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CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
This policy explains how Jurnal Manajemen Informatika dan Bisnis Digital handles competing interests that could affect the reporting, the evaluation, or the publication of research. The terms “conflict of interest” and “competing interest” are used with the same meaning on this page.
Openness protects everyone. Authors, editors, and reviewers are asked to disclose relevant interests so that readers can judge the work with full information.
At a Glance
| Role | What is required |
|---|---|
| Authors | Disclose all relevant interests in one competing interests statement, and give a separate funding statement. Both are written in the Acknowledgements. |
| Editors | Disclose relevant interests before accepting an assignment, and do not decide on a manuscript when impartiality may be compromised. |
| Reviewers | Disclose relevant interests before accepting an invitation, and decline or withdraw when a conflict is disqualifying. |
| The journal | Assess every declared interest and decide on suitable safeguards. |
1What Is a Competing Interest
A competing interest is any relationship or activity that could influence, or could reasonably appear to influence, how research is carried out, reported, reviewed, or edited.
Disclosure is protective and is not an accusation. Declaring an interest does not mean that bias or misconduct has occurred. It means that the journal and its readers have the information they need.
2Interests to Disclose
An interest should be disclosed when it is relevant to a manuscript, or to an editorial or review assignment. The table gives the main types with examples.
| Type of interest | Examples |
|---|---|
| Financial relationships | Employment, consultancy, honoraria, shares, patents, royalties, or other commercial benefits, for example from a software company, a technology vendor, a digital platform provider, or a developer of the system that is evaluated in the study. |
| Funding and sponsorship | Research funding, paid expert work, or involvement of a sponsor in the study, whether the sponsor is a government office, a foundation, a company, or an institution. |
| Personal and professional relationships | Close personal, supervisory, collaborative, or professional ties with authors, reviewers, or editors, for example a supervisor and a student, close colleagues, or recent coauthors. |
| Interest in the subject of the study | Having designed, developed, or sold the application, system, algorithm, instrument, or business model that is evaluated, or studying one's own company, institution, or customers in a way that may affect objectivity. |
| Editorial and journal ties | Editorial appointments or other ties with the journal that may require a manuscript to be handled independently. |
Ordinary scholarly disagreement is not, by itself, a disqualifying conflict of interest.
3Responsibilities of Authors
- Every author must disclose all interests that are relevant to the manuscript. The corresponding author collects them in one competing interests statement for the whole manuscript. When there are no competing interests, the statement must say so.
- Authors must also give a funding statement. It names the funders, the funding organizations, and the grant numbers, and it says whether the funder had any role in the design of the study, in the collection and analysis of data, or in the preparation of the manuscript. The funding statement does not replace the competing interests statement, and both are required.
- The article template has no separate sections for these statements. Write both of them as the final paragraphs of the Acknowledgements, which are placed before the References. Include the Acknowledgements even when there is nothing else to acknowledge.
Examples of statements (for illustration only; a real statement must describe the real situation)
| Situation | Example wording |
|---|---|
| No competing interests | The authors declare no competing interests. |
| A competing interest is declared | Author Two is employed by [name of the organization], which developed the platform that is evaluated in this study. The other authors declare no competing interests. |
| Funding statement | This research was funded by [name of the funder] under grant number [number]. [State the role of the funder in the design of the study, in the collection and analysis of data, and in the preparation of the manuscript, or state that the funder had no role.] |
4Editors and Reviewers
| Role | What is required |
|---|---|
| 4.1 Editors | An editor must disclose relevant interests before accepting an assignment, and must tell the journal promptly when a new interest arises. An editor whose impartiality may be compromised must not decide on that manuscript. A manuscript that is submitted by an editor or by a member of the editorial board is handled by an editor who is not involved, and the author who is an editor takes no part in the evaluation or in the decision. |
| 4.2 Reviewers | A reviewer must disclose relevant interests before accepting an invitation, and must tell the journal promptly when a new interest arises. A reviewer who has a disqualifying conflict must decline the invitation or withdraw. Examples are a close personal or supervisory relationship with an author, a recent collaboration with an author, and a competing interest in the subject of the manuscript. See the Peer Review Process. |
When an editor or a reviewer declares a conflict, an editor who is not affected decides whether suitable safeguards are enough or whether the assignment should be given to someone else.
5Assessment and Late Disclosure
Each declared interest is assessed for its relevance and its possible effect. Depending on the case, the journal may take one of the following steps.
| No. | Possible step |
|---|---|
| 1 | Publish the disclosure together with the article. |
| 2 | Ask for an independent assessment of the manuscript. |
| 3 | Replace the editor or the reviewer who is involved. |
A disclosure that is missing, incomplete, inaccurate, or made late, whether after submission or after publication, is considered in its context. A material concern is handled under the Publication Ethics statement and the Allegations of Misconduct and Correction and Retraction policies.
6Scope of This Policy
- This policy covers interests that are connected with research and with its assessment.
- Author fees and the ownership and management of the journal are described on separate pages: Author Fees and Ownership and Management.
- Commercial considerations do not influence editorial decisions, as stated in the Publication Ethics statement.
Related Pages and Enquiries
The Manuscript Preparation page and the Author Guidelines explain the structure of a manuscript. Declarations of contribution are described in Authorship and Contributorship.
Enquiries. Questions about this policy or about a specific disclosure can be sent to jurnal.jumintal@gmail.com.
Publication Ethics Peer Review Process Authorship and Contributorship Author Fees
