Publication ethics

The editorial board, institutional partners and the publisher of Vezetéstudomány / Budapest Management Review implement the following publication ethics and malpractice rules in line with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Manuscripts submitted must meet the following conditions:

• The manuscript reports the results of original research.
• The work has not been submitted elsewhere and is not under consideration with any other publication.
• The work does not include libellous, defamatory or unlawful statements.
• Permission has been cleared for any third-party material included.
• Proof of consent has been obtained from any individuals and/or organisations named in the manuscript.
• Authorship has been agreed upon prior to submission and no one has been ‘gifted’ authorship or denied credit as an author (ghost authorship).

Not meeting any of these conditions may result in declining your manuscript. Once your manuscript is published and we find that any of these conditions have not been met, we may take action in line with the COPE guidelines, which may result in publishing correction notices, or we may retract your article and remove it from our database. For legal reasons, or when an article forms evidence in an independent hearing, we may not be able to act until all these legal matters are resolved.

The editorial board is committed to monitoring ethical issues and continuously developing policy guidelines. Members of the editorial team understand and follow the COPE guidelines and are dedicated to view at least three COPE e-learning videos or The editorial board regularly reviews the application of COPE principles in recent editorial decisions and addresses any challenges arising.

Defamation/libel

Authors are required to obtain written proof of consent for studies about named organisations or people before they submit their work. If inaccurate, unsubstantiated or emotive statements are made about organisations or people in a submission, we will require written proof of consent, we may ask authors to change the text or reject the work prior to publication. Critiques and reviews of products and services are acceptable, but comments must be constructive and not malicious. If statements made in work published by Vezetéstudomány /Budapest Management Review are found to be defamatory, a retraction notice will be published. When legally required and in other cases identified by the Editorial Board, the paper will be withdrawn from the online version of the journal.

Plagiarism, redundant/overlapping publications

Presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement could be considered plagiarism. The journal screens article submissions for plagiarism using Turnitin services at random or in case of suspicion. (Please see more: https://www.turnitin.com/.) This, combined with our knowledgeable reviewers and editors, means it’s increasingly hard for plagiarised work to go unnoticed. There are various forms plagiarism can take.

• Verbatim copying: An exact copy of, or a significant passage or section of text taken from, another person's work without acknowledgement, references or use of quotation marks.
• Paraphrasing: More than one sentence within a paragraph or section of text has been changed, or sentences have been rearranged without appropriate attribution. Significant improper paraphrasing without appropriate attribution is treated seriously as verbatim copying.
•  Reusing parts of a work without attribution: for example, using a figure, table, or paragraph without acknowledgement, references, or quotation marks. It is the authors responsibility to obtain the necessary permissions from the copyright holder.
• Self-plagiarism or text recycling: Authors must submit original content to Budapest Management Review. Research should only be repeated if it leads to different or new conclusions, or you want to compare it with new data. If any element of your latest submission has been published previously, you must ensure that the original work is fully referenced and make this clear to the editors at the point of submission.

If plagiarism is detected, the manuscript will be rejected from publication.

Redundant publication

This is also known as dual publication. Any work you submit to us must be original and previously unpublished. It is an unacceptable academic practice to submit to more than one journal at the same time and it can lead to manuscript rejection. Authors are expected to wait until they receive a decision from one journal before submitting to the next. Authors declare during submission that the work has not been submitted elsewhere and is not under consideration with any other publication.

Manuscripts based on the same dataset

Sometimes for large data collections it is planned from the beginning to produce numerous separate publications regarding different research questions but using the same original database/sample. If the papers have significantly different research questions/hypotheses, and therefore also discuss different results, and have less than 10% textual overlap between each other, they can be subject to editorial consideration.

Citation manipulation and data falsification/fabrication

Citation manipulation

Citations and referencing are important when writing any research, however, researchers should be mindful of the following behaviours:

• Self-citation: Authors should not excessively self-cite their own previously published works. Included citations must be relevant and add value to the article, and they should not be included just to increase the author's citation score. Authors should keep their self-citations to a minimum when discussing methodologies or literature reviews.
• Coercive citation: During the peer-review process, you may be referred to papers the reviewer believes can further develop and improve your ideas. While there may be legitimate reasons to reference other publications, 'coercive citation' is unethical (this is where a reference is included as a condition of acceptance or without academic justification). We are an advocate of both author freedom and editorial independence. If you feel you have been pressured to include a particular reference in your article, or that an editor is unclear on best ethical practice, please contact our Editor-in-Chief.
• Citation pushing: 'Citation pushing' is where an author includes superfluous or irrelevant references with the intention of boosting another specific individual’s citation score; this often occurs amongst groups of individuals who aim to boost each other’s citation scores. This kind of behaviour is unwelcome in Vezetéstudomány / Budapest Management Review.

Whenever possible authors are encouraged to cite the primary literature in favour of reviews in order to give credit to the group(s) who first reported a finding.

Fabricated data

To fabricate or manipulate data is fundamentally wrong and a breach of research integrity. The journal reserves the right to review data or request the original data files. If there is reason to suspect that the data is not plausible, we reserve the right to reject that paper, and to notify your institution, as appropriate.

Figure or image manipulation

Image manipulation falls into two categories:

1. Inappropriate manipulation: the adjustment of an image or figure, which violates established research guidelines, but does not impact the interpretation of the data shown.
2. Fraudulent manipulation: the deliberate adjustment or manipulation of an image or figure to affect the interpretation of the data.

Manipulation may include the addition or removal of elements from a figure, or adjustments to image formatting designed to obscure or highlight a particular result.

Ethical oversight

Authors of empirical research articles involving human participants and data, covering studies that entail the primary acquisition of personal data, should declare whether the participants provided informed consent and specify its form (written or verbal). The participant approval statement may be described in the section related to the Data and/or Methods or in the separate declaration. Authors shall anonymize or de-identify data if needed to protect participants' privacy and to comply with relevant data protection regulations. Authors shall adhere to strict data protection protocols, ensuring that all confidential information is securely stored and accessed only by authorized individuals.

Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants and data, including vulnerable populations, covering studies that entail the primary acquisition of personal data, must indicate whether the relevant authorized body dealing with research ethics issues (further referred to as the ethics committee) approval was obtained (or waived). If research ethics approval does not pertain to your study/article, provide a statement supported by relevant evidence at submission. A standard declaration such as "This study did not require research ethics approval" can be utilized.

If your article includes an image of someone’s face or any other image and/or information that might identify them, you must provide proof of informed consent via a completed consent to publish form.

Above that, the manuscripts presenting the results of medical research involving human participants or data should comply with the WMA Declaration Of Helsinki – Ethical Principles For Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. Publications involving vulnerable populations (including but not limited to children, elderly individuals, economically disadvantaged groups, refugees, people with disabilities, and minorities) must adhere to internationally recognized ethical standards, such as the WMA Declaration of Helsinki-Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects or The Belmont Report, with special attention to non-exploitation, risk assessment and confidentiality.

Manuscripts reporting studies involving animals must adhere to ethical guidelines such as those provided by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Researchers must ensure that animal research is justified, humane, and minimizes distress and suffering, with a thorough review process to ensure compliance.

The journal does not use any misleading or deceptive advertising practices, ensuring that all claims about the journal's impact, reach, and content are accurate and verifiable.