Author Ethics and Research Intergity

Ethical Guidelines for Authors

When you submit a paper to MIP=JIBM, you are confirming that you have read these ethical guidelines, agree to the contents and have taken any appropriate actions.

Content 

By submitting a paper to MIP=JIBM, it is understood that all authors have thereby declared that they have read and agree on the content of the submitted paper. 

Ethics 

Submissions may be rejected by MIP=JIBM Editorial Board if it is felt that the work was not carried out within an ethical framework for scholarly publications. 

MIP=JIBM adheres to the principles outlined by COPE – Committee on Publication Ethics.

Mednarodno inovativno poslovanje = Journal of Innovative Business and Management  (MIP=JIBM) recognizes that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and AI-assisted technologies can support researchers and contribute to more efficient scholarly communication. Their use must, however, comply with the principles of academic integrity, transparency, confidentiality, and human accountability.

Authors

Authors may use AI tools to support the preparation of manuscripts, for example for language improvement, organization, summarization, or generating ideas. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and scholarly quality of their work and must critically review and verify all AI-assisted content, including references and citations.

AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Any substantive use of generative AI in preparing a manuscript must be disclosed in the manuscript. Basic spelling, grammar, and punctuation checks do not require disclosure.

Reviewers

Peer review is confidential. Reviewers must not upload submitted manuscripts or any part thereof to generative AI tools or other external AI systems. AI may be used only for limited, non-confidential assistance, such as improving the language of a review report. Reviewers remain fully responsible for their assessment and recommendations and should disclose substantive use of AI in preparing a review report.

Editors

Editors must protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and must not upload manuscripts or parts thereof to generative AI tools.

AI must not be used to make or determine editorial decisions. Editors remain responsible for all editorial decisions and communications and may use AI only for appropriate, non-confidential supportive tasks.

Confidentiality and Responsibility

All participants in the publication process must protect confidential information, personal data, intellectual property, and unpublished research. The use of AI must not compromise research integrity, confidentiality, copyright, or intellectual property rights. Human authors, reviewers, and editors remain fully accountable for their work and decisions.

MIP=JIBM may review and update this policy in response to developments in AI technologies and standards of responsible scholarly publishing.

Competing/conflicting interests 

Authors must make a declaration in their paper of all potential competing interests involving people or organisations that might reasonably be perceived as relevant. 

Examples of competing interests include, but are not limited to, financial, professional and personal interests such as: 

• Research grants (from any source, restricted or unrestricted) 

• Relationships (paid or unpaid) with organisations and funding bodies including non governmental organisations, research institutions or charities 

• Membership of lobbying or advocacy organisations 

• Personal relationships (i.e. friend, spouse, family member, current or previous mentor, adversary) with individuals involved in the submission or evaluation of a paper, such as authors, reviewers, editors, or members of the editorial board of an MIP=JIBM

• Personal convictions (political, religious, ideological, or other) related to a paper's topic that may interfere with an unbiased publication process (at the stage of authorship, peer  review, editorial decision making or publication) 

Plagiarism 

Plagiarism in any form constitutes a serious violation of the principles of scholarship and is not acceptable. Examples of plagiarism include: 

1. Word-for-word copying of portions of another's writing without enclosing the copied passage in quotation marks and acknowledging the source in the appropriate scholarly convention. 

2. The use of a particularly unique term or concept without acknowledging the original author or source. 

3. The paraphrasing or abbreviated restatement of someone else's ideas without acknowledging that another person's text has been the basis for the paraphrasing. 

4. False citation: material should not be attributed to a source from which it has not been obtained. 

5. False data: data that has been fabricated or altered in a laboratory or experiment; although not factually plagiarism, this is clearly a form of academic fraud. 

6. Unacknowledged multiple authors or collaboration: the contributions of each author or collaborator should be made clear. 

7. Self-plagiarism/double submission: the submission of the same or a very similar paper to two or more publications.  

Medical research 

Medical writers, or anyone else who assisted in the preparation of the paper, should be acknowledged in the paper, either as an author, or in the Acknowledgements section, as per the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical

Journal Editors. 

Experimental research on humans must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and comply with the Helsinki Declaration (2013). 

Informed consent

Informed consent must be documented in your paper in cases where information or clinical photographs of human subjects are used. Signed copies of consent forms will be required before a paper can be considered for review. 

Animal research

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

Sponsorship

Authors from pharmaceutical companies or other commercial organisations that sponsor clinical trials should comply with the good practice described by The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals at GPP3.

These guidelines also apply to companies or individuals that work on industry-sponsored publications, such as freelance writers, contract research organisations and communications companies.