Principles of the publication ethics in “Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości”

Principles of the publication ethics in "Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości"

The Publisher and the Editorial Team of the scientific periodical "Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości" (ZTR) make every effort to uphold high ethical standards in publishing practices and use all the necessary means to prevent abuse and unreliability in the process of issuing the periodical.

The principles of conduct and publication ethics applicable to ZTR outlined below have been developed to ensure the accurate and timely publication of scientific articles in compliance with ethical standards. The principles of conduct applicable to the publication process of ZTR are compulsory for the Editorial Team members, authors, reviewers and individuals who collaborate in the editing and publication processes (e.g., translators). They have been developed based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) available at: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines.

Articles accepted for publication in ZTR must adhere to the principles of reliability, scientific honesty, and ethical principles and standards applicable in science. Examples of scientific dishonesty include:

• Plagiarism: using the work of another author (opinions, data) without disclosing it in the article by referencing the source of information.
• Self-plagiarism (duplication of the author's own work): Republishing the author's own work (or fragments of it) as a new work without disclosing it; in exceptional situations, it is possible to reprint or translate an already issued work, but it requires the Publisher's consent and must be disclosed in an appropriate annotation.
• Submitting the same work at the same time to two different publishers.
• Data falsification or manipulation and dishonesty in the description of the scientific research.
• Omitting individuals who contributed to the creation of the work in the list of authors (ghost authorship).
• Attributing authorship to individuals who did not contribute to the creation of the work or who had a limited contribution (guest authorship, honorary authorship).
• Non-disclosure of a significant contribution of an author to the creation of the work (ghostwriting).
• Including individuals in the list of the authors without their consent.
• Concealing a conflict of interest when the pursuit of scientific truth conflicts with the author's competitive aims.
• Not creating the substantive content of the article yourself, but using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to generate it.

All the parties involved in the publication of ZTR (editors, authors, reviewers, and Publisher) should familiarize themselves with and apply the publication ethics applicable to the journal "Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości" ("The Theoretical Journal of Accounting").

RULES APPLICABLE TO EDITORIAL OFFICE

1. The Editorial Team members perform their responsibilities in accordance with the principle of confidentiality. No member is allowed to provide third parties with information about the processed articles or files with articles that have not yet been published. This includes refraining from disclosing the names of the reviewers (especially when the author is a spouse of an Editorial Team member) and the review form. In justified cases, such information may be disclosed solely by the Chief Editor after prior consultation with the Editorial Team members, author, and reviewer.
2. An article submitted to ZTR undergoes a preliminary review stage to assess its relevance to the journal's objectives and scope, check for plagiarism (using SimilarityCheck), and assure adherence to the requirements specified in the Instructions for authors. Manuscripts that do not meet these preliminary criteria are rejected at this stage. The initial review process usually takes 3–7 working days.
3. The Editor in charge of the article decides to accept or reject the article submitted by the author for the review process after consulting with the Editor-in-Chief and other Editors. This decision is based solely on the technical and editorial considerations and the ethical principles applied. Because the Editorial Team follows the principle of fair play, race, gender, age, orientation, faith, origin, nationality, and political views do not influence the decision to accept or reject an article.
4. If an article is rejected at the initial verification stage, the author may appeal in writing to the Chief Editor. The time to consider such an appeal would be three weeks from the date of its receipt.
5. The Editorial Team is obliged not to use a received text if it has been rejected.
6. Editors responsible for the individual volumes of ZTR are obliged to disclose any conflict of interest with the authors and reviewers. If a conflict of interest has been found and it results from, among others, competition, cooperation, or other relations with the author, reviewer, or related parties, the article should be forwarded to another Editor or Chief Editor in order to maintain objectivity. If there is a conflict of interest and the Editor has not been replaced, the Editor must publish post factum such information after the publication of the article. Other steps, such as publication cancellation, may be taken as necessary.
7. After the acceptance of an article at the initial verification stage, the specified Editor forwards it to two anonymous reviewers, observing the principle of avoiding a conflict of interest. Current members of the ZTR Editorial Team cannot be reviewers.
8. One quarterly issue of ZTR is published per year as a special (thematic) issue in English. In cases where Polish or foreign guest editors participate (preparing the Call for papers and cooperating in disseminating information about the planned publication of the thematic issue), editorial supervision is exercised by the Editor-in-Chief and the operational Editor. The operational Editor or the designated thematic Editor (i.e., permanent members of the Editorial Team) submits the verified and pre-approved article for review by two anonymous external reviewers, i.e., the procedure is consistent with the principles applied when editing other issues of the journal.
9. The editors ensure that an article is withdrawn or a correction is published in accordance with the COPE's Retraction guidelines. When a serious error is found in a published article, a significant part is considered invalid (for instance, the theoretical part is identical to another published text), or it includes confidential information or dishonestly uses another work, the text will be deleted from the issue (the electronic version), and information about the reason (e.g., fraud, plagiarism) will be provided. If an error caused by the author is discovered, a correction will be published. If an error occurs at the editorial preparation or publication stages, the journal will publish a correction along with an appropriate statement and apology from the Editorial Team.
10. The Editorial Team and the Publisher of ZTR are obliged to address all unethical activities, even if they took place in earlier periods. Detected cases of scientific unreliability will be disclosed, and the institutions employing the authors, as well as the Research Council of the Accountants Association in Poland, will be notified.
11. The Editorial Team has the right to refuse acceptance of an article for review if the author has a record of documented scientific unreliability within the five years preceding the submission of a new article.

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PRINCIPLES APPLICABLE TO AUTHORS

1. Articles will be published in ZTR after the authors give their consent to transfer property rights to the text to the Publisher of ZTR. This consent is formalized by signing a declaration, available as a download from the For Authors page of the periodical.
2. Authors are obliged to ensure full originality of the works delivered to ZTR, avoiding plagiarism or self-plagiarism, including false or dishonestly presented data. If the text uses fragments or opinions of other authors, it must be disclosed in an annotation. Published articles must include a list of the materials used in them. Authors are not allowed to submit for publication articles that were published in the same form in other periodicals. If similar texts were published in other periodicals or were presented at scientific conferences, the author is obliged to disclose it in an annotation in the article submitted for review.
3. Authors of an article submitted for publication must disclose the input of other individual authors (including their affiliation, technical input, and percentage of the input) to the creation of an article. This obligation is primarily on the author submitting the text. This requirement is met by the author(s) signing the declaration available from the ZTR web page (For Authors) and sending it to the editorial office.
4. Authors are obliged to keep accurate records of data related to the submitted article and make them available upon reasonable request. The authors guarantee that all data used in the article are reliable and correct. Where required, and if permitted by the employer, funding entity, or other entities that may have an interest, authors should deposit the data in an appropriate repository for access and further use.
5. The manuscript must be created by the author(s) and not an artificial intelligence (AI) tool. If an AI tool has been used to develop or generate any portion of the manuscript, then this must be clearly indicated in the description of the article's methodology and Acknowledgements.
6. Authors maintain the right to present their articles published in ZTR at conferences and scientific symposiums.
7. If authors discover errors or incorrect data in their own text, they are obliged to inform the Editorial Team of ZTR and then withdraw the article or correct it. All authors of articles are obliged to provide information about withdrawing the publication or making corrections to the errors found.
8. Authors are obliged to disclose all financial or personal relations or organizations which could improperly influence their work. All sources of financing or the involvement of scientific and research institutions must be mentioned in an annotation or at the end of the submitted text.
9. Articles should include properly formulated acknowledgment and confirmation of the contribution of third parties. Authors are obliged to mention individuals and institutions who influenced the character and results of the research in an acknowledgment placed at the end of the submitted text.

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PRINCIPLES APPLICABLE TO REVIEWERS

1. All the texts sent to the editorial office and initially qualified for publication undergo a double-blind review process by two Polish or foreign reviewers (the author does not know the names of the reviewers, and the reviewers do not know the name of the author). In cases where two significantly different opinions are provided, the article is forwarded to a third reviewer.
2. The reviewers are professors or doctors who specialize in specific accounting and auditing issues. Current members of the ZTR Editorial Team cannot be reviewers.
3. When the reviewer is unable to conduct a review on time or does not have the proper competencies to review a text, he should immediately inform the Chief Editor or the relevant Editor who is responsible for the given article.
4. Reviewers must maintain the anonymity of articles received for review and the results of the review.
5. Reviewers are obligated to prepare a review fairly and in a timely manner. Their comments and opinions must be clear, impartial, and concise. Reviewers should justify their assessment with their own argumentation and refrain from personal criticism of an author.
6. Reviewers are responsible for identifying and including in the review any publications that the author should have referenced but did not, as well as providing the Editorial Team with information about unauthorized borrowings, suspected plagiarism, or self-plagiarism.
7. Reviewers are obliged to complete a review within 3–4 weeks using the publication panel used by the Editorial Team. In exceptional circumstances (e.g., when the publication panel is not available), the reviewer can prepare a review in an editable version on a form in MS Word (see: Instruction for reviewers). If reviewers are not able to prepare a review on time, they must immediately inform the Chief Editor, who may decide to prolong the time for the review or dismiss the reviewer.
8. Reviewers and authors cannot be in a relation of a personal (e.g., kinship) or professional nature (e.g., business dependency) or cooperate directly in research or teaching within the two years preceding the preparation of a review. Reviewers who believe that preparing a review contradicts their interests are obliged to cease the activity. They must immediately inform the Chief Editor or Editor responsible for a given article by email about it.
9. Reviewers who receive a text for review are not allowed to use the data included in the manuscript for their personal needs.
10. Reviewers who believe that an article grossly violates the principles of writing/author ethics must immediately inform the Chief Editor about it, who will take appropriate actions. However, reviewers should include constructive comments regarding the article in their review.

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PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS AND ACTIVITY IN THE EDITORIAL PROCESS

1. The Publisher and Editorial Team are vigilant in upholding binding publication ethics standards and preventing practices that are inconsistent with accepted legal and ethical norms.
2. Noncompliance with the provisions of scientific ethics is addressed using procedures that align with the COPE Guidelines as described on the web page https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines.
3. Accusations of dishonesty directed to the Publisher of ZTR should be in writing and include evidence confirming the identified irregularities. Accusations should be directed to the Chair of the Research Council of the Accountants Association in Poland.
4. Individual issues of the periodical ZTR are published in both paper and electronic forms on the periodical’s website, www.ztr.skwp.
5. After the publication of an article, all versions submitted by the author remain in the publication system.
6. Following the release of an electronic version of a given ZTR volume, required data are forwarded immediately to the full-text and indexing databases to which the periodical has been adopted.
7. To ensure precise citation of articles published in the electronic version of ZTR and their availability in the network, an electronic identification system of scientific publications is used in accordance with Digital Object Identifier (DOI) standards. The periodical is also made available through the open-access system based on the Creative Commons (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license.