Data Availability Policy

Arado Business Journal (ABJ) is committed to promoting transparency, reproducibility, and open science. We encourage authors to make their research data openly available whenever possible, in accordance with ethical and legal requirements.

This policy supports the FAIR principles: data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

Policy Overview

ABJ recognizes that open data practices enhance the credibility and impact of published research. Authors are expected to provide clear information about how their underlying data can be accessed, ensuring that other researchers can verify, reproduce, or build upon their findings.

Requirements by Article Type

Empirical Studies (Quantitative and Qualitative Research)

Authors of empirical research articles must include a "Data Availability Statement" in their manuscript. This statement should specify:

Data repository: Where the data is deposited (e.g., Figshare, Zenodo, institutional repository, or personal website with DOI).
Access conditions: Whether the data is openly accessible, restricted, or available upon reasonable request.
Ethical or legal restrictions: If data cannot be shared due to privacy concerns, confidentiality agreements, or IRB/ethics committee restrictions.
Data format: File types and documentation provided (e.g., CSV, SPSS, Excel, codebooks).

Theoretical, Conceptual, and Literature Review Articles

These articles typically do not involve primary data collection. However, if secondary datasets, bibliometric data, or systematic review protocols are used, authors should provide access to these materials where applicable.

Case Studies

Authors should provide anonymized data or detailed case descriptions when possible. If full data sharing is not feasible due to confidentiality agreements, this must be clearly stated.

Acceptable Data Availability Statement Examples

Authors must include one of the following types of statements in their manuscript:

✅ "The data supporting the findings of this study are openly available at [Repository Name] with DOI: [DOI link] under a CC0/CC-BY license."
✅ "The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request."
✅ "The data cannot be shared publicly due to ethical restrictions imposed by [Institution/IRB Name, approval number: #12345]. Anonymized data are available upon request to qualified researchers who meet the criteria for access."
✅ "The data used in this study are proprietary and owned by [Company/Organization Name]. Access may be granted through a formal data-sharing agreement."
✅ "This study uses publicly available secondary data from [Source Name]. The dataset can be accessed at [URL or DOI]."

Recommended Data Repositories

ABJ recommends depositing research data in one of the following trusted repositories:

Figshare: figshare.com (general-purpose repository with DOI assignment)
Zenodo: zenodo.org (open-access repository integrated with CERN)
Harvard Dataverse: dataverse.harvard.edu (institutional data repository)
OSF (Open Science Framework): osf.io (project management and data sharing platform)
Dryad: datadryad.org (curated repository for scientific data)
Mendeley Data: data.mendeley.com (multidisciplinary data repository)

Institutional repositories affiliated with universities or research organizations are also acceptable.

Exceptions to Data Sharing

ABJ recognizes that data sharing may not always be possible. The following exceptions are acceptable, provided they are clearly stated in the manuscript:

Proprietary corporate data: Data owned by private organizations that cannot be disclosed due to commercial sensitivity.
Legally restricted data: Government or regulatory data subject to legal confidentiality requirements.
Participant privacy concerns: Research involving human subjects where anonymization is insufficient to protect identities (e.g., small sample sizes, sensitive topics).
Third-party data agreements: Data obtained through licensing agreements that prohibit public sharing.

In such cases, authors must provide a clear explanation and, where possible, offer alternative means of verification (e.g., aggregated results, summary statistics, or access under controlled conditions).

Benefits of Open Data Practices

Making research data openly available offers numerous advantages:

Enhanced citation rates: Studies show that articles with open data receive more citations.
Compliance with funder requirements: Many funding agencies (e.g., European Commission Horizon Europe, U.S. National Science Foundation) mandate open data.
Increased research credibility: Transparency builds trust in research findings and facilitates peer scrutiny.
Facilitates replication and meta-analyses: Other researchers can verify results or combine datasets for broader insights.
Supports interdisciplinary collaboration: Open data enables researchers from different fields to leverage existing datasets.

Compliance with FAIR Principles

This policy aligns with the FAIR Data Principles, which advocate for:

Findable: Data should be assigned a persistent identifier (DOI) and include rich metadata.
Accessible: Data should be retrievable via open protocols and clearly documented access procedures.
Interoperable: Data should use standardized formats and vocabularies for integration with other datasets.
Reusable: Data should be well-documented with clear usage licenses (e.g., CC0, CC-BY).

Enforcement and Editorial Review

During the peer review process, editors and reviewers may request clarification or verification of data availability statements. Manuscripts that fail to provide adequate data access information may be returned for revision before acceptance.

Post-publication, if concerns arise regarding data availability, ABJ reserves the right to request authors to update their data availability statements or deposit data in a repository.