About the Journal

Publication Focus and Scope

The aim of Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy (MDKE) is to address in an interdisciplinary framework the dynamics of organization management and its strategic approaches by considering the imperatives and the contingencies of the new societal and economic environments at a local, national, international and global scale, with a special emphasis on emerging economies.

Emerging economies present a compelling area of investigation from a management dynamics perspective due to several key factors, such as: rapid growth and transformation, need for tailored strategies, opportunities for innovation and dynamic capabilities. The unique characteristics of emerging economies create fertile ground for studying how management practices adapt and evolve.

To start with, emerging markets are characterized by rapid economic, political, social, and demographic transitions. This dynamism creates unique challenges and opportunities for businesses and managers. Secondly, the scale, complexity, and unique talent management challenges in emerging markets necessitate locally based decision rights and tailored organizational structures and processes. Thirdly, companies in emerging markets sometimes develop unique strategies to overcome disadvantages and compete globally. Some capitalize on their knowledge of local product markets or talent and capital markets. Fourthly, emerging economies differ from developed economies, offering potential investors greater profit opportunities, lower gross national income per capita, and greater reluctance towards foreign investment.

Given that a knowledge-based economy uses knowledge as the primary engine for economic growth, for countries seeking to boost their economies, understanding how to leverage knowledge becomes paramount. Global competition dares emerging markets (i.e., Asian, African, South-Eastern European countries, etc.) to strengthen their intangible resources, embodying technology, skills, and brand value. The imperative is to ensure the ‘catching up’ process as emerging economies can learn from advanced economies in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia, which serve as role models. Investments in 'knowledge infrastructure' such as ICT, R&D, science and technology, tertiary education, and innovation capabilities emerge as mandatory. These stand for strategic challenges for achieving competitive advantage within the globalized socio-economic environment.

Taking stock of the state-of-the-art and future trends in management dynamics, MDKE primarily focuses on investigating emerging economies through the lens of the knowledge economy while tackling the lessons learned and best practices of more developed countries in terms of intellectual capital leverage, organizational transformations, technology, innovation, sustainability and business development.

MDKE aims to foster meaningful academic discussions and to support the exchange of ideas on principles, strategies, models, techniques, methodologies, and applications of management science in all the important fields of interest.

The first issue of MDKE was published in April 2013, both online and in print. The journal was initiated by Prof. Dr. Constantin Brătianu from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Prof. Dr. Florina Pînzaru and Prof. Dr. Alexandra Zbuchea, from the Faculty of Management, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Romania. Starting with 2015, the journal is published exclusively online, 4 issues annually. Since 2019 the journal is published in cooperation with de Gruyter, on the Sciendo platform.

As intended from its very beginning, the journal is interested in research that crosses the boundaries of national contexts and of single academic subjects stimulating interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. Topics can cover research, non-exclusively, in the following domains: management, strategic management, innovation management, change management, international management, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, leadership and governance, knowledge management, brand management and consumer behavior, business, business process optimization, corporate social responsibility, financial and economic management, e-business and digitalization, and sustainability management.

Types of Submissions

The journal welcomes three types of submissions, namely: conceptual papers, research articles, bibliometric analyses and literature reviews, all of them being subject to a double-blind peer review.

Description of the Peer Review Process

Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy is a double-blind peer-reviewed academic publication. Peer review is a key element of scientific publishing, and it serves several main purposes: to filter the research to select the most relevant studies; to improve research quality, by highlighting key points and correcting errors; to help the authors to improve their work, through offering specific comments on the key aspects of a research article: title, abstract, keywords, content and analysis, discussions, conclusions and references. In this vein, reviewers use a score sheet to rate submission as well as provide comments. Editors have the possibility to rate reviewers and provide them with a score based on the quality of their review and average turnaround time.

Regarding the selection of the review team, to ensure the high-quality and the objectivity of the review, the two reviewers associated with each proposal are selected based on the following principles: they are specialists in the field of the submitted article, and they are from different countries of origin so to support an international perspective. If reviewers have any conflicts of interest with an assigned submission, they should acknowledge them and inform the editors by email before further action is taken. In such cases, the editors will immediately unassign the inappropriate reviewer and select new reviewers to evaluate the manuscript.

All invitations to review, abstracts, manuscripts, and reviews should be kept confidential. Reviewers must not share their review or information about the review process with anyone without the agreement of the editors and authors involved, even after publication. This also applies to other reviewers’ comments to the author which are shared with all reviewers on decision.

To protect authors’ rights and the confidentiality of their research, this journal does not currently allow the use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies such as ChatGPT or similar services by reviewers or editors in the peer review and manuscript evaluation process. We are actively evaluating compliant AI tools and may revise this policy in the future.

The average time from submission to first decision is 30 days. 

Upon submission acceptance, the journal provides English-language editing and technical editing to manuscripts in need, these services being provided by the MDKE technical assistants.

Abstracting & Indexing

Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy is abstracted/indexed in: BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine), CEEOL, DOAJ, EBSCO, EconLit, ERIH Plus, ProQuest, and RePEc – EconPapers as well as other databases (please see the Abstracting & Indexing section).

Several other A&I service providers are evaluating the journal for inclusion. Please periodically check the Abstracting & Indexing section for further information.

Open Access Statement

MDKE is an open access scholarly journal that allows free access to its content (articles, issues). MDKE is available online to readers without financial, legal, or technical barriers (no article publication charges), based on the theory to keep an article's content intact. Authors can use Creative Commons licenses to specify usage rights of articles.

This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International — CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Copyright Notice

Authors hold the copyright for the published papers. They can make the respective works available in different situations, such as: on their websites, on universities’ blackboard systems, as teaching materials, etc.

APC Policy

To publish in the journal, authors are not required to pay an Article Processing Charge.

Manuscript Formatting

Before publication, all articles undergo a formatting stage in which their format is made compatible with the requirements of the journal MDKE. All authors are asked to comply with the Article Template requirements before submitting their articles, but all accepted articles still require minor alterations in format and style. Once the editorial team agrees on the final version, a final copy of the article will be sent to the authors for approval and then will be sent to the Publishing House to ensure online publication. After that moment, the papers cannot be altered in any way. For further details, please see the Author guidelines page.

Manuscript Submission

Authors should submit their manuscript in a MSWord format, adapted for the Windows operating system and DOC or RTF file to the Editor via the online platform. No hard copies are required.

When submitting an article, no author identification has to be provided in the paper uploaded initially on the platform. If the paper is finally accepted for publication, the final submission should comply with the MDKE Author Guidelines. Please note that submissions not complying with these guidelines will be rejected on formal grounds.

Authors should register and log-in prior to submission. When registering on the platform, we recommend the authors to register themselves as readers as well. This will enable them to easily have access to all the issues of the journal.

By submitting the paper, the authors certify that the study proposed is their own, that they hold the rights to present the information included in the paper and that they give the publication rights to the publishers of the journal. All papers are checked with anti-plagiarism software.

Alongside the manuscript in a MSWord format, two other documents filled and signed should be uploaded: MDKE Originality Statement and Copyright Agreement and Open Access License.

Ethics in Publishing

When authors submit an article to MDKE, it is implied that: 1. the work described has not been published previously except in the form of a preprint, an abstract, a published lecture, academic thesis or registered report; 2. the article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; 3. the article's publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out; 4. if accepted, the article will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; final approval of the version to be submitted.

Authors should appoint a corresponding author to communicate with the journal during the editorial process. All authors should agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should only be made prior to acceptance, and only if approved by the journal editor. Requests to change authorship should be made by the corresponding author, who must provide the reason for the request to the journal editor with written confirmation from all authors, including any authors being added or removed, that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. Requests which do not comply with the instructions outlined in the form will not be considered.

The editors of this journal generally will not consider changes to authorship once a manuscript has been submitted. It is important that authors carefully consider the authorship list and order of authors and provide a definitive author list at original submission.

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancy, stock ownership, honoraria, grants or any other funding. Authors with no competing interests to declare should select the option "I have nothing to declare".

The resulting Word document containing your declaration should be uploaded at the "attach/upload files" step in the submission process. It is important that the Word document is saved in the .doc/.docx file format. Author signatures are not required.

Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report and decision to submit the article for publication. If funding sources had no such involvement this should be stated in your submission.

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants, scholarships and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding. If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Authors must declare the use of generative AI in scientific writing upon submission of the paper. The following guidance refers only to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyze and draw insights from data as part of the research process:

• Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies should only be used in the writing process to improve the readability and language of the manuscript.
• Technology must be applied with human oversight and control and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. Authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.
• Authors must not list or cite AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author on the manuscript since authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans.

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing must be declared by adding a statement at the end of the manuscript when the paper is first submitted. The statement will appear in the published work and should be placed in a new section before the references list.

The declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools, such as tools used to check grammar, spelling and references. If you have nothing to disclose, you do not need to add a statement.

Submission Management

Each submission is acknowledged by one of the members of the editorial team and then the pre-selection begins. At this stage, the members of the editorial team choose to either reject the article directly or to send it to the reviewers for a thorough review. The grounds for immediate dismissal (desk rejection) of a manuscript are the following:

1. Plagiarism and high probability of AI usage (with the exception of the abovementioned cases) as derived from the pre-screening editorial process conducted with specialized tools and applications.
2. The standard of English is not considered to be good enough for publication. If English is not the first language of the authors, they should make sure the paper is proofread by a professional or a native speaker.
3. The manuscript does not fit with the scope of the journal or does not follow rigorously the author’s guidelines and paper template.
4. The data presented in the article are outdated (either the bibliography is not up-to-date, or the research materials are too old).

Each author receives notice of the final decision made by the editorial team which can be of two kinds: a) decision to include the article in the review process or b) decision to reject the article followed by the list of reasons that have led to that decision. Authors whose articles have been rejected for reasons other than fraud can choose to resubmit their work for a second time. If after the second try the article is still not considered a good fit for the journal, then the author is prohibited from resubmitting the work again.

If the article passes pre-selection, then it is sent for peer-review to at least two professionals with experience in the field. This stage lasts for a maximum of four weeks, depending on the complexity of the article and the availability of experts in the field. The final decision of the peer-review process can be as follows:

• Accepted as it is – When the paper satisfies all qualitative and quantitative requirements.
• Minor changes – This decisions signal that the article in its present form, with minor modifications is suitable for publication. The authors received the decision followed by the suggestions of the peer reviewers and their submission, after alterations, will step on to the next stage.
• Major changes – Most of the articles submitted to MDKE fall in this category. These are articles which show promise, but they need further elaborate work. Thus, each reviewer sends his or her recommendations and the authors are encouraged to revise their articles, answering each of these recommendations.
• Reject – This decision signals that there are major concerns over the quality of the scientific materials presented in the paper and that the reviewers consider there is no chance in improving the article in such a way as to become a suitable candidate for publication in MDKE.

After formatting, all articles set to be included in the following issue will appear online according to the publication schedule.

Publication timeline

The editors of the journal accept manuscript submissions all year round. The journal is published quarterly, in March, June, September, and December.

Archiving

Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - a digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.

Plagiarism Policy

The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. Please pay attention to all the information on the website and be aware that affiliations of authors and reviewers are public on the platform. By submitting the required information, the authors implicitly agree to make the data public.