Author Guidelines

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

The authors submitting and publishing in The Management and Applied Social Studies Review (MASSIV) agree to the copyright policy under creative common license 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence). Moreover, it should be mentioned clearly that the submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration. The submission file should be in Open Office Microsoft Word file format with minimum tolerance for Plagiarism.

Format

The manuscripts should be typed in A4 (210mm x 297mm), with 12-point Times News Roman font and must be 1.5 line-spaced, except for indented quotations. The manuscript must be saved as a word file. All the pages, including tables, appendices, and references, should be serially numbered. Spell out numbers from one to ten, except when used in tables and lists, and when used with mathematical, statistical, scientific or technical units and quantities, such as distances, weights and measures. All other numbers are expressed numerically. Authors are encouraged to use the MASSIV template. The template can be found here.

Language

All manuscripts should be in the English language. Research papers should be thoroughly checked by the author(s) to avoid grammatical, typographical, and syntax errors. If the manuscript is written in a second or third language, it is recommended to first contact a language reviewing paid service to avoid grammar and style mistakes.

Length of paper

The length of the paper should be between (4000-6000 words) including tables and references. The allowable length of the manuscript is at the editor’s discretion; however, manuscripts with a length of less than or exceeding the specified word count may be returned to the author(s) for revision before the manuscript is considered by the editors. The word count excludes tables, figures, and references.

Title page

It should include a concise, specific, relevant, and informative title (avoid unnecessary abbreviations in the title). Please indicate the full name of the author(s) clearly. Present the authors' affiliation below the names. Provide the full address of each affiliation, including the country name and correct e-mail address of each author. Please clearly indicate who (corresponding author) is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of peer review, revisions of the manuscript, and publication.

General rules for text

Please use the following rules for the whole text, including abstract, keywords, headings, and references:

Font: Times News Roman; Size: 12pts

Paragraph Spacing: 0 pt before and 0 pt after

Line Spacing: at least, 15 pt for body text

Margin flat left and right (justify), with 2.54 cm up, 2.54 cm bottom, left dan right 2.54 cm.

Abstract

The abstract should stand alone, meaning that no citations are in the abstract. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, data set, methodology, results, major conclusions, and usefulness of the study produced in a continuous paragraph. The abstract should be relatively nontechnical, yet clear enough for an informed reader to understand the manuscript’s contribution. An abstract between 150-300 words, should be presented in English on a separate page immediately preceding the text of the manuscript.

Keywords

Keywords are an important part of writing an abstract. Authors should select a maximum of five keywords that are specific and reflect what is essential about the article. Keywords and the article’s classification should be provided after the abstract.

Introduction

This section may cover the overall background and description of the study, narrow down to research objectives, motivation of the topic, importance/significance, proposed tasks, and novelty. Abbreviations should be described in parentheses when the first time they appear in the text. What is the purpose of the study? Why are you conducting the study? The main section of the article should start with an introductory section which provides more details about the paper’s purpose, motivation, research methods and findings. The introduction should be relatively nontechnical, yet clear enough for an informed reader to understand the manuscript’s contribution.

Literature review

This section may critically describe/evaluate literature relevant to the research problem, establish context, compare and contrast the most recent developments in the literature and trends. Search gaps after concentrating on thought leaders’ work and linking the research with relevant theories. Authors are flexible in writing a literature review even to be part of the introduction section.

Data & Methodology

This section typically has the following sub-sections: sampling (a description of the target population, the research context, and units of analysis; sampling; and respondents’ profiles); data collection; and measures (alternatively: measurement). The sources and types of data should clearly be mentioned in this section. A list of variables description should also be part of this section. This section may describe the statistical and econometric techniques applied to the data sets with the explanation of the construction of hypotheses, equations, statistical tool, and justification in case of quantitative analysis while for qualitative analysis, the methodology should clearly be mentioned.

Results and Discussion

This section may cover in-depth interpretation through applying higher-order thinking skills of analysis and develop novel arguments based on the significance of statistical and econometric relations. Establish interconnections among and within variables. Testing hypotheses and comparing results with literature should be part of this section. The discussion section should: 1) Restate the study’s main purpose; 2) reaffirm the importance of the study by restating its main contributions; 3) summarize the results in relation to each research objectives or hypothesis, without introducing new material; 4) relate the findings back to the literature and to the results reported by other researchers; 5) provide possible explanations for any unexpected or non-significant findings; 6) discuss the managerial implications of the study; 7) highlight the main limitations of the study that could influence its internal and external validity; 8) and discuss insightful (i.e., non-obvious) directions or opportunities for future research related to the topic.

Conclusion and recommendations

It may be broken into meaningful sections without any heading init, i.e. conclusion, theoretical contribution, practical implications, recommendations, future study directions, and limitations.

Figures

Present them in order (suitable heading and specific numbers in numeric values) wherever appropriate in the text. High-resolution graphs must be provided in the main text of the paper.

Tables

The tables should be presented with separate suitable headings in specific numeric numbers at the appropriate place of the article. Use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables if possible. Ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Refer to table number wherever appropriate in the text of the paper.

Acknowledgments/Contribution of Authors

All types of acknowledgments regarding the contribution of authors and financial aids/sources of funding in case of research projects should be mentioned at the end of the complete article but before the references. The contribution of authors is mandatory to write author-wise only within one sentence in all submissions. This should be written before the References of the article.

References

Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Appendix

Background information, list of respondents, list of countries/companies, or questionnaire may be described in this section if required by the editor/reviewer.

Plagiarism Policy

In accordance with the guidelines of Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Review of Applied Management and Social Sciences (RAMSS) observes Zero Tolerance to plagiarism. We use Turnitin for all research papers submitted to detect possible plagiarism. If the total similarity is more than 20% and the single source is more than 5%, the paper will be returned back to the author(s) immediately.

Authors Responsibilities

Authors are expected to act according to the publication ethics international standards for authors developed by COPE during the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore in 2010. These are summarized as follows:

• The research being reported should have been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and should comply with all relevant legislation.
• Researchers should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation.
• Researchers should strive to describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.
• Researchers should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere.
• Authors should take collective responsibility for submitted and published work.
• The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting.
• Funding sources and relevant conflicts of interest should be disclosed.
• Authors are obliged to participate in the peer-review process;
• All authors have to contribute significantly to the research addressing a relevant topic in the area of the social sciences research from a multidisciplinary approach.
• All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes;
• Authors are obliged to provide a list of references including the most relevant and current literature.

Submitted manuscripts should not be under consideration for publication in other journals.

SUBMISSION OF PAPER

The authors need to submit their papers preferably through Journal's online system by entering their login details.

Note:  The paper submission will not be considered if a paper is made without reading the author's guidelines in true letter and spirit.