College of Business & Technology

Business and Decision-making Letters

Published by the College of Business and Technology
Western Illinois University | Macomb, Illinois
ISSN: 1553-5347 (formerly: Journal of Contemporary Business Issues)

 

Business and Decision-making Letters (BDL) submission guide

AIM and Process        Email Journal: jj-babin@wiu.edu (editor)

Business and Decision-making Letters (BDL) submission guide

Business and Decision-making Letters (BDL) submission guide

Business and Decision-making Letters (BDL) submission guide

Business and Decision-making Letters strives to be a platform for innovative and impactful general-interest academic studies and to disseminate them promptly with broad appeal. All researchers, especially young researchers and advanced graduate students, are welcome to submit their articles. Our process aims to attract short papers with high-quality, original, and impactful research, analogous to what might appear in Management Science Fast Track, Science, Nature, Economics Letters , or PNAS . 

Fees

Fees

The journal Business and Decision-making Letters ( BDL ) charges a non-refundable fee of USD $30 for new submissions. Please note that the relevant VAT amount should be included for European authors. Submission fees support journal activities only. Authors from low-income nations may request a fee waiver on submission. 

Aim and Process

Format

The "letter" format involves concise and efficient communication. A suitable submission is a full academic paper that succinctly makes a meaningful contribution. When deciding whether a paper is a good fit for the journal, editors will focus on its main contribution and answer the following question: Are the paper's contributions (sans robustness checks, extensions, generalizations, etc.) consistent with those of a typical, full-length publication?

The following are essential features of the "letter" format: Contributions are usually limited to 3,000 words (roughly ten manuscript pages), allowing readers to determine their potential interest in a letter very quickly and to digest a large amount of material in a usable form. The format allows for a fast review process and immediate online publication to minimize manuscript turnover time and an efficient way to stay up-to-date with developments.

For instance, a theorist could submit a thought-provoking example to Business and Decision-making Letters before the analysis is extended to a fully-fledged paper that will go elsewhere. Similarly, an experimentalist or an empirical researcher could submit critical results without the constraint of robustness checks. Comments on other papers, pedagogical notes, or standalone SWOT analyses are unsuitable for transmission in this format.

Ethics

Ethics

Business and Decision-making Letters maintains rigorous academic integrity standards. Plagiarism (including self-plagiarism), data fabrication, and other unethical submissions will not be tolerated. Authors engaging in such practices face severe sanctions, including a five-year submission ban and notification of their department chair. We are committed to upholding ethical behavior in the publishing process.

BDL supports the responsible use of emergent technology, such as generative AI, as a research tool. However, no article should include content that is solely AI generated. By submitted to BDL, the authors attest to the originality and authenticity of the composition. Authors are required to disclose any AI used as a footnote on the first page of the draft. The editors reserve the right to reject any content that exceeds a reasonable threshold for AI use.

Declaration of Interest

Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that could bias their work, including employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony, patents, and funding. Disclose this information in a 'Declarations of Interest' statement on the title page. If there are none, state 'Declarations of interest: none.' Authors must identify the source of financial support for the research and preparation of the article and briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in the study. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, please state: “No funding to declare.”

Submission

Our online submission form guides authors through uploading their files stepwise. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

Submissions should be at most 3000 words, including diagrams, figures, tables, and references. The editor will typically return articles exceeding this length without review. We require all manuscripts and supplemental files to be submitted in an editable and trackable Word or Google Doc format. Authors must restrict footnotes, figures, and tables to what is absolutely necessary to convey the essence of the paper. 

Ensure that the following items are present:

  • On the title page, all authors are listed in order, with correct affiliations and emails. The affiliation where the preponderance of the work was completed is listed.  
  • One author has been designated as the corresponding author, with contact details including an e-mail address and full postal address. ORCID is requested for all authors. 
  • Include up to an abstract of less than 100 words and provide six keywords on the title page. The abstract should briefly state the purpose of the research, the principal results, and critical conclusions.  Avoid references in the Abstract., as well as non-standard or uncommon abbreviations.
  • Mention all figures and tables in the text before appearing, and include relevant captions and titles. Place figures and tables next to the relevant text in the manuscript rather than at the end. Please submit tables as editable text rather than images. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.
  • Link to Supplemental files (if applicable) as a static URL link. Data, code, and instructions (for experiments) may be required of the authors during the review process. 
  • Authors are encouraged to provide supplemental materials such as data sets, research instruments, source texts or other materials that might otherwise form an appendix, but is not included in the paper itself.
  • Ensure the manuscript has been thoroughly spell-checked and grammar-checked—the editorial team endorses Grammarly , which has a free Chrome plug-in.
  • Ensure all references mentioned in the Reference List (APA format) are cited in the text and vice versa. Use of the DOI is highly encouraged. For three or more authors, use the first author's name, followed by 'et al.,' and the year of publication.
  • Explicitly state how the authors obtained permission for copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet).
  • Include a brief competing interests statement on the title page, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare (See Ethics section).
  • Any study requiring IRB review should include a reference number and IRB contact info. The editorial board strongly recommends the pre-registration of hypotheses (for example, Aspredicted.org ).
  • Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed and are continually updated.

Article structure

Please note that the editor is responsible for typesetting. Thus, the authors must adhere to formatting guidelines. The editorial team prefers the use of the following manuscript structure (some necessary deviations from this structure are understandable, depending on the manuscript): 

  • Introduction: State the work's objectives and provide adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
  • Material and methods: Provide sufficient details to allow an independent researcher to reproduce the work. Methods already published should be summarized and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.
  • Theory/calculation:  A Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.
  • Results:  Results should be clear and concise. Refrain from reiterating information in a table. 
  • Discussion and Conclusions: This section should explore the significance of the work's results, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussions of published literature except when needed to compare and contrast.
  • Appendices and Acknowledgments:  For multiple appendices, subsections should be identified as A, B, etc. Equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1), and so on. Similarly, for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc. Collate acknowledgments (if required) in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and not on the title page.
  • Formatting: Divide the article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc.), 1.2, etc. (do not include abstract numbering). Use numbering for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text.' Any subsection should have a brief heading. Each heading should appear on a separate line. Please ensure that the formatting of in-text and end-of-text references is consistent with the APA style. 
     
  • Accessibility: The final version must follow WCAG standards as closely as possible.  

Changes to authorship

Determine the final author list and order before submission. Changes to the author list require Editor approval before manuscript acceptance. Post-acceptance changes will only be considered in exceptional circumstances.

Peer Review Process and Decision

Each submission is acknowledged when received. The Editor screens manuscripts for suitability. If revisions are needed, the manuscript will be returned with comments. Suitable manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review, handled by section editors, and focused on innovation, relevance, readability, and presentation. Authors should anticipate potential delays if revisions are required.

With some exceptions, each paper will be either accepted as is, revision requested , or rejected . Detailed reports will not be provided for rejections; the editor will provide reasons for the decision in a brief letter. Business and Decision-making Letters aims to have a quick turnover time of up to two months between the submission and final decision. The Editor’s decision is final in all cases. Authors will be notified of the results. 

Resubmissions of rejected manuscripts (or minor modifications thereof) are only accepted if explicitly requested by the editor who handled the original submission. Given the volume of submissions handled by Business and Decision-making Letters , we expect authors to adhere to this practice. Failure to do so may result in disciplinary actions, including banning submissions from violating authors.