The Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development publishes peer-reviewed research that highlights business problems faced by modern-day institutions and provides practical and sustainable solutions to improve them. The journal aims to prescribe and improve business theories and practices and to encourage scientific research into sustainable governance and business ethics.

The journal welcomes research articles, literature reviews and case studies from academics, students, practitioners, entrepreneurs and policymakers. Empirical work which invites business and governance activities is particularly welcome.  

The title covers but is not limited to:

• Accounting and Auditing.
• Business Economics.
• Corporate Culture, Diversity and Social Responsibility.
• Corporate entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in emerging economies.
• Corporate Finance and Governance.
• Development Planning and Policy.
• Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity.
• Economic Integration and development.
• Economics of Gender.
• Enterprise Policy.
• Entrepreneurial opportunities and challenges in emerging economies.
• Entrepreneurship, poverty alleviation, and economic development.
• Financial Markets.
• FinTech, RegTech and entrepreneurship.
• Funding for entrepreneurial internationalization and growth.
• Gender Diversity and Firm Performance.
• Gender issues and entrepreneurship in emerging economies.
• Government Policy and Regulation.
• Industrialization, Manufacturing and Service Industries.
• Institutions and the Macroeconomy.
• Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital.
• International Business Administration.
• International Linkages to Development and Role of International Organizations.
• Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development.
• Management and Human Resources.
• Management of Technological Innovation and R&D.
• Marketing and Advertising.
• Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development.
• Production Management.
• Public Enterprises and Public-Private Enterprises.
• Saving and Capital Investment.
• Social Entrepreneurship.
• Technological Change: Choices and Consequences.
• The interaction effect of formal and informal institutions on the development of entrepreneurial activities.
• The nexus of Ethnic, family and entrepreneurship in emerging economies.
• The role of formal and informal institutions on entrepreneurial activities.
• The role of government policy on entrepreneurship.

The Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development operates a double-blind peer review model. All articles undergo an initial assessment by the journal editor. If they are considered suitable for peer review, articles will then be a reviewed by a minimum of two external reviewers to assess its suitability for publication. The final responsibility for editorial decisions rests with the journal editor.

All articles published in the Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development are published Open Access under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

Emerald Group Publishing publishes the Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development on behalf of Ahlia University who owns the title. The Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development is published under a platinum OA arrangement, in that Ahlia University funds all charges for publishing an OA article in the Journal. Therefore, there is no charge to the author.

Founding Editor

Professor Abdulla Y. Al-Hawaj
Founding President of Ahlia University – Bahrain

Editor-in-Chief

Professor Allam Hamdan
Accounting, Finance and Banking, Ahlia University – Bahrain
ahamdan@ahlia.edu.bh

Assistant Editor

Professor Aboul Ella Hassanien Ali
Computers and Information, Cairo University – Egypt

Professor Tillal Eldabi
University Of Surrey – UK

Professor Thomas Garavan
University College Cork – Ireland

Professor Mohammad Kabir Hassan
Department of Economics and Finance, University of New Orleans, USA
mhassan@uno.edu

Professor Khaled Hussainey
Accounting and Financial Management, University of Portsmouth – UK

Professor Zahir Irani
Management and Law and Social Sciences, University of Bradford – UK

Professor Ilhan Ozturk
Economics, Cag University – Turkey

Professor Olaf Weber
Environment, Enterprise and Development, University of Waterloo – Canada

Content and Language Editing Assistant

Assistant Professor Richard Cummings
Accounting, Finance and Banking, Ahlia University – Bahrain

Publisher

Doug Medland
dmedland@emeraldgroup.com

Secretarial and Follow-Up

Journal Secretary Zainab Majed Alalawi
Dean’s Office, Ahlia University – Bahrain
zmalalawi@ahlia.edu.bh

Editorial Advisory Board

Associate Professor Fadi Abdel
A’Sharqiyah University – Oman

Assistant Professor Rami Abu Wadi
Accounting, Finance and Banking, Ahlia University – Bahrain

Assistant Professor Yousef Al Naimat
Business Administration – Marketing , University of South Wales – UK

Professor Amer Al Roubaie
Ahlia University – Bahrain

Professor Muneer Al- Mubarak
Management, Marketing and MIS Department, Ahlia University – Bahrain

Professor Jasim Al-Ajmi
Ahlia University – Bahrain

Professor Hani Al-Dmour
University of Jordan – Jordan

Professor Mukhtar Al-Hashimi
Management, Marketing and MIS Department, Ahlia University – Bahrain

Professor Talal Al-Hayale
University of Windsor – Canada

Associate Professor Wafi Al-Karaghouli
Brunel University – UK

Assistant Professor Esra AlDhaen
Management, Marketing and MIS Department, Ahlia University – Bahrain

Assistant Professor Bahaaeddin Alareeni
Middle East Technical University – Turkey

Associate Professor Yusuf Abdullatif Albastaki
Ahlia University – Bahrain

Associate Professor Ali Almutairi
Kuwait University – Kuwait

Professor Baker Alserhan
Princess Sumaya University for Technology – Jordan

Professor Hassan Aly
The Ohio State University – USA

Assistant Professor Mohmmad Anaewah
Mutah University – Jordan

Associate Professor Emmanuel Ogiemwonyi Arakpogun
Northumbria University – UK

Professor Ahmad Areqat
Al-Ahliyya Amman University – Jordan

Assistant Professor Osama Atayah
Accounting, Abu Dhabi University, UAE
Dr.osamaatayah@yahoo.com

Associate Professor Bahaa Awwad
Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie – Palestine

Assistant Professor Sherine Badawi
Management, Marketing and MIS, Ahlia University – Bahrain

Professor Bernardo Batiz-Lazo
University of Wales – UK

Professor Thomas Betteridge
Brunel University – UK

Assistant Professor Amina Buallay
Secretariat General of the Higher Education Council – Bahrain

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis
Bournemouth University Business School, Bournemouth University – UK

Professor Yousef Daoud
Birzeit University – Palestine

Professor Marwan Darwish
Al-Quds Open University – Palestine

Associate Professor Rim El Khoury
Accounting and Finance, University of Notre Dame, Lebanon
rimkhoury81@gmail.com

Assistant Professor Houda El Mustapha
American University in the Emirates – UAE

Professor Wajeh Elali
Ahlia University – Bahrain

Professor Farid Elsahn
Doha Institute for Graduate Studies – Qatar

Assistant Professor Hasan Ghura
Box Hill College Kuwait – Kuwait

Angappa Gunasekaran
University of Massachusetts – USA
dsweet@umassd.edu

Assistant Professor Etienne HARB
Economics and Financial Market, University of Notre Dame, Lebanon
etienne_harb@yahoo.fr

Associate Professor Slim Hadoussa
Brest Business School – France

Associate Professor Arezou Harraf
Business Studies, Box Hill College – Kuwait – Kuwait

Professor Suliman Hawamdeh
University of North Texas – USA

Associate Professor Raed Jaber
Arab Open University – Jordan

Associate Professor Magdalena Karolak
Humanities and Social Sciences, Zayed University, UAE
magdalena.karolak@zu.ac.ae

Assistant Professor Nohade Kassis
Accounting and Finance, University of Notre Dame, Lebanon
nohade.kassis@gmail.com

Professor Hafiz T.A. Khan
University of West London – UK

Professor Wafa Khlif
TBS Barcelona – Spain

Associate Professor Sameh M. Reda Reyad
Accounting, Finance and Banking, Ahlia University – Bahrain

Associate Professor Ebrahim Mansour
The Hashemite University – Jordan

Associate Professor Hazem Marashdeh
Accounting, Abu Dhabi University, UAE
hmarashdeh@gmail.com

Professor Timothy S. Mescon Mescon
Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business AACSB – USA

Associate Professor Abdulmuttaleb M.A. Musleh
Ahlia University – Bahrain

Assistant Professor Sedeaq Nassar
Business Administration, Islamic University of Gaza – Palestine

Professor Abdul Nasser Nour
An-Najah National University – Palestine

Associate Professor Mustafa Nourallah
Mid Sweden University – Sweden

Professor Muhammad Obeidat
Kennesaw State University – USA

Professor Petr Polak
Mendel University in Brno – Czech Republic

Associate Professor Tareq Rasul
Australian Institute of Business – Australia
tfrasul@gmail.com

Assistant Professor Anjum Razzaque
Marketing, Management and MIS, Ahlia University, Bahrain
anjum.razzaque@gmail.com

Associate Professor Adel Sarea
Ahlia University – Bahrain
adelsarea@yahoo.com

Professor Gurmeet Singh
The University of the South Pacific – Fiji

Professor Janice Sipior
Villanova University – USA

Professor M. Sadiq Sohail
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals – Saudi Arabia

Professor Shakir Ullah
Stratford University – USA

Professor Qasim Zureigat
Sulaiman AlRajhi School of Business – Saudi Arabia

Journal Editorial Office (For queries related to pre-acceptance)

Poonam Yadav
Emerald Publishing
pyadav.emerald@kwglobal.com

Supplier Project Manager (For queries related to post-acceptance)

Ananthi Anandhan
Emerald Publishing
ananthi.emerald@tnq.co.in

Before you start

For queries relating to the status of your paper pre decision, please contact the Editor or Journal Editorial Office. For queries post acceptance, please contact the Supplier Project Manager. These details can be found in the Editorial Team section.

Author responsibilities

Our goal is to provide you with a professional and courteous experience at each stage of the review and publication process. There are also some responsibilities that sit with you as the author. Our expectation is that you will:

• Respond swiftly to any queries during the publication process.
• Be accountable for all aspects of your work. This includes investigating and resolving any questions about accuracy or research integrity
• Treat communications between you and the journal editor as confidential until an editorial decision has been made.
• Read about our research ethics for authorship. These state that you must:
  • Include anyone who has made a substantial and meaningful contribution to the submission (anyone else involved in the paper should be listed in the acknowledgements).
  • Exclude anyone who hasn’t contributed to the paper, or who has chosen not to be associated with the research.
• If your article involves human participants, you must ensure you have considered whether or not you require ethical approval for your research, and include this information as part of your submission. Find out more about informed consent.

Research and publishing ethics

Our editors and employees work hard to ensure the content we publish is ethically sound. To help us achieve that goal, we closely follow the advice laid out in the guidelines and flowcharts on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) website.

We have also developed our research and publishing ethics guidelines. If you haven’t already read these, we urge you to do so – they will help you avoid the most common publishing ethics issues.

A few key points:

• Any manuscript you submit to this journal should be original. That means it should not have been published before in its current, or similar, form. Exceptions to this rule are outlined in our pre-print and conference paper policies.  If any substantial element of your paper has been previously published, you need to declare this to the journal editor upon submission. Please note, the journal editor may use Crossref Similarity Check to check on the originality of submissions received. This service compares submissions against a database of 49 million works from 800 scholarly publishers.
• Your work should not have been submitted elsewhere and should not be under consideration by any other publication.
• If you have a conflict of interest, you must declare it upon submission; this allows the editor to decide how they would like to proceed. Read about conflict of interest in our research and publishing ethics guidelines.
• By submitting your work to Emerald, you are guaranteeing that the work is not in infringement of any existing copyright.

Third party copyright permissions

Prior to article submission, you need to ensure you’ve applied for, and received, written permission to use any material in your manuscript that has been created by a third party. Please note, we are unable to publish any article that still has permissions pending. The rights we require are:

• Non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the article or book chapter.
• Print and electronic rights.
• Worldwide English-language rights.
• To use the material for the life of the work. That means there should be no time restrictions on its re-use e.g. a one-year licence.

We are a member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) and participate in the STM permissions guidelines, a reciprocal free exchange of material with other STM publishers.  In some cases, this may mean that you don’t need permission to re-use content. If so, please highlight this at the submission stage.

Please take a few moments to read our guide to publishing permissions to ensure you have met all the requirements, so that we can process your submission without delay.

Open access information

This is a sponsored open access journal, also referred to as platinum open access. Because it is published in partnership with an organisation, your article will be published open access, but you will not have to pay an APC (article processing charge) – publication is free. Your article will be published with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence, which outlines how readers can reuse your work.

You can find out more about our open access routes and read our FAQs on our open research page. 

Find out about open

Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines

We are a signatory of the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, a framework that supports the reproducibility of research through the adoption of transparent research practices. That means we encourage you to:

• Cite and fully reference all data, program code, and other methods in your article.
• Include persistent identifiers, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), in references for datasets and program codes. Persistent identifiers ensure future access to unique published digital objects, such as a piece of text or datasets. Persistent identifiers are assigned to datasets by digital archives, such as institutional repositories and partners in the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS).
• Follow appropriate international and national procedures with respect to data protection, rights to privacy and other ethical considerations, whenever you cite data. For further guidance please refer to our research and publishing ethics guidelines. For an example on how to cite datasets, please refer to the references section below.

Prepare your submission

Manuscript support services

We are pleased to partner with Editage, a platform that connects you with relevant experts in language support, translation, editing, visuals, consulting, and more. After you’ve agreed a fee, they will work with you to enhance your manuscript and get it submission-ready.

This is an optional service for authors who feel they need a little extra support. It does not guarantee your work will be accepted for review or publication.

Visit Editage

Manuscript requirements

Before you submit your manuscript, it’s important you read and follow the guidelines below. You will also find some useful tips in our structure your journal submission how-to guide.

Submit your manuscript

There are a number of key steps you should follow to ensure a smooth and trouble-free submission.

Double check your manuscript

Before submitting your work, it is your responsibility to check that the manuscript is complete, grammatically correct, and without spelling or typographical errors. A few other important points:

• Give the journal aims and scope a final read. Is your manuscript definitely a good fit? If it isn’t, the editor may decline it without peer review.
• Does your manuscript comply with our research and publishing ethics guidelines?
• Have you cleared any necessary publishing permissions?
• Have you followed all the formatting requirements laid out in these author guidelines?
• Does the manuscript contain any information that might help the reviewer identify you? This could compromise the blind peer review process. A few tips:
  • If you need to refer to your own work, use wording such as ‘previous research has demonstrated’ not ‘our previous research has demonstrated’.
  • If you need to refer to your own, currently unpublished work, don’t include this work in the reference list.
  • Any acknowledgments or author biographies should be uploaded as separate files.
  • Carry out a final check to ensure that no author names appear anywhere in the manuscript. This includes in figures or captions.

You will find a helpful submission checklist on the website Think.Check.Submit.

The submission process

All manuscripts should be submitted through our editorial system by the corresponding author.

A separate author account is required for each journal you submit to. If this is your first time submitting to this journal, please choose the Create an account or Register now option in the editorial system. If you already have an Emerald login, you are welcome to reuse the existing username and password here.

Please note, the next time you log into the system, you will be asked for your username. This will be the email address you entered when you set up your account.

Don’t forget to add your ORCiD ID during the submission process. It will be embedded in your published article, along with a link to the ORCiD registry allowing others to easily match you with your work.

Don’t have one yet? It only takes a few moments to register for a free ORCiD identifier.

Visit the ScholarOne support centre for further help and guidance.

What you can expect next

You will receive an automated email from the journal editor, confirming your successful submission. It will provide you with a manuscript number, which will be used in all future correspondence about your submission. If you have any reason to suspect the confirmation email you receive might be fraudulent, please contact our Rights team.

Post submission

Review and decision process

Each submission is checked by the editor. At this stage, they may choose to decline or unsubmit your manuscript if it doesn’t fit the journal aims and scope, or they feel the language/manuscript quality is too low.

If they think it might be suitable for the publication, they will send it to at least two independent referees for double blind peer review.  Once these reviewers have provided their feedback, the editor may decide to accept your manuscript, request minor or major revisions, or decline your work.

While all journals work to different timescales, the goal is that the editor will inform you of their first decision within 60 days.

During this period, we will send you automated updates on the progress of your manuscript via our submission system, or you can log in to check on the current status of your paper.  Each time we contact you, we will quote the manuscript number you were given at the point of submission. If you receive an email that does not match these criteria, it could be fraudulent and we recommend you email permissions@emeraldinsight.com.

If your submission is accepted

Copyright

All accepted authors are sent an email with a link to a licence form.  This should be checked for accuracy, for example whether contact and affiliation details are up to date and your name is spelled correctly, and then returned to us electronically. If there is a reason why you can’t assign copyright to us, you should discuss this with your journal content editor. You will find their contact details on the editorial team section above.

Proofing and typesetting

Once we have received your completed licence form, the article will pass directly into the production process. We will carry out editorial checks, copyediting, and typesetting and then return proofs to you (if you are the corresponding author) for your review. This is your opportunity to correct any typographical errors, grammatical errors or incorrect author details. We can’t accept requests to rewrite texts at this stage.

When the page proofs are finalised, the fully typeset and proofed version of record is published online. This is referred to as the EarlyCite version. While an EarlyCite article has yet to be assigned to a volume or issue, it does have a digital object identifier (DOI) and is fully citable. It will be compiled into an issue according to the journal’s issue schedule, with papers being added by chronological date of publication.

How to share your paper

Visit our author rights page to find out how you can reuse and share your work.

To find tips on increasing the visibility of your published paper, read about how to promote your work.

Correcting inaccuracies in your published paper

Sometimes errors are made during the research, writing and publishing processes. When these issues arise, we have the option of withdrawing the paper or introducing a correction notice. Find out more about our article withdrawal and correction policies.

Need to make a change to the author list? See our frequently asked questions (FAQs) below.

Frequently asked questions

Transparency statement for Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development 

1. Journal Ownership: Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development is published by Emerald Publishing on behalf of the Ahlia University.

2. Governing Body: The editorial team is appointed and managed by Ahlia University. The journal is governed by the editorial team in collaboration with Emerald Publishing. 

3. Peer Review Process: The journal operates a double blind peer review model. All articles undergo an initial assessment by the journal editor. If they are considered suitable for consideration, articles will then be a reviewed by a minimum of two external reviewers to assess suitability for publication. Final responsibility for editorial decisions rests with the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.  

4. Editorial team/contact information: Contact details for the editorial team can be found on the journal homepage. Queries may also be directed to Emerald’s Publishing team as follows: 
   Doug Medland – dmedland@emerald.com  

5. Copyright: All articles in the journal are published Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY-4.0). This allows authors to retain copyright of their work whilst others can share, use and build upon this work created as long as appropriate attribution is given.  

7. Author Fees: The journal is published under a Platinum Open Access arrangement, in that all costs associated with publishing an Open Access article in the journal are funded by Ahlia University. There are currently no Article Processing Charges to the author(s). 

8. Allegations of Misconduct: All journals published by Emerald are members of and subscribe to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics. In the event of any allegation of research or publication misconduct the publisher and editor will adhere to COPE guidelines in dealing with such allegations.  

9. Conflicts of interest: Authors are asked to declare any financial or ethical conflicts of interest upon submitting their work to the journal. Difficult cases will be referred to the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) for advice. 

9. Frequency: The journal currently publishes 2-4 issues per annum 

10. Access: All journal articles are published Open Access on EmeraldInsight.com – http://www.emeraldinsight.com/loi/jbsed under a CCBY 4.0 licence (please see section 5). 

11. Revenue sources: The journal is published under a platinum Open Access arrangement, in that all costs associated with publishing an Open Access article in the journal are funded by Ahlia University. 

12. Advertising: The journal does not accept direct advertising  

14. Archiving: Emerald provides perpetual access for all e-journal content by working with digital preservation schemes Portico, LOCKSS and CLOCKSS.  

15. Direct marketing: On occasion the journal will use direct marketing activities (primarily email campaigns) to raise awareness of the journal and to invite authors to submit articles.   Marketing activities are conducted by Ahlia University unless otherwise agreed with Emerald.  

This statement was updated by Doug Medland (Emerald Publishing) on 16th Feb 2020.