Correction & Retraction Policy

Purpose

The Academia Journal of Strategic Management and Finance (AJSMF) is committed to maintaining the integrity and accuracy of the scholarly record. Corrections, expressions of concern and retractions are handled in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines. Published articles are never silently changed or removed.

Corrections

A correction is published when a published article contains an error that affects its accuracy but does not invalidate its findings or conclusions.

  • Erratum (publisher error): an error introduced by the journal during production, e.g. in formatting, figures, author names or metadata.
  • Corrigendum (author error): a significant error identified by the authors after publication, e.g. in data, analysis or a factual statement, that does not change the overall conclusions.

Requests for correction should be sent to the editorial office (jawad@academia.edu.pk). The Editor-in-Chief evaluates each request and decides on the appropriate action.

Correction Procedure

  • Detection: errors may be reported by authors, editors, reviewers or readers.
  • Editorial review: the editorial team assesses the significance of the error and consults the authors.
  • Publication: a formal correction notice is published in the next available issue with its own citation, and is linked to the original article. The corrected version of the article is clearly marked with the date of correction.

Expressions of Concern

Where there is evidence of possible research or publication misconduct but the investigation is ongoing or inconclusive, the editors may publish an Expression of Concern linked to the article. It will be updated or replaced by a correction or retraction once the matter is resolved.

Retractions

An article will be retracted when its findings are unreliable or when it involves serious ethical breaches, including:

  • clear evidence of fabrication, falsification or data manipulation, or major honest error;
  • plagiarism or redundant (duplicate) publication;
  • use of material or data without authorisation;
  • unethical research, lack of required ethical approval or consent;
  • undisclosed conflicts of interest that would have affected the editorial decision;
  • manipulation of the peer review or authorship process.

Retraction Process

  • Investigation: concerns are investigated following the relevant COPE flowcharts. Authors are given the opportunity to respond, and their institution may be contacted where necessary.
  • Decision: the decision to retract is made by the Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the editorial board and the publisher.
  • Retraction notice: a retraction notice stating the reason for retraction and who is retracting the article is published and linked to the original article.
  • Marking: the original article remains on the website but is clearly watermarked as “RETRACTED” on its landing page and PDF, so that the scholarly record is preserved.

In exceptional cases (e.g. legal infringement, defamation or a serious risk to health), an article may be removed, but its title, authors and a notice explaining the removal will remain.

Transparency

All correction, expression of concern and retraction notices are freely available, clearly labelled, linked to the original article and included in the article metadata sent to indexing services.

Ethical Governance

AJSMF follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the academic publishing standards of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan.