Reviewer Guidelines

Journal of Accounting, Business, Governance and Sustainability (ABGS) is committed to a fair, rigorous, and transparent peer-review process. These guidelines set out what is expected of reviewers at every stage of the review.

1. Review Process

ABGS uses a double-blind peer review process: reviewers are not informed of author identities, and authors are not informed of reviewer identities. Every submission is evaluated by at least two independent reviewers.

2. Evaluation Criteria

Reviewers are asked to assess each manuscript on the following dimensions:

  • Originality — does the manuscript offer a genuine, non-duplicative contribution to the literature?
  • Methodological rigor — is the research design, data, and analysis sound and clearly described?
  • Clarity — is the argument well-structured and clearly written?
  • Relevance — does the manuscript fit the journal's Aims and Scope?

3. Confidentiality

Manuscripts under review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not share, discuss, or distribute any part of a manuscript outside the review process, and must not upload manuscript content to any external tool, including generative AI platforms (see Section 5 below).

4. Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must declare any financial, professional, institutional, or personal relationship with the author(s) that could be perceived as influencing their review, and should decline to review where such a conflict exists. This includes current or recent co-authorship, shared institutional affiliation, or a close personal relationship with any author.

5. Citation Requests

Reviewers may recommend additional references only where directly relevant and scholarly-justified to strengthening the manuscript. Reviewers must not request that an author cite:

  • The reviewer's own published work,
  • The work of a specific colleague or collaborator, or
  • Work by the Editor-in-Chief, an editorial board member, or the Publisher,

unless that work is clearly and directly necessary to the manuscript's argument. Authors may decline citation requests they consider irrelevant or excessive and may report any request they believe to be inappropriate through the journal's Contact page. See the full Citation Policy for details, including the journal's citation-concentration monitoring thresholds.

6. Use of Artificial Intelligence

Reviewers must not upload any part of a manuscript, or their own draft review referencing manuscript content, into generative AI tools or external platforms. AI tools must not be used to evaluate, interpret, or summarize a manuscript's scientific content — peer review depends on independent human judgment. AI tools may only be used to improve the grammar or clarity of a reviewer's own report, provided no confidential manuscript content is entered. See the full AI Policy for details.

7. Timeliness and Conduct

Reviewers are asked to complete reviews within the timeframe requested by the editorial office, to provide constructive, evidence-based feedback that helps authors improve their work, and to notify the editorial office promptly if they are unable to complete a review.

8. Consequences of Misuse

Breach of confidentiality, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or requests for self-serving citations may result in removal from the ABGS reviewer pool and further action where warranted, consistent with the journal's Editorial Policies.