for authors Peer Review Process The procedures governing the review process of articles submitted for publica- tion in the Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting meets the guidelines of the Announcement of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education from 2 June 2015 on the criteria and evaluation of scientific journals. The procedure of the review process considers the following rules: ■ at least two independent Reviewers representing a scientific unit other than the one affiliated with the Author are appointed to evaluate the submitted article, ■ all information identifying the Author (Authors) and Reviewers is remo- ved and the principles of a double-blind review process are followed; in other cases the Reviewer signs a declaration on the non-occurrence of a conf lict of interest; a conf lict of interest is defined here as any direct personal relationship holding between the Reviewer and the Author (in particular, such relationships as kinship of the second degree, or marria- ge), relationships resulting from professional dependence or from any scientific cooperation conducted within two years preceding the year in which the review was made, ■ a written review explicitly states the conditions on which an article sho- uld be accepted for publication or informs of rejection, ■ the qualification criteria and a review form are available at the journal’s website, ■ names of Reviewers who evaluated specific publications or issues are not disclosed. Based on the evaluations received from Reviewers the Editorial Board de- cides whether the article should be accepted for publishing, rejected or re- turned to the Author for revision. For Authors72 After the reception of the Reviewers’ comments, the Author is obliged to respond within a time period specified by the Editorial Board. Failure to meet a specified deadline will be deemed as resignation from publication. Focus and Scope of The Journal, its Target Group and Rules of Cooperation with Authors The Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting is a scientific journal created by the Department of Finance Management and the Department of Accounting in the Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. The Journal serves for the development of the science of Finance as a forum of presentations and analyses of scientific working papers in the scope of finance and accounting in the international dimension. It is ded- icated to theoreticians and also practitioners who decided to meet a challenge of obtaining scientific degrees in Finance. Since 2014, the Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting publishes ar- ticles (in English language only) on issues related to finance and accounting. Articles submitted for publication should be original and not published any- where before and should not be the subject of any qualification procedure for publication in any other journal of any other publisher. In accordance with the guidelines of the Announcement of the Ministry of Science and Higher Educa- tion from 2 June 2015 on the criteria and evaluation of scientific journals sub- mitted texts should be scientific works, which means an article presenting the outcome of original research that is empirical, theoretical, technical, or analyti- cal in its nature and containing the title of the publication, Authors’ names with their affiliation, presenting the current state of knowledge, research methodol- ogy, the course of the research process with its results and conclusions, and the literature cited in it (bibliography). A condition for accepting a text for the publishing process entails following absolutely the editorial standards included in the Editorial requirements file as well as sending in to the address of the Editorial Office a completed and legibly signed submission form. Articles that do not fulfil the formal requirements will not be accepted for editorial processing and the materials sent in will not be returned to the Au- thors. The text of the article should be sent in only in electronic form through the UMK journals platform or to the following e-mail address: cjfa@umk.pl within For Authors 73 the specified time frame (sending a printed version of the article is not neces- sary). Any graphs, figures, etc. that constitute part of the electronic text must be included in separate files (for instance, in Excel files). An Author submitting an article electronically will receive email confirmation of acceptance and of entering the review process. The Editorial Board reserves the right to choose articles for publication in the Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting and to shorten the text and make amendments in it without the Author’s consent. The criteria for selection are the quality and the subject relevance to finance and accounting. After receiving confirmation of acceptance for publishing, the Author should send in a printed and signed Agreement with the Author to publish an article. Authors of articles published in the Copernican Journal of Finance & Account- ing do not receive any financial payment. The detailed editorial requirements are outlined on the website of the Jour- nal http://wydawnictwoumk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/CJFA/about/submissions #authorGuidelines. Authors are asked to find out whether specific bibliographi- cal entries have their DOI numbers. DOI numbers can be checked on the website: http://www.crossref.org/guestquery/ Publication ethics With a view to ensuring scientific reliability the Editorial Board of the Coperni- can Journal of Finance & Accounting makes efforts to publish works that meet ethical norms applied in science. In accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education any cases of unreliability and dis- honesty (e.g., ‘ghostwriting’ and ‘guest authorship’) identified by the Editorial Board will be documented and exposed by informing appropriate bodies (insti- tutions employing Authors). Explanations of the terms ‘ghostwriting’ and ‘guest authorship’ as defined by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (source: http://www.nauka. gov.pl/): ■ ‘Ghostwriting’ is qualified cases in which someone has made a substan- tial contribution to publication, without revealing his participation as one of the authors, or without being mentioned in the acknowledgments included in the publication. ■ ‘Guest authorship’ (‘honorary authorship’) happens when someone did not contribute at all or hardly contributed to the creation of a publica- For Authors74 tion; however, despite that fact his/her name is provided as an author/ co-author of the publication. In order to prevent such unfair practices each submitted article with more than one Author should be accompanied by a declaration filled in and signed by the Authors. The declaration is intended to eliminate cases of ‘ghostwriting’ and ‘guest authorship’ (the declaration is part of the submission form). In the case of a submitted article which during its preparatory phase was supported financially by an external institution, the Author is obliged to insert information about such a fact in the Introduction of the article. The detailed ethical principles are outlined on the website of the Journal http://apcz.umk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/CJFA/pages/view/Etyka. The jour- nal’s ethical principles are based on Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guide- lines for Journal Editors edited by Committee on Publication Ethics: https:// publicationethics.org/. Editorial Office Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting ul. Gagarina 13a, 87-100 Toruń phone + 48 56 611 46 34 (contact mgr Agnieszka Żołądkiewicz-Kuzioła) fax +48 56 654 24 93 cjfa@umk.pl www.cjfa.umk.pl