Guidelines

Focus and Scope

RAE is a generalist journal in the field of management, committed to publishing high-quality research that advances theoretical knowledge while offering insights for organizational practice on how to have societal impact. We encourage submissions that are theoretically grounded, yet attentive to the practical implications of managerial action, especially those that contribute to the understanding and resolution of grand societal challenges, specially in the Global South, and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. All submissions should demonstrate how they contribute to advancing theory, and shaping practice to promote societal impact. Articles that lack a clear theoretical contribution, rely on superficial empirical analysis, or do not show the societal impact will not be considered. We do not consider bibliometric analyses, book reviews, public policy or public administration studies, teaching cases, or articles focused solely on pedagogical methods.

We particularly value submissions that offer conceptual innovation, empirical rigor, and contributions to global debates, in areas such as strategy, organizational behavior, innovation, operations, marketing, finance, information systems, and human resource management.

Subjects include, but are not limited to:
CSR, Management, & Leadership

• Diversity, Inclusion & Well-being
• Entrepreneurship & Social Enterprise
• Responsible Finance and Accounting
• Sustainability & Sustainable Business Practices
• Technology & Innovation for Societal Change

 

Open Science Compliance

RAE is committed to the core values of Open Science, promoting the publication of research results with quality and integrity, as a collective benefit, with equity and justice, and with diversity and inclusion.

RAE also adheres to the Open Science criteria recommended by the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO):

• Provides open access content.
• No publication fee is charged to authors.
• Accepts articles published in preprints repositories (for example, SciELO Preprints, Fighshare, Zenodo, arXiv, PeerJ Preprints, SOC ARXIV) and encourages authors to anticipate the release of previous versions of their work, and is in this way contributing to the dissemination of research and for peer-to-peer collaborations.
• Recommends that authors deposit data and all research materials in data repositories, contributing to the storage, access and sharing of data.
• Discloses the identity of the associate editor responsible for the evaluation process in the published article.
• Offers the possibility of disclosure of the identity of the reviewers responsible for the evaluation in the published article.
• Offers the option of publishing the reviewer report of articles with or without the disclosure of the identity of the reviewers.
• The submission process requires the mandatory completion of the Open Science Compliance Form.
• RAE follows a continuous article publication system, allowing articles to be published online as soon as they are approved, enhancing speed and visibility. Articles are grouped into four-month annual issues for indexing and archival purposes. 

 

Preprints

• The RAE encourages authors to share preliminary versions of their work in advance and, in doing so, contributes to the dissemination of research and to collaboration among peers.
• When submitting a manuscript to the RAE that has already been shared on a preprint server, authors are requested to clearly inform the journal editor, at the time of submission, that the work is hosted on a preprint server, in accordance with the guidelines available 
• The RAE accepts manuscripts published on preprint repositories (for example, SciELO Preprints, Fighshare,Zenodo, arXiv, PeerJ Preprints, SOC ARXIV)

 

Peer Review Process

Each submission is screened and checked by the journal’s editorial office. At this stage, they may choose to decline or un-submit your manuscript if it doesn’t fit the journal’s submission policies, aims and scope, or they feel the language/manuscript quality is too low.

If Editor-in-chief think it might be suitable for the publication, it will send it to Department Editor member and the Associate Editor at least two independent referees for double anonymous 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.

This journal offers an article transfer service. If the editor decides to decline your manuscript, either before or after peer review, they may offer to transfer it to a more relevant Emerald journal in this field. If you accept, your ScholarOne author account, and the accounts of your co-authors, will automatically transfer to the new journal, along with your manuscript and any accompanying peer review reports. However, you will still need to log in to ScholarOne to complete the submission process using your existing username and password. While accepting a transfer does not guarantee the receiving journal will publish your work, an editor will only suggest a transfer if they feel your article is a good fit with the new title.

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 contact the journal editor in the first instance.

 

Open Data
RAE recommends that authors deposit their data and all research materials in open data repositories, thereby contributing to data storage, access, and sharing.

Emerald recommends that authors use the following two lists when searching for a suitable and trusted repository:

• https://commons.datacite.org/repositories
• https://www.re3data.org

RAE recommends SciELO Data, Fighshare, Zenodo, arXiv, SOCARXIVpapers as a repository.

 

Fees

RAE does not impose any Article Processing Charges (APC) or other fees for submission or processing. All content is made freely available through open access, ensuring no cost to authors or readers.

 

Adoption of Similarity Software

RAE adopts the iThenticate/Similarity Check system operated by Crossref. All submitted manuscripts undergo similarity analysis to ensure that the work is original; this process is carried out after the preliminary format check.

For detailed information, please consult:

• Emerald – Editorial Policy & Originality Guidelines
• Emerald – Research & Publishing Ethics

 

Use of Software and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

RAE adopts the AI Policy of Emerald Publishing that is described below.

Any use of AI tools, including Large Language Models (LLMs), for the creation, development, or generation of an Emerald publication must be flagged, clearly and transparently, by the author(s) within the Methods and Acknowledgements (or another appropriate section) of the article, chapter, or case study. The author(s) must describe the content created or modified as well as appropriately cite the name and version of the AI tool used; any additional works drawn on by the AI tool should also be appropriately cited and referenced. Standard tools that are used to improve spelling and grammar are not included within the parameters of this guidance. The Editor and Publisher reserve the right to determine whether the use of an AI tool is permissible in a submitted article, chapter, or case study. Emerald reserves the right to reject submissions and to take appropriate post-publication action on published material found to feature inappropriate or undisclosed use of generative AI.

In accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools, Large Language Models cannot be credited with authorship as they are incapable of conceptualising a research design without human direction and cannot be accountable for the integrity, originality, and validity of the published work.

Generative AI usage key principles

Copywriting any part of a submission using a generative AI tool/LLM would not be permissible, including the generation of the abstract or the literature review, for as per Emerald’s authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.

The generation or reporting of results using a generative AI tool/LLM is not permissible, for as per Emerald’s authorship criteria, the author(s) must be responsible for the creation and interpretation of their work and accountable for its accuracy, integrity, and validity.

The in-text reporting of statistics using a generative AI tool/LLM is not permissible due to concerns over the authenticity, integrity, and validity of the data produced, although the use of such a tool to aid in the analysis of the work would be permissible.

Copy-editing a submission using a generative AI tool/LLM in order to improve its language and readability would be permissible as this mirrors standard tools already employed to improve spelling and grammar, and uses existing author-created material, rather than generating wholly new content, while the author(s) remains responsible for the original work. Authors should be conscious of the potential for bias, fabrication, inaccurate attribution, and plagiarism when using such tools, and should therefore verify the work prior to submission.

The submission and publication of images created by AI tools or large-scale generative models is not permitted.

In line with standard academic practice, however, Emerald permits the use of examples of generative AI for illustrative purposes as part of scholarly critique and discussion, with the exception of images created by AI tools or large-scale generative models; these examples must be appropriately flagged in the text and be fully cited and referenced in accordance with formatting requirements.

AI and peer review

Articles, case studies, and chapters submitted to Emerald for consideration and review should be treated as confidential, meaning that sharing this material with another person or uploading it to a generative AI tool or LLM for assessment or evaluation would violate the author’s confidentiality, as well as any proprietary and/or data privacy rights.

This would also be the case for the peer review report itself if uploaded to a generative AI/LLM for copy-editing or copy-writing purposes, as it may contain confidential or identifiable information pertinent to the submission or the author(s). There are additional concerns regarding the use of generative AI tools for peer review due to biases in the datasets of these models and the reliability of their ability to assess content, with the risk of generating false, flawed, or inaccurate results.

As such, to maintain trust in the integrity of the published record, Emerald does not permit the use of generative AI tools or LLMs to assist in the review, evaluation, or decision-making process of any part of an article, case study, or chapter by either a member of a journal’s Editorial Team or a reviewer, in accordance with Emerald’s principles of peer review. Peer reviewers are responsible for the reviews they provide and accountable for their accuracy, rigour, and validity, which, as per COPE's position statement on AI tools, cannot be replicated by a non-human generative AI. Any breach of the integrity or trust of the review process as described above will be perceived as peer review misconduct.

For further information, please refer to Emerald’s AI guidelines.