Business & IT

Authorship and contributorship

Authorship is limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data; who have drafted or critically revised the work; who have approved the final version; and who agree to be accountable for it. Those who contributed but do not meet these criteria are named in the acknowledgements. Any change of authorship after submission requires the written agreement of all authors. Guest, gift and ghost authorship are not permitted.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that could be perceived to influence their work, including employment, consultancies, funding, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents and memberships. Where there is no conflict, authors state “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” Editors and reviewers similarly recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a competing interest.

Funding disclosure

Authors identify all sources of financial support for the work and the role, if any, of the funder in the design, conduct, analysis or reporting of the research. Where there was no specific funding, this is stated.

Originality and similarity checking

Submissions must be original and not under consideration elsewhere. Every manuscript is screened for textual similarity using iThenticate through the Crossref Similarity Check service. Where plagiarism, redundant publication or other breaches are identified, the manuscript is rejected or, if already published, handled under the corrections and retractions procedure below.

Data availability

Authors are encouraged to make the data underlying their findings available and to include a data availability statement describing where the data can be found and on what terms, or the reasons why data cannot be shared (for example, ethical or legal restrictions).

Research involving human participants

Research involving human participants must have been conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the relevant ethics committee, with informed consent obtained from participants. Manuscripts reporting such research must include a statement to this effect, and authors must ensure that individuals cannot be identified without consent.

Use of generative AI

The journal has a dedicated policy on the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies by authors and reviewers; see the AI policy. In brief, AI tools cannot be listed as authors, and any use by authors must be disclosed in the manuscript.

Corrections, expressions of concern and retractions

The journal follows COPE guidance. Honest errors that affect the record are addressed by a published correction. Where there is well-founded concern that has not yet been resolved, the journal may publish an expression of concern. Where findings are unreliable as a result of error or misconduct, or the work is plagiarised, redundant or reports unethical research, the article is retracted. Retraction notices are linked to the original article, state the reason, and identify who is retracting it; the original article is retained and clearly marked as retracted to preserve the scholarly record. Affected authors and their institutions are notified.

Complaints and appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision by writing to the editorial office with a detailed response to the points raised in review. Appeals are considered by the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. Complaints about editorial process, ethics or conduct are acknowledged promptly, handled confidentially and investigated in line with COPE guidance; the complainant is informed of the outcome.

Digital preservation

Published content is archived by the National Library of the Czech Republic in its Webarchiv and is additionally captured by the Internet Archive. Every article carries a Crossref DOI, so links to the content remain stable over time even if a URL changes. The publisher is committed to maintaining long-term access to all published material.

Charges and revenue

The journal charges no submission, page or article-processing fees and earns no revenue from authors or readers. It carries no advertising. It is published by a public university as a not-for-profit scholarly activity.