We take pleasure to introduce Rakshpal Bahadur Management Institute

Journal of Business Solutions (JBS)

We take pleasure to introduce Rakshpal Bahadur Management Institute (RBMI) (Estd. -1996) as one of the leading management Institute in the region imparting value based quality management education. The institute has also been rated as the best B-School in the region on the parameters like Intellectual Capital, Industry Interface, Admission & Placement, Infrastructure & Governance by the agencies like All India Management Association (AIMA), Indian Market Research Bureau and Indian Management Journal.

The Department of Business Administration has launched an International Journal in the area of Business Management: Bi-annual, (ISSN No.-0974-4126) under the name and style Journal of Business Solutions (JBS).

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS SOLUTIONS (JBS) – An International Publication of RBMI

Author Guidelines

The Journal of Business Solutions is an international peer-reviewed journal for timely publication of research, educational and practitioner perspectives on management-related themes and topics. It aims to provide global perspectives on management and organization of benefit to scholars, educators, students, practitioners, policy-makers and consultants. JBS covers:

Qualitative and quantitative empirical research articles

Theoretical and conceptual articles

Literature reviews – including those from theses

Articles on management education and learning

Practitioner perspectives and case studies.

Article formats include, but are not restricted to, traditional academic research articles, case studies, literature reviews, approaches to teaching, learning and management development, and interviews with prominent executives and scholars. Original articles which inform management research and practice from outside the discipline – such as from psychology, education, political science, sociology, statistics and research design – will also be considered. Articles should be submitted as an email attachment to journal@rbmionline.com, journal_rbmi@rediffmail.com as per guidelines below.

Contributions to JBS

The Journal of Business Solutions invites submission of papers and articles, within its Aims and Scope, for peer review, especially if empirically rigorous, conceptually original and innovative. Selection of papers and case studies for publication will be based on relevance, clarity, topicality, individuality and interest to academics and practitioners.

JBS publishes two general editions / issues per year. Prospective contributors are reminded that JBS offers significant advantages:

Timely review and publication;

High calibre editorial board offering double blind peer review;

High circulation due to professional publishing service;

Combines practitioner perspectives with scholarship;

Provides a forum for thesis literature reviews and methodology articles;

Focuses on management education and learning.

In addition to academic merit, novelty and integrity, criteria for selection are that articles are relevant, concise, practical, informative and useful to readers of the Journal. JBS does not ordinarily publish more than one article per author per volume, unless multiple authorship is involved. All contributors are encouraged to submit manuscripts directly to the Journal at journal@rbmionline.com, journal_rbmi@rediffmail.com or to the address given below:

Dr. Manish Sharma

Editor-in-Chief

Rakshpal Bahadur Management Institute

35 B-3, Rampur Garden, Opp.Agrasen Park

Bareilly-243001 (U.P.), India

Tel: +91 (0581)—3299094, 3291998, 2517252, 2517017

Email:journal@rbmionline.com,journal_rbmi@rediffmail.com
Website: www.rbmionline.com

Author Guidelines

These notes are intended as a brief guide for contributors. The editorial team is most willing to provide additional help and encouragement. Please do not hesitate to make contact.

Upon publication, the Publisher provides all authors with a copy of the issue in which accepted articles appear. There are no monetary payments for contributors.

Author Warranties

By submission of material to the Journal of Business Solutions, all authors warrant that the material is their own, original material or that copyright clearance has been acquired to reproduce other material from employers, third parties or attributed to third parties, and that the material has not been previously published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

It is the responsibility of authors to secure the release of any copyright material and to provide written evidence. It is also the author’s responsibility to obtain clearance for reproduction from the organization which commissioned the work if applicable.

No printers proof will be sent to the author. The hard copy provided by the author on acceptance is the version used for typesetting. The publisher reserves the right to make editing corrections.

Article submission

Articles within the aims and scope of the journal should be approximately 6000 to 8000 words in length, exclusive of References, Appendices, Tables and Figures. However, shorter or longer articles of exceptional quality may be accepted by the Editor.

Materials should be prepared and submitted electronically as an email attachment to Journal@rbmionline.com according to the following guidelines.

Authors are advised to consult the Style Guide below

Manuscripts submitted for publication are subject to a double blind peer review process. Please note that manuscripts that are inappropriately prepared tend to be less favourably reviewed, and may be returned to the author for revision prior to submission to the full review process.

To ensure prompt review of your manuscript, and to preserve anonymity during the review process, please observe the following steps:

There should be no information in the attached manuscript that could identify authors or institutions, such as coding with initials etc., except where appropriate as a citation.

List title of manuscript; author name(s), affiliation(s) (in the order they are to appear), including all co-author postal & email address details for our records;

Indicate Corresponding Author for multiple author submissions;

Include any Acknowledgments;

Acknowledge acceptance of warranty and copyright conditions;

If your article is under consideration for a selected special issue, please indicate which issue.

Style Guide for Authors

Body of manuscript should be one document file commencing with the manuscript title; an Abstract of about 200-250 words; Key words; the article text; Conclusion; Acknowledgements; References; Figures and Tables – in that order.

Acknowledgements should not be included in the text but in the covering email, to preserve anonymity during the review process. They will be reinserted prior to publication.

Citations and References should be accurate, timely and consistent throughout. Please ensure that in-text citations appear in References, and vice-versa as appropriate. The accuracy and format of reference citations is the authors’ responsibility.

Headings and Sections: JBS uses only three levels of headings (see examples below). Use boldface for all three.

Main headings (all capital letters; centered) are first and should be used to identify the (normal) three or four major sections of the manuscript. It is unnecessary to have a heading such as ‘Introduction’.

Second-level headings (title-style; flush left; nothing else on the line) are next.

Third-level headings (first letter of first word capitalized; indented and italicized) are next.

Examples:

METHODS

Data and Sample Measures

Independent variable

Dependent variables

Artwork Presentation:

Tables and Figure graphics: Each table or figure should have a sentence in your text that introduces it. Useful tables and figures do not duplicate the text or each other. Carefully consider what each table or figure adds to your work.

They should be centered and numbered consecutively (one sequence for Tables, one for Figures) using Arabic numerals (e.g. Table 1, Figure 2, etc.) and have self-explanatory captions, in bold, title-style, left-aligned, above the figure or table, e.g.

Figure 2: Distribution of the Online Learning Literature

Important: Artwork labels (such as axes labels or legends, etc.) are to use minimal capitalisation, and appear using only bold, roman or italic Arial or Times New Roman fonts, otherwise distortion occurs.

Artwork must be suitable for immediate BLACK and WHITE reproduction (do not use similar colours), because it will not be redrawn.

Use more than one page if needed for Tables to achieve a neat, readable presentation. Do not use code names and abbreviations, e.g. Use ‘Profitability’ not ‘PRFT’.

Each table should report one type of analysis (identified by its title), and each column and row should contain only one type of data. Place labels across the top or down the side. The body of your table should contain only data.

Report only two decimal places for statistics. Place correlation coefficients in the lower-left corner.

For general footnotes to tables, use superscript small letters. For ‘p’ footnotes, use asterisks. These go under the general table footnotes. Always use a single asterisk for the .05 level. Example: *p < .05; **p < .01

Language: ‘English’ or ‘American’ spellings are acceptable, provided they are used consistently.

Technical terms: Help your work to be accessible to JBS’s wide-ranging readership. Define key technical terms. Put the first appearance of a technical term in single quotation marks.

Abbreviations: Avoid using abbreviations for the names of concepts. Use ordinary words for variable names – not code names or other abbreviations. Use the same name for a variable throughout your text, tables, figures and appendices.

Names of organizations and research instruments may be abbreviated, but give the full name (with abbreviation in brackets) the first time you mention one of these.

Reporting mathematics. Do not ‘talk in maths language’ in regular text. Use words. For instance: ‘We surveyed 100 employees’ not ‘We surveyed n = 100 employees’ and ‘We used a chi-square test to evaluate fit’ not ‘We used a C2 test’.

Do use mathematical symbols and numbers to provide illustrative results and formulas. In both, italicize letters that are customarily italicized, such as p, r, F, and Z. Use boldface italic for vectors. Put spaces around equals signs and other operators.

Illustrative results go in parentheses. The text introducing them should be a complete sentence. Example:

One coefficient for the interaction was significant (model 3: b = 0.06, p = .05; model 5: b = 1.06, n.s.)

Equations: Depending on their role and content, equations are either part of your regular text (run in) or displayed. Examples:

Run-in equation – We used Craig’s (1992: 20) distance formula (d = xyz).

Displayed equation –

Pr(Yt=ytxt) = [e-l(xt) l(Xt)yt],

Yt!

where yt is.....

Define each new term in each equation.

Sexist or biased language: Avoid language that might be interpreted as denigrating to ethnic or other groups. Do not use ‘he’ as a generic pronoun to avoid implying gender-based discrimination. Using plural pronouns – changing ‘the manager... he’ to ‘managers... they’ – usually helps.

Active voice and first person: Put sentences in the active voice (‘I did it’; ‘They did it’) instead of the passive voice (‘It was done’) to make it easy for readers to see who did what. Use the first person (‘I’ or ‘we’) to describe what you, or you and your coauthors, did.

Anthropomorphism: Avoid describing inanimate entities (models, theories, firms, and so forth) as acting in ways only humans can act.

Footnotes should be used sparingly, and not used to cite references. Place at the bottom of the page to which it pertains. Use sparingly. Place each at the bottom of the page it pertains to.

Hypotheses should be fully and separately stated, with a distinct number (Hypothesis 1) or number-letter (Hypothesis 1a) label. Display hypotheses in indented blocks, in italic type, as follows:

Hypothesis 1a. Concise writing has a positive relationship to publication.

Hypothesis 1b. Following JBS’s ‘Style Guide for Authors’ has a positive relationship to publication.

Appendixes: Present long but essential methodological details, such as explanations of the calculation of measures, in an appendix or appendixes. Be concise. Avoid unusual formats (such as reproductions of surveys).

Journal Referencing Style

CITATIONS

These are your in-text, in parentheses, identifications of publications. Every work that has a citation needs to have a corresponding reference at the end of your paper (see ‘References’ below).

Examples

Single author:

Name-year citation – Several studies (Adams 1994; Bernstein 1988, 1992; Celias 2000a, 2000b) support this conclusion. Group names in alphabetical order. Note: 2 or more works published in the same year by one author (or by an identical group of authors) are designated by ‘a,’ ‘b,’ and so forth, after the year.

Year-only citation – But Van Dorn and Xavier (2001) presented conflicting evidence.

Multiple authors: If a work has two authors, give both names every time you cite it. For three through six identical authors, give all names the first time, then use ‘et al.’ Examples:

First citation - Few field studies use random assignment (Foster, Whittington, Tucker, Horner, Hubbard & Grimm 2000).

Subsequent citations - … even when random assignment is not possible (Foster et al. 2000).

For seven or more authors, use ‘et al.’ even for the first citation. (NOTE: the corresponding reference at the end of the paper should list all authors.)

Second-level citation:

(Anderson & Adams (1992) in Border and Chism (1992) - see Referencing format.

Quotations:Cite page numbers for direct quotations. Example:

Short quotation - Lee has said that writing a book is ‘a long and arduous task’ (1998: 3). Note single quotes.

Put long quotations (five lines or more) in indented blocks, in Italics, without quotation marks.

No author? Cite the periodical or organization.

Periodical as author – Analysts predicted an increase in service jobs (Australian Financial Review 1999).

Corporate author – Analysts predict an increase in service jobs in the N.Z. Industrial Outlook (Statistics New Zealand 2004).

Such sources can also be identified informally. No corresponding reference will then be needed. Example:

Informal citation - According to the 2004 N.Z. Industrial Outlook, published by Statistics New Zealand, service jobs will increase.

Electronic sources: Use a regular citation (author, year) if you can identify a human, periodical, or corporate author. If not, give the Web address that was your source in parentheses. In the latter case only, no corresponding reference need be provided.

REFERENCES

A list headed ‘References’ and comprising of full details of all sources should be provided at the end of your article. The list should contain only work you have cited in-text and should be in alphabetical order by first author’s surname. For corporate authors and periodicals, alphabetize by the first substantive word (not by ‘the’).

List the earliest work by an author first. Differentiate works by the same author(s) from the same year by adding ‘a,’ ‘b,’ etc., after the years. Repeat the author’s name for each entry.

Journal articles and Periodicals:

Each Journal reference must include author surname(s) and initials, year of publication, full title of article, full name of journal, volume and (optional) issue numbers, and page range (in full) of the article.

Jackson, S.E. and Schuler, R.S. (1995). Understanding human resource management in the context of organisations and

their environment, in Rosenzweig, M.R. and Porter, L.W. (Eds), Annual Review of Psychology, pp. 237-64.

Shrivastava P. (1995). The role of corporations in achieving ecological sustainability, Academy of Management Review, 20: 936–960.

If an article has no author, the periodical is the author:

BusinessWeek (1998). The Best B-schools. October 19, 2007, 21: 86–94.

Harvard Business Review (2003) How are we doing? 81(4): 3.

Books:

Each reference must include author(s) last names and initials (commas only where indicated), year of publication (in brackets), book title (in Italics), publisher, city of publication, and if appropriate, page numbers.

Ashkanasy, N.M., Härtel C E J and Zerbe W J (Eds) (2000) Emotions in the Workplace: Research, Theory, and Practice, Quorum Books, Westport CT.

Greene W H (1993) Econometric analysis, 2nd edn. Macmillan, New York.

Chapters in edited books and Journals:

Brenner SN (1995) Stakeholder theory of the firm: Its consistency with current management techniques, in Nasi J (Ed.) Understanding stakeholder thinking, pp75-96, LSR-Julkaisut Oy, Helsinki.

Guion RM (1992) Personnel assessment, selection, and placement, in Dunnette MD and Hough LM (Eds) Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (2nd edn) 2: 327-97. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto CA.

Reports, Theses, Symposia and Conference papers (published and unpublished):

Duncan RG (1971) Multiple decision-making structures in adapting to environmental uncertainty. Working paper no. 54–71, Northwestern University Graduate School of Management, Evanston IL.

Paris C and Combs B (2000) Teachers’ perspectives on what it means to be learner-centered. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association (AERA), 24-28 April, AERA, New Orleans LA.

Electronic documents (registered publications or otherwise):

Internet citations should indicate the date information was accessed as well as the date of the website material. Example:

Ernst & Young (2004d) Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year program, accessed at http://www.ey.com/global.nsf/International/EGC_-_Entrepreneur_of_the_Year on 5 April 2004.

Opportunity International (2004a) Annual Report 2002: Highlights, accessed at http://www.opportunity.org.au/article/articleview/208/1/6 on 7 April 2004.