Author Guidelines

INTRODUCTION

The Revista de Contabilidad-Spanish Accounting Review (RC-SAR) is the international research journal of the Spanish Association of Accounting Academics (Asociación Española de Profesores Universitarios de Contabilidad-ASEPUC). It has been published uninterruptedly since 1997.
Established to further the development of accounting knowledge, RC-SAR is a forum for the publication and dissemination of high quality research manuscripts. Aware of the need for research that promotes critical analysis of theories, research issues, policy and practice, RC-SAR functions as a pluralist, flexible and open journal, not only with regard to the subject matter, but also with respect to the research paradigms and methodologies of the articles that it publishes. RC-SAR publishes both empirical and theoretical papers, often with interdisciplinary perspectives, which offer new perspectives in accounting research from a national, international or organizational standpoint.
Submission of the article means that the authors accept the editorial policy and rules for the review and publication of research works in the RC-SAR. The points of view and the opinions expressed in the articles published in the Review are wholly those of the author and will not necessarily reflect those of the Editorial Team. Both the Editorial Board and ASEPUC decline any responsibility for the content of the material that is published.

Submission of the manuscript/Contact details for submission

A typical article for this journal should be no longer than 12,000 words, including abstract, tables, references and endnotes.

All manuscripts must be submitted online through the RCSAR’s Web site at https://revistas.um.es/rcsar. Electronic files of the manuscript contents must be uploaded at that Web site and the onscreen steps should be followed to submit the manuscript to the Editorial Office.

Language

RC-SAR accepts works written in English or Spanish.

Submission checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details Ensure that the following items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

• E-mail address.
• Full postal address.

All necessary files have been uploaded:
First page:

• Title in English and Spanish (only for Spanish speakers).
• All authors and include their data (first name, last name, institution, postal address, country, phone number, email address). It is very important that the ORCID number of each one of the authors appears among these data.
• Appoint a correspondence author.

Manuscript::

• Abstract in English and Spanish (only for Spanish speakers) .
• List of keywords.
• JEL classification codes.
• All figures (include relevant captions).
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided.
• All references to tables and figures in the text match the tables and figures that you send.
• Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print.

Supplemental files (where applicable)

Further considerations::

• Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'.
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa.
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet).
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare.
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed.
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements.

Further information at benitobl@um.es (editor in chief of the journal).

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

Ethics in publishing

The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society of society-owned or sponsored journals.

Ethics topics to consider when publishing:

• Authorship of the paper. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study.
• Originality and plagiarism. Please note that RC-SAR uses existing programs on the market for the treatment of plagiarism. By submitting your manuscript to RC-SAR, the author accepts the necessary checks of originality that your manuscript may have to undergo during the peer review and production processes. Plagiarism or self-plagiarism is an automatic reason for rejection of the manuscript. Only original and high quality researches are published to preserve scientific progress and relevant data that will provide important contributions to the scientific community. In this regard, all published articles in RC-SAR are expected to offer scientific improvements in the fields of accounting.
• Data access and retention. Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data.
• Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication. An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. RC-RSC does not view the following uses of a work as prior publication: publication in the form of an abstract; publication as an academic thesis; publication as an electronic preprint.
• Acknowledgement of sources. Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given.
• Disclosure and conflicts of interest. All submissions must include disclosure of all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest.
• Fundamental errors in published works. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
• Reporting standards. Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance.

Declaration of interest

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests in two places: 1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double-blind) or the manuscript file (if single-blind). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: 'Declarations of interest: none'. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted. 2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal's official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches.

Submission declaration and verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis, or as electronic pre-publication), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it 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. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection programmes available in EDITUM.

Use of inclusive language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Articles should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader, should contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of race, sex, culture or any other characteristic, and should use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from bias, for instance by using 'he or she', 'his/her' instead of 'he' or 'his', and by making use of job titles that are free of stereotyping (e.g. 'chairperson' instead of 'chairman' and 'flight attendant' instead of 'stewardess').

Changes to authorship

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author:

1. The reason for the change in author list.
2. Written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.

Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Copyright and Author rights

Once the article has been accepted for publication, this implies that the author(s) transfer the copyright to the journal editor and ASEPUC.

Author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work.

Responsible sharing
Once the article is published, the author(s) can promote it to have a greater impact on the research.

Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

Open access

This is an Open Access journal: all articles will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. Permitted third party (re)use is defined by the user licence Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. It does not support commercial purposes. It allows copying, distributing and including the article in a collective work (for example, an anthology), as long as there is no commercial purpose, the article is not altered or modified and the original work is properly cited.

This journal is free of charge for the Open Access publication. ASEPUC and EDITUM finance the production and publication costs of the manuscripts.

Submission of the manuscript

Our manuscript submission system will guide you step-by-step through the process of entering your article data and attaching files. The system will contain the files that make up the manuscript for the peer review process. The author of correspondence will receive information about the review process of the manuscript via email. In any case, you can always contact benitobl@um.es for any doubt or clarification you may have regarding the article review process.

Reviewers
Please propose several potential reviewers for your article, indicating name and institutional mailing address. Please note that it is ultimately up to the editor to decide whether or not to use the proposed reviewers.

PREPARING THE MANUSCRIPT

Peer review

This journal operates a double blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor in chief for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. All authors will receive the evaluation reports, anonymously, so that they can make (if necessary) the appropriate improvements or replications. The editor in chief is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The editor in chief 's decision is final.

Double-blind review

This journal uses double-blind review, which means the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa. To facilitate this, please include the following separately:

• Title page (with author details). This should include the title, authors' names, affiliations, acknowledgements and any Declaration of Interest statement, and a complete address for the corresponding author including an e-mail address.
• Blinded manuscript (no author details). The main body of the paper (including the references, figures, tables and any acknowledgements) should not include any identifying information, such as the authors' names or affiliations.
• None of the files sent where the anonymity of the authorship is required must contain any data/name that can identify it with the authors. We refer especially to the properties of the documents.

Use of word processing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts. Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

Article structure

Sections
Organize your article into clearly defined sections and sub-sections, preceded by a concise heading (such as Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions) in a separate line. Headings should be used to refer to specific sections of the text.

Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Material and methods
Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.

Results
Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

Essential title page information

• Title. Concise and informative, in English and Spanish (only for Spanish speakers). Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
• Author names and affiliations. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. You can add your name between parentheses in your own script behind the English transliteration. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about Methodology and Materials. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
• Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Keywords

Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using British spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Classification codes
Please provide up to 6 standard JEL codes. The available codes may be accessed at JEL.

Math formulae
Please submit math equations as editable text and not as images. Present simple formulae in line with normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).

Artwork

Electronic artwork
General points

• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option.
• Aim to use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Symbol, or use fonts that look similar.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version.
• Submit each illustration as a separate file.

Formats
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format. Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):

• EPS (or PDF): vector drawings, embed all used fonts.
• TIFF (or JPEG): color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 300 dpi.
• TIFF (or JPEG): bitmapped (pure black & white pixels) line drawings, keep to a minimum of 1000 dpi.
• TIFF (or JPEG): combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale), keep to a minimum of 500 dpi.

Please do not:

• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.

References

Reference style
The bibliography should appear at the end of the text, with the authors’ surnames in alphabetical order. Bibliographic references should follow the format indicated in the examples below (in other cases, the American Psychological Association Bibliographical Reference style should be followed):

• Edwards, J.R., Dean, G., & Clarke, F. (2009). Merchants’ accounts, performance assessment and decision making in mercantilist Britain. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 34(5), 551-570.
• Laplace, P. S. (1951). A philosophical essay on probabilities (Trads., F. W. Truscott & F. L. Emory). New York: McGraw-Hill. (Original manuscript published in 1814).
• MacKenzie, D. (in press). Making things the same: Gases, emission rights and the politics of carbon markets. Accounting, Organizations and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2008.02.004.
• Scott, W.R. (1995). Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
• Powell, W.W. (1991). Expanding the scope of institutional analysis. In W.W. Powell & P.J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 183-203). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 

If the document cited has a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), then this should be included in the reference. DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly ‘Articles in press’ because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The URL format is preferred, that is, the document should be cited as https://doi.org/10.6018/rcsar.389791 rather than as doi: 10.6018/rcsar.389791.

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. EDITUM now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download the free Adobe Reader, version 9 (or higher). Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site. If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to EDITUM in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and scan the pages and return via e-mail. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

AUTHOR INQUIRIES

You can follow the accepted manuscript or find out the publication date of an accepted manuscript by consulting benitobl@um.es.

Date of last modification: 10/03/2022