All manuscripts are subject to similarity screening prior to peer review.
The journal maintains formal procedures governing misconduct investigations, corrections, retractions, conflict of interest management, and editorial decision-making. These standards are articulated in Publication Ethics & Editorial Policies, which define the ethical and governance framework under which all editorial activity operates.
Authorship must reflect substantial intellectual contribution and shared accountability for the integrity of the work. All authors must approve the submitted version and agree to responsibility for all aspects of the research. Funding sources and the role of funders must be transparently disclosed, and any financial or non-financial competing interests must be declared.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions for third-party materials, ensuring compliance with data protection standards, and adhering to ethical requirements where research involves human participants. Legal responsibilities, authorship criteria, confidentiality obligations, and compliance standards are defined in Author Responsibilities & Legal Policies.
STBR is a fully open access journal. All published articles are made immediately and permanently accessible online without subscription barriers. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal a non-exclusive right of first publication.
Articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. The journal does not impose submission fees or article processing charges (APCs). DOI assignment, digital preservation, and long-term archiving are governed within the journal’s Open Access, Copyright & Archiving policy framework.
The opinions, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in published articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal, its editorial board, reviewers, or publisher. Responsibility for the content of published work rests solely with the authors.
