Editorial Policies
Editorial Policy | Journal of Sustainable Marketing
Manuscript Submission and Peer-review Process
The Journal of Sustainable Marketing (JSM) welcomes submission of unsolicited as well as invited manuscripts. The journal may also call for manuscripts related to its aim and scope as part of a special issue. All submissions are subject to initial screening by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC). The initial screening process focuses on the fit of the manuscript's topic with the focus of JSM. Lack of fit, as well as lack of scientific rigor or very unprofessional writing, may also lead to a desk rejection by the EIC. If the EIC rejects a manuscript, a detailed letter will be sent to the author(s) explaining the reasons for this action.
Following initial screening, the EIC will assign two reviewers who have expertise in the manuscript's content area. Reviewers will assess the manuscript's theoretical basis, appropriate use of methods (if empirical methods are used), discussion of implications, and overall contribution to the field of sustainable marketing. To facilitate the review process, author(s) are asked to provide two or three potential peer reviewers, who are not collaborators, but who are familiar with the manuscript's content area. There is no guarantee that the names submitted by the author(s) will be selected. The peer-review process usually takes four to six weeks.
Reviews are double-blind. That is, JSM maintains the anonymity of the author(s) as well as the peer reviewers. If there is a potential conflict of interest affecting the ability of peer reviewers to provide an unbiased review of the manuscript, peer reviewers must disclose the conflict of interest (see Conflicts of Interest Policy). The main goal of the peer review process is to add scientific value to the manuscript. Reviewers are required to submit their comments in a document that includes notes for the editor, and specific recommendations for the author(s).
Author(s) are asked to include detailed responses to the reviewers' recommendations in "Notes to Reviewers." Please copy, paste, and number reviewer recommendations into "Notes to Reviewers" and then provide explanations of changes made or reasons for not making changes to the original manuscript. Please include both a clean copy and a "track changes" copy upon submission of revisions.
The manuscript may be accepted at any stage of the submission and review process. Decisions to reject, revise, or accept are made based on reviewer recommendations and the EIC's evaluation. In case of rejection, author(s) have the right to submit an appeal outlining reasons for believing that reviewers and/or the EIC have erred in rejecting the paper. The reasons should be compelling, detailed, and specific. The EIC will consider the appeal and determine whether resubmission to the originally assigned reviewers or to additional, new reviewers is warranted.
What Happens After Submitting a Manuscript?
The Journal of Sustainable Marketing uses Manuscript Manager (MM) to manage the peer-review process. Here's an overview of the steps your manuscript will follow:
- Initial Check: The editorial office team will first conduct a technical review of your manuscript, focusing on aspects such as format, anonymity, similarity score, etc. Should any issues be identified, the manuscript will be returned to you for necessary revisions. At this stage, the status in MM will be "With Editorial Office." If the manuscript is returned to you, the status will change to "Suspended".
- Assignment to Editor: Your manuscript will be assigned to the journal's Editor. At this stage, the status in MM will be "With Editor."
- Potential Rejection: In some cases, the Editor may determine that your manuscript does not meet the journal's aims or scope and should not be considered further. In such instances, you will be promptly notified of the rejection and may receive recommendations for alternative journals.
- Peer Review: If your manuscript aligns with the scope and criteria of the Journal of Sustainable Marketing, the Editor will select and contact reviewers who are experts in the field. Please note that peer review is a voluntary process and may take some time. The Editor will actively follow up with reviewers to ensure timely responses. During this period, the status will be "In Review."
- Decision: Once the Editor has received the requisite number of reviews, the status will change to "Decision Pending". The manuscript may receive one of the following decisions:
4.1. Reject: The manuscript is not suitable for the journal, either due to lack of alignment with the journal's scope or insufficient quality. It will not be considered further.
4.2. Reject with Resubmission: The manuscript is not accepted in its current form but shows potential. Authors are encouraged to make substantial revisions and resubmit as a new submission.
4.3. Major Revision: Significant changes are required for the manuscript to be reconsidered. Authors must address substantial feedback before resubmission.
4.4. Minor Revision: The manuscript is generally well-received, but minor adjustments are needed. Authors should make the necessary revisions and resubmit.
4.5. Conditional Acceptance: The manuscript is nearly ready for publication, pending minor final adjustments. Once these are made to the satisfaction of the Editor, it will be accepted.
4.6. Accept: The manuscript meets all criteria and will be published as is or with minimal copyediting.
Disclosure Policy and Conflicts of Interest
JSM's disclosure and conflict of interest policy is designed to ensure that author(s)' manuscript content, as well as external reviewers' evaluations of such manuscripts, are not biased by certain pre-existing relationships. In this regard, author(s) must explicitly identify any potential conflicts (such as personal relationships or financial dependencies that may affect their actions). Likewise, external reviewers must disclose all conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from reviewing a given manuscript if they believe a conflict may exist, e.g., knowledge of one or more of the authors based on a prior professional relationship. If a conflict of interest is declared, the EIC will judge whether the reviewer is eligible to conduct the review.
Upon initial submission, author(s) are asked to disclose sources of funding. Author(s) must identify all affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity that has a financial interest or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. Examples of financial dependency include: employment, advisory, fees, ownership of shares or financial options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending and royalties. This list is not exclusive. Relevant conflicts of interest (or lack thereof) must be made public in the "Disclosure" section of the manuscript for all listed authors.
Citation Ethics and Prevention of Citation Manipulation
The Journal of Sustainable Marketing (JSM) is committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity and ethical publishing. Citations must be included solely to acknowledge relevant prior work and to support the theoretical, methodological, and empirical foundations of a manuscript.
The following practices are considered unethical and are not permitted:
- Excessive self-citation by authors that is not clearly justified by the manuscript's content.
- Targeted citation of a specific individual, group of authors, institution, or journal without clear scholarly relevance.
- Citation stacking or coordinated citation practices intended to artificially inflate citation metrics.
- Adding citations for strategic, promotional, or metric-related purposes rather than for genuine academic contribution.
- Coercive citation practices by reviewers or editors, including requests to add irrelevant citations.
Editors and reviewers are instructed to assess reference lists for relevance, balance, and scholarly necessity. The journal reserves the right to request the removal or justification of citations that are deemed excessive, irrelevant, or potentially manipulative.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that all cited works are directly relevant to their manuscript and that the reference list reflects a balanced and fair representation of the literature. Where clusters of citations to the same author or research group appear, authors may be asked to provide a clear academic justification.
Failure to comply with this policy may result in editorial actions, including requests for revision, manuscript rejection, post-publication correction, or other measures deemed appropriate by the Editor-in-Chief. This policy aligns with the ethical standards of COPE and best practices recommended by major indexing and abstracting services.
Post-acceptance
The Journal of Sustainable Marketing supports the free availability of articles to the public. The journal encourages authors to post copies of their published articles in PDF format on their websites, blogs, or institutional repositories at any time. Whether distributed on the web or in printed form, JSM requests that author(s) refer to the journal's website via a hot link (see the Open Access Policy). The journal also offers a range of Creative Commons licenses (CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND).
Publication policies for the Journal of Sustainable Marketing ensure that author(s) comply with public access requirements of major funding agencies around the world (SHERPA/RoMEO). However, it is the author(s)' responsibility to ensure compliance.
Ensuring the Right to Privacy – Human Subjects/Studies Review
The right to privacy must include individual research participants and others who were sources of information. Thus, it is very important that all research involving human subjects be submitted to and approved by the Human Subjects/Studies Organization or Committee within lead author(s)' organization. Compliance with this requirement must be stated in the manuscript. Such compliance is not required for conceptual manuscripts or empirical manuscripts that do not involve collection of data from human subjects. Please note that data collection from human subjects may involve qualitative (e.g., focus groups) or quantitative (e.g., cross-sectional surveys or experiments). Also, author(s) should check with the Human Subjects organization in the case of secondary data collected by third parties to determine whether review and approval are required. If author(s) decide that including identification information is important for scientific purposes, permission from their institution's Human Subjects/Studies Review organization or committee must be obtained. Furthermore, author(s) must disclose such information in a manner that is fully compliant with requirements set forth by the Human Subjects/Studies organization.
Use of Unpublished Data & Personal Communications
Author(s) can cite an accepted manuscript that has not yet been published on the JSM website. Note that, with the exception of Masters' theses, PhD dissertations, and university-affiliated "Working Papers," citations of unpublished data should not appear in the list of references. Author(s) should not cite personal correspondence unless necessary scientific information is provided and is not available in public sources. In such cases, the source and nature of the information resources should be declared and identified as personal correspondence in the reference section of the manuscript.
Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication and Scientific Misconduct
All articles submitted to the Journal of Sustainable Marketing are reviewed to ensure the absence of plagiarism. Author(s) must guarantee that the submitted manuscript has not been previously published or under review for possible publication elsewhere. Author(s) are also required to certify that their work is original and does not contain substantially similar content from other publications.
JSM considers use of others' ideas or words that are protected as intellectual property, whether published or unpublished, without citation or permission, as scientific theft and misconduct. If such conduct is suspected, the person(s) involved will be asked to show that this did not occur, and in the event of failure to respond or respond satisfactorily, referral to the appropriate legal authority will occur. The publisher has the full right to act according to the decisions of the legal authority with the measures it deems appropriate, such as retraction or withdrawing the publication of the article if required.
In-house Production
Accepted manuscripts are processed for publication as rapidly as possible. Author(s) will be informed of post-acceptance stages such as professional copyediting and final proof review and approval. As part of this process, JSM will provide author(s) with specific target dates for initial publication.
Copyright and License
All Luminous Insights journals are Open Access. Articles can be downloaded, shared, and reused without restrictions as long as the original authors are cited correctly. We use a Creative Commons license (CC-BY) for all published articles.
Author(s) retain copyright of their work, with articles licensed to Luminous Insights. As a result, download and/or copying permission is not needed from the author(s). The applicable copyright and license are included in the front part of the article in a readable format. Luminous Insights publishes contributions under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, where you are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Any data related to the article (including but not limited to any reference lists) is distributed according to the Creative Commons public domain Waiver of Dedication.
You may share (copy and redistribute the materials in any medium or format) and adapt (remixing, transforming, and building on materials) for any purpose (even commercially), provided that you follow the licensing terms that include making correct attribution and not creating any other restrictions.
13. Special Issues Policy
The Journal of Sustainable Marketing (JSM) periodically publishes Special Issues devoted to focused themes within the scope of sustainable marketing. Special Issues are held to the same standards of peer review, ethics, and editorial rigor as regularly submitted manuscripts, and are subject to the additional safeguards described below.
13.1 Proposal and Approval
Special Issue proposals are submitted to the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) and must include a rationale, scope statement, proposed Guest Editor team, tentative timeline, and an indication of the anticipated number and geographic/institutional spread of contributions. The EIC and, where relevant, the Editorial Board evaluate the proposal for fit with JSM’s aims and scope before a call for papers is issued. Proposals that appear designed primarily to serve the professional interests of the proposing editors, rather than to advance the field, are declined.
13.2 Guest Editor Eligibility and Team Composition
Special Issues are normally coordinated by a team of two to four Guest Editors rather than a single individual, and the team should not be composed entirely of researchers from the same institution or research group. Guest Editors must hold an active research record in the issue’s subject area and have no history of editorial or publication misconduct. Full names and institutional affiliations of all Guest Editors are published on the Special Issue’s dedicated page before the call for papers opens and remain published after the issue closes.
13.3 Guest Editor Responsibilities
Guest Editors develop the call for papers, promote the issue, provide initial guidance to authors on scope and fit, recommend potential reviewers, and monitor the review timeline in coordination with the editorial office. Guest Editors do not have unilateral authority to accept or reject a manuscript; all final decisions are confirmed by the EIC or a designated handling editor, as described in 13.6.
13.4 Guest Editor Conflicts of Interest and Recusal
A Guest Editor who is an author or co-author on a submission to their own Special Issue must disclose this at submission and is recused from all editorial and review activity concerning that manuscript, including reviewer selection, access to reviewer reports, and the final decision. Such manuscripts are reassigned to an independent handling editor — the EIC or another Editorial Board member with no conflict of interest. The same recusal applies where a Guest Editor has a close professional, financial, or personal relationship with a submitting author (e.g., current or recent co-author, doctoral supervisor/student, or family member).
13.5 Limits on Self-Publication Within a Special Issue
To prevent a Special Issue from functioning as a vehicle for its own editors’ work, submissions authored or co-authored by any Guest Editor are capped at one article per Guest Editor and may not collectively exceed 20% of the issue’s accepted articles. All such submissions follow the recusal procedure in 13.4.
13.6 Peer-Review Process
Special Issue manuscripts undergo the same double-blind peer review as regular submissions, including anonymized evaluation by a minimum of two qualified, independent reviewers who are not collaborators of the author(s) or Guest Editors. Guest Editors may suggest potential reviewers, but the editorial office confirms all reviewer invitations to preserve independence. Initial screening for topical fit, scientific rigor, and adherence to the JSM Code of Ethics occurs before a manuscript is sent for review, consistent with the standard process described in Section 1.
13.7 Editorial Oversight by the Editor-in-Chief
The EIC retains final authority over every editorial decision made within a Special Issue, including the right to override a Guest Editor’s recommendation to accept, revise, or reject. The EIC monitors reviewer quality, turnaround times, and ethical compliance throughout the life of the issue, and may pause or close a Special Issue to new submissions if these standards are not being met.
13.8 Scope Screening and Desk Rejection
Manuscripts falling outside a Special Issue’s stated scope, or failing to meet minimum standards of rigor, may be desk-rejected by the Guest Editor(s) or EIC prior to review, consistent with the journal’s standard desk-rejection practice (Section 1).
13.9 Submission, Review, and Publication Timeline
Each Special Issue publishes a submission deadline, an expected review turnaround (typically four to six weeks per round, consistent with regular submissions), and a target publication window. Guest Editors are expected to actively follow up with reviewers to avoid delays. Timelines are displayed on the Special Issue’s dedicated page and updated if they change materially.
13.10 Continuous Publication
Accepted Special Issue articles are published continuously, article-by-article, as they clear production, ahead of the issue’s formal compilation into a volume/issue number.
13.11 Ethical Standards and Fees
Special Issue submissions are screened for plagiarism using the same software (iThenticate) applied to regular submissions and are subject to the full JSM Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement. As with all JSM content, publishing in a Special Issue is free of charge to authors; there are no submission or article processing fees.
13.12 Guest Editor Changes
If a Guest Editor withdraws or is removed during the life of a Special Issue, the change is disclosed on the issue’s page along with the date of the change, and the EIC reviews any manuscripts already handled by the departing editor for continuity and conflict-of-interest concerns.
13.13 Post-Publication Corrections and Retractions
Special Issue articles are subject to the same post-publication correction, retraction, and expression-of-concern procedures as regular articles, per the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement, and corrections are linked to the original article regardless of its Special Issue status.
13.14 Complaints Specific to Special Issues
Concerns about the conduct of a Guest Editor, the fairness of a Special Issue’s review process, or an apparent conflict of interest may be raised directly with the EIC or the publisher (editorialoffice@luminousinsights.net) and are handled under the same complaints and appeals procedure described in the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.
