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Suitable Articles

Articles submitted to BuR – Business Research should be original work or reviews that are not under review with other journals. Articles can be considered for publication in BuR given the authors own the copyright to the work being submitted or are authorized by the copyright owner. Articles based on published dissertations are welcome if the publisher grants the right of further utilization of the material to the author. If the manuscript (or any part of it) has appeared, or will appear, in another publication of any kind, all details must be provided to the department editor at the time of submission. Please note: "publication" in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. Only Articles in American English may be published.
Given the electronic nature of the journal the following submissions are emphasized in particular:

1. Articles that contain material which cannot be printed in a suitable way such as high quality colored pictures or videos,
2. Articles that use elaborate empirical or quantitative methods the description of which is too long for print journals. Articles in BuR can be accompanied by appendices of any length,
3. Articles that provide EXCEL sheets which document complicated numerical issues,
4. Articles that are based on a data base that is made publicly available in order to initiate methodological comparisons,
5. Articles that may be considered controversial and will initiate fruitful discussions. Comments are welcome and will also be published in a special section.

Formal notes

You should write in clear and concise American English. Spelling should follow http://dict.leo.org/ende?lang=en&lp=ende&search=. Authors whose native language is not English are encouraged to have their text proofread by a native English copy editor before submission.

Content

A paper may describe original work, discuss a new technique or application, present a survey of recent work, or provide tutorial information. Concepts and underlying principles should be emphasized, with enough background information to orient the reader who is not a specialist in the particular subject area.

Arrangement of Papers

Your work should be arranged as follows:

1. Title of paper, authors’ names, affiliations and email addresses, and full address, telephone number for at least one contact author should appear separately on the first page. A relevant website address may also be optionally supplied. When the paper is online there will be a link to the authors email addresses so that readers can reach you for further information. Please do not submit a paper without these contact details. The journal administrators will remove personal details for the purposes of review.
2. Identify authors and affiliations on only the first page and no other page of the manuscript. All identification information (name, affiliation, address, phone, fax, and e-mail address) must be included for each author.
3. 100 words abstract outlining the purpose, scope and conclusions of the paper, and selected keywords. It is important that the abstract should be clear and understandable for those for whom English is not the native language. The abstract should explain why the paper is an important contribution to a particular aspect of research in business.
4. Authors will also be asked to provide a 300 word executive summary of their article designed to explain to practitioners what from a practical point of view the major contribution of their work is.
5. Within the BuR Website there will be a search facility to look for papers that have been published and the keywords will be used in conjunction with this. Therefore please include at least ten words or short phrases that highlight the topics covered by the paper.
6. Acknowledgements (if any).
7. References. See below for reference conventions.
8. Biographical details of authors of up to 100 words.

Formatting Guidelines

1. Published papers will be converted into PDF and therefore the manuscript we receive from you has to use our style sheets (Word or LaTeX), which will be available from March 2008 on. Earlier submissions will be adapted to BuR Layout by the BuR Copy Editor. From March 2008 on, papers not complying with this convention cannot be published.
2. Acknowledgements and information on grants received can be given in the final version accepted for publication and not on the submitted manuscript. In the final version, they should be placed right before the references.
3. Footnotes should be kept to a minimum and numbered consecutively inside the text.
4. Displayed formulae should be numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript as (1), (2), etc. against the left-hand margin of the page. It is recommended to provide the full derivation of formulae in an appendix.
5. Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively in the text in Arabic numerals, respectively. The heading of figures and tables should be given above the figures and tables. Tables and figures should be placed within the text and not on separate pages.

Tables, Graphs and Illustrations

Tables, graphs and illustrations should be drawn using a suitable drawing package.

Color may be used, however please consider that most readers will use b/w-prints

Place all diagrams and tables where you wish them to appear in the paper.

References

1. References to publications in the text should follow the following style
   1. Basu, Lal, Srinivasan, and Staelin (1984) have shown …. Or Fixed salaries should be higher the higher the environmental risk (Basu, Lal, Srinivasan, and Staelin 1984).
   2. Please mention all authors. Do not use et al.
   3. In case of articles by the same author that appeared in the same year they should be numbered as follows 1984a, 1984b, etc.
2. References in the reference list should be given in the following:
   1. Journal Articles:
      Hauser, John R., Duncan I. Simester, and Birger Wernerfelt (1994): Customer Satisfaction Incentives, Marketing Science, 13 (4): 327-350.
   2. Book Articles:
      Gatignon, Hubert (1993): Marketing Mix Models, in: Jehoshua Eliashberg and Gary L. Lilien (eds.): Marketing, Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science 5, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 697-732.
   3. Books:
      Hanssens, Dominique M., Leonard J. Parsons, and Randall L. Schultz (2003): Market Response Models: Econometric and Time Series Analysis, 2nd ed., Kluwer: Boston et al.

Papers not using this convention will not be published.

Submission

Select the department editor responsible for the different fields from the list below who should process your manuscript. If you are not sure in which field your manuscript falls please choose the department editor who is most likely to be knowledgeable in your area of expertise.

Department Editors

The journal is organized along five departments.

Accounting

Rainer Niemann (Graz)
niemann@business-research.org

Finance

Christian Schlag (Frankfurt am Main)
schlag@business-research.org

Management

Peter Walgenbach (Erfurt)
walgenbach@business-research.org

Marketing

Adamantios Diamantopoulos (Vienna)
diamantopoulos@business-research.org

Operations and Information Systems

Karl Inderfurth (Magdeburg)
inderfurth@business-research.org

From December 2007 on you can load your manuscript up to the department editor via the website www.business-research.org. You will immediately receive an email acknowledgment. Proceed as follows:

1. You will need to register first at the site to be able to upload your manuscript.
2. When sending a manuscript, you have two options: a) Send your manuscript as an unprotected Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) file. b) Send your manuscript as a DOC (Microsoft Word Document) file. We will convert the file to PDF format.
3. A PDF version of your manuscript file is sent to reviewers.
4. Authors may post their papers on websites after acceptance and prior to publication, as long as the sites are not copyrighted or do not serve as formal repositories.

Check List

1. Please make sure that your paper consists of a front page containing all information about the author(s), and that this single front page can be removed for anonymity reasons in the double-blind reviewing process.
2. Have you told readers, at the outset, what they might gain by reading your paper?
3. Have you made the aim of your work clear?
4. Have you explained the significance of your contribution?
5. Have you set your work in the appropriate context by giving sufficient background (including a complete set of relevant references) to your work?
6. Have you addressed the question of practicality and usefulness?
7. Have you identified future developments that may result from your work?
8. Have you structured your paper in a clear and logical fashion?
9. Please be sure that all electronic comments and corrections between authors have been removed (not just turned off).
10. Please make sure that the manuscript you submit doesn't include a recognizable author name in the file properties.
11. Before submitting a manuscript, carefully check the manuscript for errors and check that the manuscript prints as intended.

Proofs

Once a paper has been finally accepted it will be checked and converted. As all correspondence for the journal will be electronic, authors will receive PDF proofs for a final check. Corrections requested if any are to be inserted as a comment into the PDF file. The desk editor will include them thereafter.

Contributions and Dates

Submissions are welcome any time.

Publisher

Business Research is an Electronic Open Access Journal of the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB). For details see
http://pbwi2www.uni-paderborn.de/WWW/VHB/VHB-Online.nsf/ID/DE_Home

Online ISSN: Coming with first Issue in May 2008