Plagiarism Policy

ARADO Business Journal (ABJ) upholds the highest standards of academic integrity. All submitted manuscripts are subject to a strict anti-plagiarism policy in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Plagiarism in any form—including verbatim copying, paraphrasing without attribution, self-plagiarism (text recycling), data fabrication, image manipulation, and improper citation practices—is considered a serious breach of publication ethics.

1. Screening Protocol

Every manuscript is screened for textual similarity at two stages of the editorial workflow:

Stage	Tool	Acceptable Threshold
Submission (pre-review)	Turnitin	≤20% overall similarity
Post-acceptance (pre-publication)	Turnitin / iThenticate	≤15% (excluding references and direct quotations)

Similarity to a single external source must not exceed 3%, regardless of the overall index. The editorial office reviews each similarity report manually; the percentage alone is not the sole determining factor.

2. Categories of Misconduct and Editorial Response

Category	Description	Editorial Action
Minor similarity (20–30%)	Inadequate paraphrasing or insufficient citation, with no evidence of intent to deceive.	Return to author for mandatory revision, proper quotation, and additional citation.
Major plagiarism (>30% or substantial verbatim copying)	Significant unattributed copying of text, ideas, or data.	Immediate rejection. Author barred from submitting to ABJ for 3 years. The author's institution may be notified.
Self-plagiarism / text recycling	Re-use of substantial portions of the author's own previously published work without disclosure.	Rejection or mandatory revision with full disclosure and citation of the original work.
Data fabrication or falsification	Invention or manipulation of data, results, or images.	Rejection if pre-publication; formal retraction if post-publication, with notification to the author's institution.
Citation manipulation	Excessive self-citation, citation cartels, or coercive citation.	Mandatory revision; repeated cases lead to rejection.

Where a published article is found to contain plagiarized content, ABJ will issue a formal retraction notice in accordance with COPE retraction guidelines, and the article PDF will be marked accordingly.

3. Author Guidelines for Avoiding Plagiarism

• Submit only original, unpublished work that is not under consideration elsewhere.
• Properly attribute all ideas, data, and direct quotations to their original sources using APA 7th edition referencing.
• Disclose any prior dissemination of the work, including conference papers, theses, or preprints (e.g., SSRN, arXiv).
• Disclose any text recycling from the author's previous publications, with full citation.
• Disclose the use of generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) in the Methods section, including the tool name, version, and purpose of use. Generative AI tools must not be listed as authors.
• Authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy of all references prior to submission.

4. Editorial Vigilance and Reviewer Role

• Editors and reviewers are trained to recognize signs of plagiarism, text recycling, and AI-generated content, and may flag concerns at any stage of the review process.
• Suspected cases are investigated in accordance with COPE flowcharts and decision trees.
• Authors are given an opportunity to respond to any allegation before a final decision is taken.

5. Appeals

Authors who wish to contest a plagiarism-related decision may submit a written appeal to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 days. Appeals are reviewed by an independent editorial board member not involved in the original decision; the outcome is final.