The main aim of the Small Business International Review journal is to publish research papers that offer innovative perspectives in the area of micro, small and medium-sized firms (MSMEs) and contain scientifically rigorous methodological and conceptual developments in order to contribute to:
The Small Business International Review journal is proposed to become a leading research publication in MSMEs by:
Small Business International Review journal is aimed at:
The Small Business International Review journal develops mainly in the fields of economic, management and accounting
sciences. Its geographical scope is worldwide.
Small Business International Review journal is published in one yearly volume divided into two half-yearly issues (5 articles every issue). The first issue of every year is published within the first days of January and covers the months from January to June, and the second one is published the firs days of July and covers the months from July to December. The journal offers a permanent open call for papers.
Time to publication: Small Business International Review averages an estimated time from submission until its publication of 18-20 weeks, with a refusal rate of 73.4%.
In September 2020, the publishing models of the Small Business International Review has changed. Rather than publishing conventional complete online issues at fixed intervals, the journal has moved to a continuous publication (CP) model. The information below is a guide for readers, authors, and librarians on what the change means.
What has changed, and what hasn’t?: The most important feature of the new publishing model is that articles can be published online in their final form, with their final citations, as soon as they have been acepted and corrected. Articles are added to the current "open" issue of the journal, which will grow over time until it is "closed" and replaced by a new open issue. The total number of articles published does not change, apart from a brief increase in the publication rate immediately after the change, as the queue of articles awaiting publication is cleared. Complementary to this, there are a number of other minor changes to the journal. Article PDFs see a number of design changes, including a clearer "Cite this article as" section. PDF files will always start paginated from page 1.
Why has the switch been 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 quickly as possible. As the number of journal readers has moved online and the use of search engines has increased, the importance of publishing individual articles rapidly has increased relative to publishing large groups of articles at fixed intervals.
How do I cite my article?: An article’s citation details are presented clearly alongside the web and PDF versions of the article. For ease of indexing and browsing, the journal is still divided into “volumes” and “issues”. However, page-range has been replaced with an alphanumeric identifier (elocation-id), based on the manuscript’s submission number preceded by an 'e'. For instance:
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
The journal only aims to publish research articles, i.e. manuscripts that present a complete conceptual argument or empirical study. As a brief guideline for its preparation, a research article should generally conform to the following outline:
| Open Submissions | Indexed | Peer Reviewed |
AECA and UPCT (publishing entities) adhere to a zero-tolerance policy towards plagiarism in all its possible forms. Editors will include in their internal review the scanning of articles received through the platform using the Turnitin Software tool. If authors have access to any anti-plagiarism tool, it would be advisable that they make use of the tool prior to submitting their article. This is to avoid any unpleasant situations.
The editorial board of the journal has approved the following possible actions to be taken by the section editor depending on the similarity markers returned by the turnitin report:
In cases 2 and 3 (if required by the editor): Authors must revise the article carefully, add the required citations and make a good paraphrase to the outsourced text. On receipt of the new version of the article it will be rescanned, requiring at this point a total match rate of less than 20% and similarly index from all single source must be less than 3%.
All articles will undergo a preliminary editorial evaluation by the Writing Board. This Board reserves the right to determine whether articles match Small Business International Review's editorial line and fulfill all necessary requirements of an academic material, as well as each and every editorial guideline hereby established. As part of this internal evaluation, all articles are scanned through Turnitin Software and, in case the editors detect plagiarism issues, a receipt from Turnitin will be provided to the authors with the review reports.
The peer review process is double blind.
Documents that comply with the rules will be sent to two external anonymous reviewers selected by the Scientific Editorial Board for their recognized expertise. Peer reviewers will measure the item considering the following criteria:
Review Guidelines
When reviewing the assigned article, please keep the following items in mind (once you have finished, complete the review form)
Decisions regarding publication may be:
If an article gets two positive decisions, it may be published if contents are compatible with the timing, editorial and topical guidelines of the Journal at the time. The acceptance of an accepted submission does not imply its immediate publication. Small Business International Review reserves the final decision for the publication, as well as the volume in which the accepted originals will be published.
If decisions deem it necessary for the article to be modified and re-sent, the authors must timely address observations, additions, corrections, expansions or clarifications suggested by reviewers. The authors have a maximum of thirty natural days as a limit to present the new version. Once the article is reworked following the recommendations, it will be re-submitted to reviewers, who will then decide if article is publishable.
Two negative decisions will cancel the possibility of publication of proposed material, considering it rejected.
When an article receives a negative review and a positive one, the article will turned to a third reviewer, whose decision will be determinant and not subject to appeal.
The resulting decision will be communicated to the authors in a maximum lapse of five working days after receiving the last review. Communication includes the commentaries, suggestions and observations of reviewers.
The content of each peer review is confidential, for use only by Small Business International Review and the authors.
The Writing Board is in charge of solving conflicts, complaints or nonconformities expressed by the authors vis-à-vis the results of the evaluation process.
Open access (OA) refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license restrictions). Open access can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed academic journal articles, conference papers, theses, book chapters, and monographs. The journal Small Business International Review provides Fully Open Access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. As proof of its commitment to open access, the journal is included in the DOAJ register from the moment the journal was created and met the minimum requirements to be accepted by DOAJ. In addition, the journal has been awarded the 'DOAJ Seal', which rewards journals demonstrating best practice in open access publishing. Around 10% of journals indexed in DOAJ have been awarded the Seal. On the other hand, as is well recorded in the DOAJ record, our journal does not charge any publication fee.
Authors are not asked to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) for this journal in any case.
AECA and UPCT (publishing entities) believe in the importance of long-term preservation of scholarly content. This journal is also responsible for ensuring that the effort invested by its authors and reviewers is not lost in case of any unfortunate event causing the journal to cease publishing. University libraries were traditionally the ones responsible for preserving scholarly articles. However, one of the challenges that appeared with Open Access journals (regardless of their many other advantages), is that someone needs to ensure their long-term preservation. To this end, several archiving measures were established to take on this mission:
Website archiving
All of our electronic content (website, manuscripts, etc.) is stored on three different sources. Content on one server is online and accessible to the readers. The copy of the same content is kept as a backup on two other sources. In case of failure of one server, any one of the other sources can be made online and website expected to be accessible within less than 24-36 hours.
The Digital repository of Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, is the tool that collects, manages, disseminates and preserves the scientific, educational and institutional production of the University. It also gathers digital documents that are part of or complement UPCT libraries collections. The UPCT digital repository shows an organized, open access and interoperable collection. All content of Small Business International Review, as part of UPCT, is kept and preserved at the UPCT repository.
Dialnet aggregation journal platform
Dialnet is one of the largest bibliographic platform in the world, whose main aim is to give greater visibility to Hispanic scientific literature. Focusing mainly on the fields of the Human, Legal and Social Sciences, Dialnet is a fundamental tool for the search for quality information.
Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in many countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics. The heart of the project is a decentralized database of working papers, preprints, journal articles, and software components.
Self-archiving
Authors may archive the submitted, accepted and published versions as you can see below in Self-archiving Policy.
The LOCKSS program
Small Business International Review is included in the Public Knowledge Project Private LOCKSS Network (PKP PLN), a distributed archiving system that creates permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More about LOCKSS and the PKP PLN.
Internet Archive - fatcat!
Fatcat is versioned, publicly-editable catalog of research publications: journal articles, conference proceedings, pre-prints, 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 (SBIR container record).
Small Business International Review journal permits and encourages the authors to electronically disseminate their works in its different versions:
, as it encourages its earliest circulation and diffusion and thus a possible increase in its citation and scope between the academic community. However, please note that, by posting only the published version, you will have full guarantee that the same version of your article will be available on any website, which means that your article is more likely to be cited correctly.
Submitted version
Authors retain the right to make this version available on: Author's Homepage or Institutional Website, provided that they acknowledge that the article has been submitted for evaluation as follows:
This article has been submitted for evaluation in Small Business International Review Published by Spanish Accounting and Business Administration Association AECA and Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena UPCT
Accepted version
Authors retain the right (under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence) to make this version available on: Author's Homepage or Institutional Website, provided that they acknowledge that the article has been accepted for publication as follows:
This article has been accepted for publication in Small Business International Review Published by Spanish Accounting and Business Administration Association AECA and Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena UPCT
Published version
Authors retain the right to make this version available anywhere (under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence): This includes posting on:
In all cases published source must be acknowledged with full citation, as well as the link to the Journal’s web landing page using its assigned DOI link.
Small Business International Review, as part of its commitment to authors, automatically deposits every published version in UPCT, Dialnet and RePEC repositories, to help authors to disseminate their works. Details of Self-archiving Policy have been deposited at Sherpa Romeo and Dulcinea
The Small Business International Review is in its infancy at the moment and is naturally not indexed in any of the major scholarly article indexing services. It is however the intention of the publisher to start applying for the relevant indexes (e.g. DOAJ, Emerging Sources Citation Index, Scopus) after publishing enough articles (or for enough time) to qualify for indexing. We are taking all possible measures in accordance with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing to ensure that we are easily accepted for prominent indexes.
For the time being, different SEO measures were taken to ensure that journals content is discoverable through popular search engines (e.g. Google Scholar). It is also important to note that (being published using OJS) the journal’s website is OAI-compliant and its contents can be easily harvested by the relevant services (e.g. BASE, OAIster … etc.).
To date, the actions carried out have been as follows:
Indexes:
Catalogues:
Directories:
Repositories:
Search Enginer and Academic Networks:
This Journal adheres to the principle of transparency and good practices set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
A DOI is a persistent identifier that can be assigned to any type of content. It can be used to create a URL (by adding “https://doi.org/…”) that would always resolve to the webpage that at least includes all of the object’s metadata (i.e. information like author, publisher, year of publication). For content that are published under an open license (e.g. Small Business International Review articles) the DOI would resolve to the page displaying the article’s full-text. That would naturally be this website or, in the unfortunate case of this website not being available, the website of the archiving service we are registered with. Crossref is the organization responsible for assigning DOIs to scholarly items (articles, datasets, etc.). Small Business International Review is a member of Crossref, and every time we publish a new issue we will deposit new DOIs at Crossref's databases.
ORCID serves a purpose for researchers similar to that of DOI for articles. It is especially important as a unique identifier because it eliminates the confusion that can result from authors with similar names. It also provides researchers with a webpage that can be automatically updated once any of their articles are published. Small Business International Review requires that at least the corresponding author should have an ORCID account. We encourage all authors to create them. They are free and have many benefits. More information can be found here. As a member of Crossref we are linking each unique article (DOI) with its corresponding authors through their ORCID numbers.
The Crossref Funder Registry is an open archive of funders found throughout the world and their accompanying IDs (much like DOIs for articles and ORCIDs for authors). Using this registry has the following benefits
The key to this registry is the ID, which provides an easy way to find and map various funding names found throughout the scholarly record to a single source.
How It Works: SBIR collects funding data from authors at two points during an article’s life cycle: at submission and during the page proofing process. These data include funder names and institutions, awards or grant names, and the author(s) receiving that grant. The absolute best place to provide these funding data is during the submission process. The reason: SBIR has chosen to integrate our submission system with the Open Funder Registry, which means that the input is validated as the name is entered. This means that funder names are standardized and mapped to the appropriate ID if one exists. In any case, prior to publication of the article, the authors will be asked again for all information related to funders and awards. Once the article is published, SBIR as a member of Crossref, will deposit all the Funding Information accompanying the DOI of your article.
These data are also available to machines and computer programs for analysis by funders, institutions, and other interested organizations. Authors are also permitted to include a free-form version of funding and award information within the Acknowledgments section of an article. Because this section is readable text (as opposed to metadata), it is not limited to the strict requirements of the funding registry, so there is more freedom to include specific program names or non-monetary awards.
In June 2012, the first issue of the journal Faedpyme International Review (FIR) (ISSN 2255-078X), was published. The idea to create FIR was promoted by the Fundación para el Análisis Estratégico de la Pyme (FAEDPYME) which, dependent on the Spanish Universities of Cantabria and Murcia and the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, aims to establish and consolidate a network of researchers in micro, small and medium business (SMEs) in the Hispanic-American field. With the creation of FIR, FAEDPYME wanted to consolidate its work, which started in 2009, to promote research on SMEs in Spain and Latin America focused on topics such as innovation, human resources, information and communication technologies (ICT), financing and entrepreneurship. Five years after its creation (2012-2016), FIR had been indexed and included in databases such as Latindex, Dialnet, Cengage Learning, ResearchGate, Doaj, EconBib and Redib.
In parallel, the Spanish Accounting and Business Administration Association (AECA), an institution with extensive experience and penetration in the scientific and professional fields in Spain as well as in Latin America, promoted and published, between 2008 and 2012, the International Journal of the Small and Medium Enterprise (RIPYME) (ISSN 1989-1725). RIPYME was set up with the aim of becoming a multidisciplinary meeting and discussion space on economic and business aspects of SMEs, based on academic research and aimed at improving both a theoretical and a practical understanding of the management of SMEs.
Due to the similar objectives and means of diffusion of both institutions, AECA y FAEDPYME agreed in 2017 to merge both journals, in order to give a new impetus to the dissemination and scope of research on SMEs in the international context. The new resulting journal, Small Business International Review (e-ISSN 2531-0046), integrates the history of FIR and RIPYME and builds on the reputation and experience of both editorial committees. It was created with the intention of improving the recognition, positioning and dissemination of works published in the sphere of SMEs. The publishing entities of this new journal are now the Spanish Accounting and Business Administration Association (AECA) and the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT), with FAEDPYME now acting as a collaborating entity. It should be noted that AECA makes a financial contribution to help maintain SBIR.
The editors-in-chief of Small Business International Review, will be Professors Ph.D. Gregorio Sánchez Marín of the University of Alcalá (Spain) and Ph.D. Julio Dieguez Soto of the University of Málaga (Spain), both experienced and accredited researchers in the areas of Business Management and particularly in the field of SMEs and Family Business. For its part, the new editorial committee will be composed of renowned and recognized researchers who were members of the editorial committees of the preceding journals.
Regarding the evaluation and editorial process, Small Business International Review will continue to receive papers in Spanish and/or English, although authors will be invited to submit their research in English. Likewise, it will continue with the good practice of double anonymous revision ('Peer Review') for the articles submitted, with the purpose of objectifying evaluations and optimizing scientific feedback, in order to contribute to the publication of high-quality research which represents significant advances in the field of SMEs.
We hope that these changes will contribute towards improving the impact and reputation of the new journal, and we are confident that the authors will continue to place their trust in Small Business International Review to disseminate the results of their research. Although we aware that, as in anything involving a change of this nature, there may be some minor initial inconveniences, we are sure that, before long, Small Business International Review will attain high levels of recognition and dissemination which make it increasingly attractive for researchers and professionals.
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Spanish Accounting and Business Administration Association AECA | |
| Address: C/ Rafael Bergamín, 16-B. 28043 - MADRID Phones: +34 91 547 37 56 - 91 547 44 65 E-mail: info@aeca.es |
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Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena UPCT Dp. Economía, Contabilidad y Finanzas |
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| Address: Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena C/ Real, 3 30201 Cartagena (Murcia) España Phones: +34 968 32 59 16 E-mail: sbir@upct.es |
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Fundación para el análisis estratégico y desarrollo de la Pyme FAEDPYME | |
| Address: Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena C/ Real, 3 30201 Cartagena (Murcia) España Phones: +34 968 32 59 16 E-mail: faedpyme@upct.es |
| Small Business International Review (e-ISSN 2531-0046) is an Open Access research e-journal published in Madrid by AECA (Spanish Accounting and Business Administration Association) and UPCT (Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena) | ||
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Except where otherwise noted, contents publish on this research e-journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) | |
