Small Business International Review (ISSN 2531-0046) is an international journal committed to the open-access publication of research articles that enhance knowledge and understanding of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The journal covers a wide range of topics related to SMEs, including but not limited to:

• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Growth and Development Strategies
• Human Resource Management and Leadership
• Finance and Capital Structure
• Marketing and Communication
• International Trade and Globalization
• Family Business Dynamics and Governance
• Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility
• Technology and Digital Transformation
• Knowledge Management
• Organizational Culture and Diversity
• Business Ethics and Corporate Governance

Small Business International Review encourages a diversity of approaches and methodologies that contribute to SME research, as outlined below.

Theoretical and Empirical Studies on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises:

Small Business International Review aims to be the leading publication outlet for high-quality theoretical, review, and empirical research on a broad range of topics influencing and shaping SMEs. The journal welcomes contributions from young researchers exploring new areas of SME research, as well as from more experienced researchers expanding on previous work or exploring new paradigms.

Interdisciplinary Approach to SME Research:

Small Business International Review publishes top-tier research on SME-related topics across various disciplines, including management, organizational behavior, sociology, anthropology, psychology, social psychology, and industrial relations. As an international platform, the journal transcends regional, geographical, and disciplinary boundaries to reach a wide audience.

A Range of Perspectives and Styles:

The journal publishes both quantitative and qualitative research, case studies, and mixed-methods studies. These contributions are designed not only to advance academic knowledge but also to influence public policy and business practice. Regardless of the methodological approach, all research published in Small Business International Review meets the highest standards of rigor and excellence. The journal's methodological orientations cover a spectrum from micro to macro analyses, conceptual frameworks, literature reviews, empirical studies, and experimental methods, all aimed at making a meaningful impact on public policy.

Additionally, Small Business International Review accepts research notes intended as brief, specific contributions to subtopics related to SMEs. These notes provide researchers with an opportunity to present preliminary findings or innovative approaches that could open new avenues for SME research.

The journal Small Business International Review aims to become a leading publication in SME research through:

1. Developing and implementing accessible and transparent editorial quality policies for authors, readers, and reviewers.
2. Increasing international visibility through inclusion in: (1) online libraries of foundations, research institutes, and universities, (2) indexes of scientific serial publications, and (3) international databases of serial publications. Potential inclusions are Thomson Gale, Informe Académico, EBSCOhost, Emerald, JSTOR, Latindex, Redalyc, SciELO, Scopus and WoS.
3. Achieving high scores in impact factor indicators. The following metrics organizations are considered: Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson ISI) (JCR Social Sciences Edition), SCImago Journal & Country Rank, IN-RECS, Impact Index of Spanish Social Science Journals, RESH, and Spanish Journals of Social Sciences and Humanities, SciELO, and Journal Citation Reports.

Target Audience

The journal Small Business International Review is aimed at:

1. Professors, researchers, and university students interested in SME research.
2. Professionals in management, economics, and accounting.
3. Managers and strategic staff of SMEs.
4. Public officials involved in public policy management.

Scope and Publication Frequency

Scope: Small Business International Review (ISSN 2531-0046) is an international journal focused on publishing research related to SMEs across various fields, including management, economics, finance, organizational behavior, sociology, and social psychology.

Publication Frequency: Small Business International Review publishes an annual volume divided into two biannual issues, with five articles in each issue. The first issue of each year is published in early January, covering the months from January to June, while the second issue is published in early July, covering the months from July to December. The journal maintains a continuous and open call for submissions at all times.

Estimated Time to Publication: Small Business International Review has an average estimated time from submission to publication of 18-20 weeks, with a rejection rate of 73.4%.

In September 2020, the publication model of Small Business International Review changed. Instead of waiting for a fixed date to publish the complete issue, the journal adopted a continuous publication (CP) model. The information provided below serves as a guide for readers, authors, and librarians on what this change entails.

What has changed and what hasn't: The most significant feature of the new publication model is that articles can be published online in their final format, with their definitive citations, as soon as they have been accepted, corrected, and formatted. Articles are added to the current "open" issue of the journal, which will continue to grow over time until it is "closed" and replaced by a new open issue. The total number of articles published does not change, except for a brief increase in the publication rate immediately after the change, as the backlog of articles awaiting publication is cleared. Additionally, there are other minor changes to the journal. PDF files will always begin pagination from page 1.

Why the change was made: The primary motivation for this change was to better serve readers and authors by ensuring that a "final version" of an accepted article is available as soon as possible. As the number of journal readers has increasingly shifted online and the use of search engines has grown, the importance of quickly publishing individual articles has increased relative to publishing large groups of articles at fixed intervals.

How to cite my article: The citation details for an article are clearly provided alongside the web and PDF versions of the article. To facilitate indexing and navigation, the journal is still divided into "volumes" and "issues." However, the page range has been replaced by an alphanumeric identifier (elocation-id), based on the manuscript submission number preceded by an "e." For example:

Beglaryan, M., & Shakhmuradyan, G. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 on small and medium-sized enterprises in Armenia: Evidence from a labor force survey.Small Business International Review, 4(2), e298. https://doi.org/10.26784/sbir.v4i2.298

Research Articles ( Open Submissions -  Indexed -  Peer Reviewed)

Small Business International Review exclusively aims to publish research articles, specifically manuscripts that present a conceptual framework or empirical research. As a brief guide for their preparation, a research article should generally adhere to the following structure:

• Title, abstract, and keywords
• Body of the article. Divided into sections and subsections according to the following structure:
  • Introduction. Includes the rationale for the study, the objectives, and the foundations of the research.
  • Theory and Research Hypotheses. Presents the theoretical framework that supports the research and formulates the hypotheses to be tested.
  • Research Methodology. Describes the research methodology, the data, samples, or sources used, as well as the empirical analyses employed.
  • Results. Presents, describes, and analyzes the main findings of the research and their impact.
  • Discussion and Conclusions. Relates the findings to those of other studies, highlights new contributions, and mentions the main limitations and future research directions.
  • References. Includes all sources cited in the article, presented in alphabetical order according to APA-7 style.

AECA and UPCT (publishing entities) adhere to a zero-tolerance policy towards plagiarism in all its possible forms. The editors will include a scan using Turnitin Software  as part of the internal review process for articles submitted through the platform. If authors have access to any anti-plagiarism tools, it is advisable for them to use such tools before submitting their article to avoid any unpleasant situations.

The journal's editorial committee has approved the following possible actions to be taken by the section editor, depending on the similarity scores returned by Turnitin Software:

1. For a total similarity index above 30%: The article will be rejected (due to improper citation and/or poor paraphrasing; the article will be outright rejected, and NO RESUBMISSIONS TO THE JOURNAL WILL BE ACCEPTED).
2. For a total similarity index between 20% and 30% (additionally, each individual source must not exceed 3%): The section editor may require the authors to make improvements and corrections (such as correctly citing all places where similarities are found and providing proper paraphrasing, even when a citation is included).
3. For a total similarity index below 20% (additionally, each individual source must not exceed 3%): The section editor may either accept the submission for the next phase of the editorial process or request further improvements from the authors (similar to the previous point).

In cases 2 and 3 (if requested by the editor): Authors must carefully review the article, add the required citations, and properly paraphrase any externally sourced text. Upon receiving the revised version of the article, it will be scanned again, and at this point, a similarity index of less than 20% is required, with each individual source not exceeding 3%.

The entire process may take between 18 and 20 weeks, depending on the complexity of the manuscript and the revisions required from the author.

Each manuscript goes through the following steps from submission to final publication:

1. Internal Review [between 2 and 3 weeks]

All articles undergo a preliminary editorial evaluation by the Editorial Committee, which reserves the right to determine whether the articles align with the interests of Small Business International Review and meet the essential requirements of a scientific article, as well as all the editorial guidelines established here. As part of this internal evaluation, all articles are scanned using the Turnitin software, and if the editors detect plagiarism issues, a review report will be provided to the authors.

2. External Review [between 11 and 14 weeks]

Manuscripts that meet the guidelines will be sent to two anonymous external reviewers selected by the Scientific Committee for their recognized expertise. The peer reviewers will evaluate the article based on the following criteria:

1. Relevance of the article to the topics covered by the journal.
2. Academic quality (research methodology and results).
3. Style and writing of the article.
4. Impact of the results on the development of the research field and for SMEs.

The outcome of the review process may be one of the following three options:

1. Approved for publication without changes ("Accept this submission").
2. Conditional upon mandatory changes, subject to resubmission ("Publishable with revisions").
3. 3. Rejected ("Not publishable").

If the article receives two positive reviews, it may be published provided its content aligns with the timing, editorial guidelines, and themes set by the Journal at that time. The acceptance of a reviewed and approved contribution does not imply immediate publication. Small Business International Review reserves the final decision regarding publication, as well as the volume in which the accepted works will be published.

If the reviews are conditional upon mandatory changes and require resubmission, the authors must promptly address the observations, additions, corrections, extensions, or clarifications suggested by the reviewers. Authors will have a maximum of thirty calendar days to make the corrections. Once the article has been revised according to the recommendations, it will be sent back to the reviewers, who will then decide if it is finally publishable.

Two negative reviews will cancel the possibility of publishing the proposed article, considering it rejected.

In the case of one positive review and one negative review, the article will be sent to a third reviewer, whose decision will be final and binding.

The outcome of the review will be communicated to the author within a maximum of five business days from the date of receipt of the last review, along with the comments, suggestions, and observations of the reviewers.

The content of the review is confidential and for internal use only by Small Business International Review and the authors.

In the event of a conflict, complaint, or disagreement from the author regarding the final outcome of the evaluation process, it will be the responsibility of the Editorial Committee to address and resolve the matter.

3. Revision Suggestions for the Author(s)

The manuscript that has passed step 2 will receive (i) suggestions for linguistic corrections, (ii) feedback from the reviewers, and (iii) suggestions from the editors. The author must submit a revised version based on the suggested revisions.

4. Final Acceptance [between 2 and 4 weeks]

Once the revised manuscript is received, the section editor will evaluate the revised version, make the final decision in consultation with the editors-in-chief, and communicate this to the author. If necessary, authors may be asked to make further revisions to comply with the journal's quality standards.

5. Publication Stage [between 1 and 2 weeks]

The author will receive a draft of the final galley proof for correction. Once the article is published, the authors will be notified by email. In this email, authors will also be encouraged to follow the guidelines outlined in the journal's self-archiving policy.

AECA and UPCT (publishing entities) believe in the importance of the long-term preservation of academic content. This journal is also responsible for ensuring that the effort invested by authors and reviewers is not lost in the event that the journal ceases publication. Traditionally, university libraries have been responsible for preserving academic articles. However, one of the challenges that emerged with open access journals (despite their many advantages) is the need to ensure their long-term preservation. To address this challenge, several preservation measures have been established:

Website Archiving

All our electronic content (website, databases, manuscripts, etc.) is stored in three different locations. The content is permanently hosted on an online server and is accessible to all users. Daily backups of all server content are made (using three independent restoration systems), so in the event of a server failure, any of the other sources can be brought online, and the website is expected to be accessible within 24 to 36 hours.

UPCT Digital Repository 

The digital repository of the Polytechnic University of Cartagena is a tool that collects, manages, disseminates, and preserves the scientific, educational, and institutional output of the university. It also includes digital documents that are part of or complement the UPCT library collections. The UPCT digital repository is presented as an organized, open-access, and interoperable collection. All content from Small Business International Review, as part of UPCT, is preserved and openly displayed in the UPCT repository.

Dialnet Aggregation Journal Platform 

Dialnet is one of the largest bibliographic portals in the world, primarily dedicated to increasing the visibility of Hispanic scientific literature. Focused mainly on the fields of Humanities, Law, and Social Sciences, Dialnet serves as a fundamental tool for searching high-quality information.

RePEC Subject Repository 

Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) is a collaborative initiative involving hundreds of volunteers across many countries aimed at enhancing the dissemination of economic research. The core of the project is a decentralized database of working papers, preprints, journal articles, and software components.

IDEAS 

The largest bibliographic database dedicated to Economics and available freely on the Internet.

Self-Archiving

Authors are allowed to archive the submitted, accepted, and published versions, as outlined below in the Self-Archiving Policy.

The LOCKSS program

Small Business International Review is included in the Private LOCKSS Network (PKP PLN) of the Public Knowledge Project, a distributed archiving system that creates permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. Learn more about LOCKSS  and PKP PLN .

Internet Archive - Fatcat!

Fatcat is a versioned, editable catalog of academic research publications, including journal articles, conference proceedings, preprints, blog posts, and more. The goal is to improve the preservation status and access to these works by providing a manifest of the versions and locations of full-text content (SBIR container record ).

The journal Small Business International Review allows and encourages authors to electronically disseminate all their works in each of the following versions:

1. Submitted version: The original version submitted to a journal for peer review (also known as a pre-print).
2. Accepted version: The final version created by the author that incorporates the reviewers' comments and is accepted for publication (also known as a post-print).
3. Published version: The final version published by the editor.

This approach fosters rapid circulation and dissemination, potentially increasing the citation and reach of the work within the academic community. However, please note that if you disseminate only the published version, you are assured that the same version of your article will be available on any website, which increases the likelihood of your article being cited correctly.

Submitted Version

Authors reserve the right to disseminate this version on the author's homepage or institutional website, provided they acknowledge that the article has been submitted for review by the journal in the following manner:

This article has been submitted for review to Small Business International Review, a journal published by the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration (AECA) and the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT).

Accepted Version

Authors reserve the right to disseminate this version (under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license) on the author's homepage or institutional website, provided they acknowledge that the article has been accepted for publication by the journal in the following manner:

This article has been accepted for publication in Small Business International Review, a journal published by the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration (AECA) and the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT).

Published Version

Authors reserve the right to disseminate this version (under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license) on any site. This includes publishing in:

• Journal Website. The main website of Small Business International Review.
• Author's Homepage. The author's personal website.
• Academic Social Network: Social networks where academics can deposit their publications, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Google Scholar, ORCID, etc.
• Funder Designated Repository: Repositories specified by funding agencies.
• Institutional Repository: Repositories of the institutions to which the author is affiliated.
• Institutional Website: The website of the institution to which the author is affiliated.
• Subject Repository: Thematic repositories.
• Commercial Platforms, Websites, or Repositories.
• Social Media: For example, Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, etc.

In all cases, the journal must be mentioned using a complete citation format, along with a link to the article through its assigned DOI link.

As part of its commitment to authors, Small Business International Review automatically deposits all published versions in the UPCT, Dialnet, and RePEc repositories to help authors disseminate their articles. The details of the Self-Archiving Policy are recorded in Jisc-Open policy finder  and Dulcinea .

Small Business International Review is currently in its early stages and, naturally, is not yet indexed in the major academic information services. However, it is the editor's intention to begin applying to the most important indexing services (such as DOAJ, Emerging Sources Citation Index, Scopus, etc.) once we have published a sufficient number of issues and can meet the minimum requirements. Furthermore, all possible measures have been taken in accordance with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing  to ensure immediate acceptance in future services.

In the meantime, some search engine optimization (SEO ) measures have already been implemented to ensure that all content is available in major search engines (e.g., Google Scholar). It is also very important to note that by publishing with the open-source software OJS, the journal's website is compatible with OAI-PMH requirements. This ensures that all metadata can be harvested and updated by services that use this protocol (e.g., BASE , OAIster , etc.).

To date, the following actions have been taken:

Indexes and Evaluation Systems:

• Academic Journal Guide (AJG) - CABS  The purpose of the AJG is to support academics and Deans in the navigation of the research environment and its complexity, through the provision of robust evidence informed information and data. It provides details on a wide range of journals, stretching across fields that are either central or salient to business and management studies where academics may seek to publish their research. The AJG’s ratings are based upon peer review, editorial and expert judgements following the evaluation of many hundreds of publications and is informed by statistical information relating to citation.
• Índice Dialnet de Revistas (IDR) - Dialnet Plus  is an instrument that allows us to know the scientific impact of a journal, its evolution and its position with respect to the rest of the journals in the speciality. For each subject area, this indicator is based on the analysis of the number of citations received by articles published in the previous five years relative to the number of publications.
• Quality Seal of Spanish Scientific Journals -FECYT  Since 2018, the FECYT has been producing a ranking of the visibility and impact of Spanish journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences that have obtained its quality seal, taking into account the results of compliance with the indicator ‘Level of impact, impact and visibility of the journal’.
• EIRH PLUS  (originally called the European Reference Index for the Humanities, or ERIH) is an index containing bibliographic information on academic journals in the humanities and social sciences.

Catalogues:

• Latindex Catálogo 2.0 : (Regional Cooperative Online Information System for Scholarly Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal) is a bibliographical information system available for free consultation.
• Dulcinea : A service to show the copyright and open access self-archiving policies of academic journals.
• REDIB  (Red Iberoamericana de Innovación y Conocimiento Científico) is a platform for the aggregation of scientific content in electronic format produced in the Ibero-American context.
• BASE  (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) is a multi-disciplinary search engine for scholarly internet resources, created by Bielefeld University Library in Bielefeld, Germany.
• DIALNET : A bibliographic database maintained by the University of La Rioja.
• REBIUN : The collective catalog of the University Libraries Network (REBIUN) gathers the bibliographic records of the 76 university libraries and the CSIC that are part of this network.
• Internet Archive - Fatcat! : A versioned, publicly-editable catalog of research publications: journal articles, conference proceedings, preprints, blog posts, and so forth. The goal is to improve the state of preservation and access to these works by providing a manifest of full-text content versions and locations.

Directories:

• DOAJ : The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a website that hosts a community-curated list of open access journals, maintained by Infrastructure Services for Open Access. The project defines open access journals as scientific and scholarly journals that make all their content available for free, without delay or user-registration requirements, and meeting high-quality standards, notably by exercising peer review or editorial quality control.
• MIAR  (Information Matrix for the Analysis of Journals): A database, free and accessible on the Internet, which serves to identify and evaluate the secondary dissemination of humanities and social sciences journals.
• ROAD  (Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources) synthesizes information about open access journals and is a subset of the ISSN register.

Repositories:

• UPCT  (Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Spain - Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, España)

Search Engines and Academic Networks:

• Google Scholar : A freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across vaious publishing formats and disciplines.
• ResearchGate : A social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators.
• RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) : A decentralized bibliographic database dedicated to economics, including working papers, journal articles, books, book chapters, and software components.
• IDEAS : The largest bibliographic database dedicated to economics and available for free on the internet.
• Dimensions : A new bibliographic database produced by Digital Science and launched in January 2018. Dimensions is a dynamic database that is open for integration with any research publication outputs.
• Lens Scholarly Search : Lens serves almost 200 million scholarly records, compiled and harmonized from Microsoft Academic, PubMed, and Crossref, enhanced with UnPaywall open access information, CORE full text, and links to ORCID.
• OpenAlex : An open and comprehensive catalog of scholarly papers, authors, institutions, and more. Inspired by the ancient Library of Alexandria, OpenAlex is an index of hundreds of millions of interconnected entities across the global research system.
• Scilit - Scientific and Literature : A comprehensive, free database for scientists using a new method to collate data and index scientific material. Crawlers extract the latest data from CrossRef and PubMed daily. This means that newly published articles are added to Scilit immediately.
• Scinapse : A free search engine for academic papers. As of April 2019, it indexes more than 200 million articles from over 40,000 journals. It has more than 300,000 visitors per month as of April 2019.
• Semantic Scholar : A project developed at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Publicly released in November 2015, it is designed to be an AI-backed search engine for scientific journal articles.
• scite_ : A Brooklyn-based startup that helps researchers better discover and evaluate scientific articles through Smart Citations—citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence.
• Naver Academic : A free web search engine for academic literature, developed by Naver Corporation. It started under the name Naver Knowledge Market in 2004 and offered an open market enabling users to trade reports, articles, professional images, and other documents.
• CORE  ("COnnecting REpositories"): A service provided by the Knowledge Media Institute, based at The Open University, United Kingdom. The goal of the project is to aggregate all open access content distributed across different systems, such as repositories and open access journals, enrich this content using text mining and data mining, and provide free access to it through a set of services.
• EBSCOhost (Business Source Ultimate) : EBSCOhost is an intuitive online research platform used by thousands of institutions and millions of users worldwide. With quality databases and search features, EBSCOhost helps researchers of all kinds find the information they need quickly.
• Internet Archive - Scholar : Search millions of research papers. This full-text search index includes over 25 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive. The collection spans from digitized copies of eighteenth-century journals through the latest Open Access conference proceedings and preprints crawled from the World Wide Web.
• EconLit : Professionally classified, updated weekly, and including over 1.6 million records, EconLit covers economic literature published over the last 130 years from leading institutions in 74 countries. In combination with the optional full-text package of over 500 journals, including the prestigious AEA journals, EconLit provides a comprehensive library of economics literature.

Responsibilities and Conduct of the Writing Board and the Editorial Committee

1. The description of the peer review processes is defined and communicated by the Writing Board and the Editorial Committee to ensure that authors are aware of the evaluation criteria. Both editorial bodies are always willing to resolve any disputes that arise during the evaluation process.
2. The Writing Board is responsible for informing authors about the stage of the editorial process their submitted text is in, as well as the outcomes of the review.

Responsibilities and Conduct of the Editors

1. The publishing entities and members of the journal's Editorial Committee are not responsible for the opinions and evaluations expressed by the authors whose works are published in the journal.
2. The editors will strive to meet the needs of readers and authors, continuously improve the quality and impact of the journal, and promote academic and scientific standards.
3. The editors are willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.
4. The editors' decision to accept or reject a manuscript for publication will be based solely on the significance of the article, its originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal.
5. The editors are committed to ensuring the confidentiality of the review process.
6. After the review process, and provided the article is deemed "publishable" by the reviewers, the editors are responsible for deciding which articles will be published in the journal.
7. The editors will evaluate manuscripts and their intellectual content without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, nationality, or political philosophy.
8. The editors and the Writing Board will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, or other editorial advisors.
9. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript will not be used in the personal research of the editors or members of the Writing Board without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review will remain confidential and will not be used for personal advantage. The editors will make fair and impartial decisions and ensure a fair and appropriate peer review process.

Responsibilities of Authors

1. Authors must ensure that their manuscripts are the result of their original work and that the data have been obtained ethically. Additionally, they must guarantee that their works have not been previously published or are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. A work will be considered as previously published when any of the following situations occur (these criteria apply to prior publications in both print and electronic form, and in any language):
1. When the full text has been published.
2. When extensive excerpts from previously published materials are included in the text submitted to the journal.
3. When the work submitted to the journal is included in conference proceedings published in full (30% or more of the text content).
4. When the work has been published in another language and the submission is a translation of that work.
2. For the publication of their works, authors must strictly adhere to the editorial guidelines for article publication as defined by the Editorial Committee.
3. Authors must submit an original version of the article without personal information (name, contact details, affiliation, etc.) and excluding their name from any bibliographic references in which it appears.
4. Authors of original research reports must provide an accurate description of the work conducted, as well as an objective discussion of its significance.
5. Each document must contain sufficient information and references to enable others to use the work. Fraudulent or deliberately inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
6. Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, they must be properly cited. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical editorial conduct and is unacceptable. Consequently, any manuscript found to be plagiarized will be removed and not considered for publication.
7. An author should generally not publish manuscripts that essentially describe the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal constitutes unethical behavior and is unacceptable.
8. Sources used must be properly documented. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in the nature of the work presented. Information obtained privately, through conversations, correspondence, or discussions with third parties, should not be used without explicit written permission from the source.
9. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. The primary authors must ensure that all co-authors are included in the article, that all have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication.
10. Authors must disclose in their manuscript any funding conflicts or interests that could influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support (and/or institutional sponsorship) received for the project must be disclosed.
11. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work, it is their obligation to immediately notify the journal's editorial board and cooperate with the editors to retract or correct the document.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

1. Reviewers are committed to reporting any unethical behavior by the authors and pointing out any information that would justify denying the publication of the articles. Additionally, they must maintain confidentiality regarding the information related to the articles they evaluate.
2. For the review of manuscripts, reviewers must have the necessary guidelines provided by the Writing Board to carry out this task.
3. All selected reviewers must promptly inform the Writing Board if they agree to review the manuscript. They should also notify the board if they believe they are not qualified or are unable to conduct the review.
4. Any manuscript received for review must be treated as a confidential document. It should not be shown to or discussed with other experts, except with the express authorization of the editors.
5. Reviewers must conduct themselves objectively. Personal criticism of the authors is considered inappropriate. They should express their views clearly and provide valid arguments to support their assessments.
6. All privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must remain confidential and must not be used for personal advantage.
7. Reviewers must not evaluate manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest.

This journal supports the principles of transparency and best practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) .

The Crossref Funder Registry  is an open-access registry of funding institutions worldwide, each assigned a unique identifier (similar to DOIs for articles and ORCID for authors). Using this registry offers several advantages:

• Funding organizations can easily track published results related to their grants.
• It simplifies tracking research outcomes by an author's institution.
• Small Business International Review (SBIR) can analyze funding sources to help authors ensure compliance with funders' mandates regarding their articles.
• It increases transparency about who has funded the research, the outcomes of that R&D funding, and any potential conflicts of interest arising from this funding.

The key component of this registry is the unique identifier (ID), which provides an easy way to find and assign various funding sources available to the entire academic community through a single search source.

How it works: SBIR collects funding data from authors at two points in an article's lifecycle: at the time of submission and during the proofreading process. This data includes the names of funding entities and institutions, the project codes, and the awards for the author(s) receiving the grant. The best time to provide this funding information is during the submission process, as SBIR has integrated a connection with the Crossref Funder Registry into its platform. This integration ensures that the codes and names of funding entities are fully standardized, creating an inseparable pairing of ID-funder-entity + DOI.

This information will be stored in the articles as metadata and made available to funding entities, institutions, and other interested organizations. Authors can also include a free-text version of the funding information and awards in the Acknowledgments section of an article. Since this section is in readable text (unlike metadata), it is not restricted by the strict requirements of the funding registry, allowing more freedom to include specific program names, non-monetary awards, or any other institution names not covered in the Crossref Funder Registry.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

A DOI (Digital Object Identifier)  is a unique identifier that can be assigned to any type of content. It is used to create a URL (by adding "https://doi.org/...") that always redirects to the original page where the corresponding metadata can be retrieved (such as author information, editors, year of publication, etc.). For publications under 'Open Access' (like Small Business International Review), the DOI will redirect to a webpage displaying the full article without restrictions. This is the case for this publication, and if, for any reason, the webpage is not available, the documents can be downloaded from the databases and indexes where the journal is archived. Crossref  is the organization responsible for assigning DOIs to academic items (articles, books, databases, etc.). Small Business International Review is a member of Crossref, and each time a new issue is published, the DOIs are simultaneously deposited in the Crossref databases.

Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID)

ORCID  is to researchers what DOI is to scientific output: a unique identifier that will accompany the researcher throughout their career. Its importance lies in eliminating the possibility of confusion, especially for authors with similar names. It also allows researchers to automatically update their entire published scientific output through a webpage. Small Business International Review requires the corresponding ORCID number for at least the lead author. All authors are strongly encouraged to provide their ORCID number: it is completely free, and the long-term benefits are substantial. More information can be found by clicking here . As a member of Crossref, we are associating each article's DOI with its corresponding authors through their ORCID accounts.

The Crossref Funder Registry  is an open-access registry of funding institutions worldwide, each assigned a unique identifier (similar to DOIs for articles and ORCID for authors). Using this registry offers several advantages:

• Funding organizations can easily track published results related to their grants.
• It simplifies tracking research outcomes by an author's institution.
• Small Business International Review (SBIR) can analyze funding sources to help authors ensure compliance with funders' mandates regarding their articles.
• It increases transparency about who has funded the research, the outcomes of that R&D funding, and any potential conflicts of interest arising from this funding.

The key component of this registry is the unique identifier (ID), which provides an easy way to find and assign various funding sources available to the entire academic community through a single search source.

How it works: SBIR collects funding data from authors at two points in an article's lifecycle: at the time of submission and during the proofreading process. This data includes the names of funding entities and institutions, the project codes, and the awards for the author(s) receiving the grant. The best time to provide this funding information is during the submission process, as SBIR has integrated a connection with the Crossref Funder Registry into its platform. This integration ensures that the codes and names of funding entities are fully standardized, creating an inseparable pairing of ID-funder-entity + DOI.

This information will be stored in the articles as metadata and made available to funding entities, institutions, and other interested organizations. Authors can also include a free-text version of the funding information and awards in the Acknowledgments section of an article. Since this section is in readable text (unlike metadata), it is not restricted by the strict requirements of the funding registry, allowing more freedom to include specific program names, non-monetary awards, or any other institution names not covered in the Crossref Funder Registry.

In June 2012, the first issue of the journal Faedpyme International Review (FIR) (ISSN 2255-078X) was published. FIR was established by the Foundation for the Strategic Analysis of SMEs (FAEDPYME ), which is affiliated with the Spanish Universities of Cantabria, Murcia, and the Polytechnic University of Cartagena. The foundation aims to establish and consolidate a network of researchers focused on micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the Spanish-speaking world. With the creation of FIR, FAEDPYME sought to strengthen its efforts, which began in 2009, to promote research on MSMEs in Spain and Ibero-America, focusing on topics such as innovation, human resources, information and communication technologies (ICT), financing, and entrepreneurship. After five years (2012-2016), FIR was indexed and included in databases such as Latindex, Dialnet, Cengage Learning, ResearchGate, DOAJ, EconBib, and Redib.

Simultaneously, the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration (AECA ), an institution with extensive experience and influence in both scientific and professional fields in Spain and Latin America, promoted and published the Revista Internacional de la Pyme (RIPYME) (ISSN 1989-1725) from 2008 to 2012. RIPYME was created with the aim of becoming a multidisciplinary forum for discussion on economic and business aspects of MSMEs, approached from academic research and aimed at improving both the theoretical and practical understanding of MSME management.

Given the similar objectives (and dissemination methods) of both institutions, AECA and FAEDPYME agreed in 2017 to merge the two journals in order to give new momentum to the dissemination and reach of research on MSMEs in the Ibero-American context. The new resulting journal, called Small Business International Review (e-ISSN 2531-0046), integrates the legacy of FIR and RIPYME and combines the reputation and experience of both editorial committees. It aims to enhance the recognition, positioning, and dissemination of published works in the field of MSMEs. The publishing entities of this new journal are the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration (AECA) and the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT), with FAEDPYME serving as a collaborating entity. AECA's financial contribution plays a crucial role in supporting the maintenance of SBIR.

The academic editors of Small Business International Review will be the current editors-in-chief of the FIR journal, Professors Dr. Gregorio Sánchez-Marín from the University of Alcalá (Spain) and Dr. Julio Diéguez Soto from the University of Málaga (Spain), both experienced and accredited researchers in the fields of Business Management, particularly in MSMEs and Family Businesses. The new editorial committee will include esteemed and recognized researchers who were part of the editorial committees of the predecessor journals.

Regarding the evaluation and publication process, Small Business International Review will continue to accept submissions in Spanish and/or English, although authors will be encouraged to submit their research in English. The journal will also maintain the best practices of double-blind peer review for received articles, with the aim of ensuring objective evaluations and optimizing scientific feedback, thereby continuing to contribute to the publication of high-quality research that represents significant advancements in the field of MSMEs.

We hope that these changes will help enhance the impact and reputation of the new journal, and we trust that authors will continue to place their confidence in Small Business International Review to disseminate the results of their research. While we acknowledge that, as with any change, there may be some minor inconveniences in the short term, we are confident that in a short period, Small Business International Review will achieve high levels of recognition and dissemination, making it increasingly attractive to researchers and professionals.

Publishers and Funders

• Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration (AECA )
  AECA provides financial support to the Small Business International Review (SBIR) through annual contributions, covering part of the cost of article publication.
• Address: C/ Rafael Bergamín, 16-B. 28043 - MADRID
  Phone: +34 91 547 37 56 / +34 91 547 44 65
  E-mail: info@aeca.es
• Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT )
  UPCT supports SBIR by providing human, technical, and material resources, ensuring the journal's long-term sustainability by covering its operating costs.
  
• Address: Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena C/ Real, 3, 30201 Cartagena, Murcia, España
  Phone: +34 968 32 59 16
  E-mail: sbir@upct.es

Source of Support

• Fundación para el análisis estratégico y desarrollo de la Pyme (FAEDPYME )
  The FAEDPYME Foundation provides financial support to SBIR through annual contributions, covering part of the cost of article publication.
• Rectorado de la Universidad de Cantabria
  Avda. de los Castros, s/n,39005 Santander, Cantabria.
  NIF: G39739412.
  E-mail: faedpyme@upct.es.