About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Fórum Empresarial is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, published twice a year by the Center for Business Research and Academic Initiatives, at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. Its thematic coverage encompasses the fields of Accounting, Business Communication, Computerized Information Systems, Finance, Human Resources, Marketing, Office Management, Operations and Supplies, and Statistics.

The purpose of the journal is to provide a forum for the dissemination of methodologically rigorous articles, which constitute an original contribution to the main areas of knowledge and research relevant to business; in this way, we want to stimulate the exchange of knowledge and experience among the university, businesses, and public authorities, at the international level.

Theoretical and empirical contributions will be considered, specifically research articles and technical-professional articles, in English and Spanish. In addition, professional interviews, presentations, and book reviews that demonstrate compliance with the focus and scope of the journal and academic thoroughness will be considered.

Peer Review Process

Fórum Empresarial has an international Editorial Council and the support of a large group of external evaluators with expertise in different areas of the field of Business Administration and its related disciplines. The external evaluators come from academic institutions in the United States of America, Latin America, Europe, and Africa.

Received contributions are reviewed by the editor and the Editorial Board to determine if they comply with the objective and the standards of the journal; those which comply will be selected and sent to two peer reviewers, experts in the subject of the article, for consideration; those which do not comply will be returned to the authors with the comments of the Editorial Board.

In the event of controversy or divided opinion, the article will be sent to a third evaluation pair. This decision of the final reviewers shall constitute the majority opinion of the peer reviewers about the article under consideration. The results of this process could be that the article is: published as it is, published with revisions indicated by reviewers, or not to be published.

The comments of the reviewers and their opinions will be shared with the author for correspondence. The authors of articles requiring revisions should address them before re-sending them. These articles will be examined to verify that adjustments were made. If so, the article advances to the stage of publication; otherwise, additional time may be provided to the author.

Both the Editorial Board and peer review processes are double-blind. The approval of the majority of the reviewers is required to accept an article for publication. Fórum Empresarial reserves the right to make any format and style changes deemed necessary for publication purposes and to publish the articles within three to six months of their approval.

Contributions must comply with the following elements to be submitted to the peer review process:

All submissions must be written in English or Spanish and should represent the original work of the authors.
Articles should be unpublished. Submission to the Journal‘s Editorial Board requires a commitment not to submit the article simultaneously to other publications.
The Editorial Board will not recommend an already published article unless there is evidence that it represents a new synthesis of the author‘s ideas.
For all new submissions and revisions, the first page of the manuscript should contain only the title of the work without the authors' names. A separate file with the title of the manuscript and the name, affiliation, and email of all the authors should be included; this document should include also the ORCID ID of academic authors.
Submissions should be no longer than 20 pages, single-spaced (8.5" x 11.5"), including tables and references. The font should be Times New Roman size 12.
The article title must not exceed 15 words.
Articles must be preceded by an abstract drafted in both English and Spanish (125 words maximum each). The abstract should be followed by a maximum of five keywords in both languages.
Notes should be brief and be limited to marginal clarifications to the text; they should not be used to indicate bibliographical entries. Notes must be consecutively numbered in the text and should appear at the bottom of the page.
Submissions should be written consistently following the style and format of the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.
All tables, figures, and graphs must include the source and must be sent in an editable format (not as an image). The publication of the tables, figures, and graphs sent by the authors are subject to being adjusted to the dimensions of the journal, without having to divide them over more than one page and without affecting their legibility. The editor may reduce, reformat, or eliminate those tables, figures, and graphs sent by the authors which cannot be adjusted to the dimensions of the journal.
Research articles and book reviews must be submitted as a Microsoft Word Document to "Fórum."
Technical and professional articles must be submitted as a Microsoft Word Document to "Praxis."

Open Acces Policy

Fórum Empresarial endorses open access to academic work (see The effect of open access and downloads ('hits') on citation impact: a bibliography of studies). The journal publishes its issues online on the first working day after completion. All articles and reviews of the magazine are available free to access, from the date of publication, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Fórum Empresarial allows readers to search, read, copy, download, print, distribute, or link to the full texts of its articles and to use them for any lawful purpose. Fórum Empresarial depends upon the financial support provided by the College of Business Administration at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, as well as the goodwill of its Editorial Board and the continuing support of its international network of peer reviewers.

Archiving Policy

Fórum Empresarial supports swiftness in scientific communication and the dissemination of knowledge; therefore, it permits and encourages authors to post items submitted to the journal both prior to and after publication, while providing bibliographic details that credit its publication in this journal; consequently:

The author can archive pre-print until the article is accepted for publication.
The author can archive post-print until the article is published.
The author can archive the publisher‘s version on the author's personal website, institutional repositories, thematic repositories, and social networking for scientists and researchers: (1) After the article's online publication on Fórum Empresarial; (2) on not-for-profit servers; (3) with a link to (or the URL of) the publisher's version.

Policy of Screening for Plagiarism and Research Misconduct

Manuscripts submitted to Fórum Empresarial will be screened for plagiarism using electronic plagiarism detection tools. The journal will immediately reject papers containing any kind of plagiarism. If irrefutable evidence of plagiarism is found, the submitter will be asked to provide an explanation. In case of nonresponse in the stipulated time or an unsatisfactory explanation, the plagiarist will be debarred from submitting an article to the journal for at least five years. Further actions might be considered and taken, if necessary. In the event that the Editorial Board or editor of Fórum Empresarial are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in the journal, they shall follow COPE‘s guidelines in dealing with such allegations.

Preprints Policy

Fórum Empresarial supports swiftness in scientific communication and the dissemination of knowledge; consequently, the journal accepts manuscripts distributed through preprint servers. We believe that this mode of dissemination of scientific work promotes transparency and may contribute to the progressive improvement of the manuscripts currently available as preprints.

Digital Preservation Policy

Fórum Empresarial preserves its digital files in various ways and in different places. These are Google Drive, the Portal Server of Academic Journals of the University of Puerto Rico, the Institutional Repository of the University of Puerto Rico and an external memory device. In addition, the journal is included in the digital preservation service of The Keepers Registry This allows for the safekeeping of content published through the PKP Private LOCKSS Network, to protect it from being lost, and provides the bibliographic information of the journal and the publishing organization to librarians and other interested parties. The Keepers Registry acts as a global monitor for the preservation of electronic journals developed by EDINA, Center for digital expertise and online service delivery at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, and the ISSN International Centre in Paris, France.