SRCAA Global Review of Contemporary Research

The SRCAA Global Review of Contemporary Research (SGRCR) is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary academic journal published under the aegis of Shakti Research Centre and Academia (SRCAA), a digital academic and research institution established in 2024 and accredited under the International Trade Council (ITC) Conformity Assessment and Recognition Framework. The journal is committed to disseminating high-quality, original research across Commerce, Management, Economics, Social Sciences, and allied interdisciplinary fields.

The journal upholds the principles of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct, and the editorial and content-selection criteria applied by Scopus/Elsevier's Content Selection and Advisory Board (CSAB), with the long-term objective of qualifying for and sustaining indexation in Scopus and other internationally recognised abstracting and indexing databases.

This policy manual consolidates the eight core policies of the journal — Editorial Guidelines, Reviewer Guidelines, Plagiarism Guidelines, Author Guidelines, Withdrawal Policy, Legal Policy, and Academic & Publication Policy — and is referenced in all submission and correspondence templates.

Scope of the Journal

SGRCR welcomes original research articles, review articles, case studies, short communications, and conceptual papers in Commerce, Management, Economics, Finance, Marketing, Human Resources, and related interdisciplinary areas. Manuscripts must not have been published previously, nor be under consideration elsewhere.

Title Page Requirements

• Full title of the manuscript (concise, specific, under 20 words).
• Full names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, and email addresses of all authors.
• Corresponding author clearly identified with complete contact details.
• A statement of each author's individual contribution (CRediT taxonomy recommended).

Declarations Required at Submission

• Conflict of Interest statement.
• Funding statement (or "This research received no external funding").
• Ethical approval / Institutional Review Board statement, where human or animal subjects are involved.
• Data availability statement.
• Originality and exclusive-submission declaration.

Publication Charges

Any article processing charge (APC), if applicable, is disclosed transparently on the journal's website prior to submission, along with waiver provisions for researchers from low-resource institutions. The journal does not levy hidden charges at any stage of review or publication.

All manuscripts, declarations, and submission correspondence are forwarded to admin@srcaa.co.in for editorial processing.

Submit Manuscript

These guidelines govern the composition, responsibilities, and decision-making processes of the Editorial Board of SGRCR, ensuring consistency, transparency, and academic rigour in every stage of publication, from submission to final publication.

Editorial Board Structure

• Editor-in-Chief: overall responsibility for editorial policy, integrity, and final publication decisions.
• Associate Editors / Section Editors: subject-area screening, reviewer assignment, and recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief.
• International Editorial Advisory Board: a minimum of five members drawn from at least three countries, reflecting geographic and institutional diversity, in line with Scopus board-diversity expectations.
• Editorial Assistant / Managing Editor: manuscript tracking, correspondence, formatting compliance, and archival record-keeping.

Editorial Responsibilities

1. Evaluate all submissions solely on academic merit — originality, rigour, clarity, and contribution to the field — irrespective of the authors' race, gender, religion, nationality, institutional affiliation, or political belief.
2. Maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and reviewer identities throughout the review process (double-blind, unless otherwise stated).
3. Ensure a documented, auditable trail for every editorial decision (accept, minor revision, major revision, reject).
4. Disclose and manage any conflict of interest; an editor with a personal, financial, or institutional connection to a submission must recuse themselves and delegate the decision to another qualified editor.
5. Safeguard against editorial or reviewer bias, and act promptly on allegations of misconduct, plagiarism, or data fabrication.
6. Issue corrections, clarifications, retractions, or expressions of concern where warranted, following COPE flowcharts.

Editorial Workflow

• Submission → Initial editorial screening (scope, formatting, plagiarism check) — within 5 working days.
• Desk rejection (if out of scope, poor quality, or ethical concerns) or assignment to peer review.
• Double-blind peer review by a minimum of two independent reviewers — typically 3–4 weeks.
• Editorial decision communicated to the corresponding author with reviewer comments.
• Revision, re-review (if required), copy-editing, typesetting, and DOI assignment prior to publication.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are made independently of SRCAA's administrative or financial interests. No individual, sponsor, advertiser, or institution may influence editorial decisions on individual manuscripts.

Peer review is the cornerstone of the journal's quality assurance process. It provides an independent, expert assessment of a manuscript's originality, methodological soundness, and contribution to knowledge, and offers constructive feedback to authors.

Reviewer Selection

• Reviewers are selected on the basis of subject-matter expertise, publication record, and absence of conflict of interest with the authors or funding source.
• A minimum of two independent reviewers is assigned to every manuscript; a third reviewer is invited in the event of conflicting recommendations.
• The review model is double-blind: author identities are withheld from reviewers and vice versa.

Reviewer Responsibilities

1. Accept or decline a review invitation within 3 working days of receipt, declining if a conflict of interest or insufficient expertise exists.
2. Complete the review within the agreed timeframe (ordinarily 21 days) and request an extension in advance if required.
3. Evaluate the manuscript objectively on originality, methodology, data integrity, clarity, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal's scope.
4. Provide specific, constructive, and evidence-based comments to both the editor and the authors; avoid personal or derogatory remarks.
5. Maintain strict confidentiality — manuscripts under review must not be shared, discussed, or used for personal advantage.
6. Alert the editor immediately to any suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, or undisclosed conflict of interest.
7. Disclose any competing interest — financial, personal, or institutional — before or during the review.

SGRCR maintains zero tolerance for plagiarism, self-plagiarism, data fabrication, and falsification. All submissions are systematically screened for textual similarity prior to peer review.

Definition and Categories

• Direct plagiarism: verbatim reproduction of another's work without attribution.
• Paraphrasing plagiarism: closely mirroring another author's structure or wording without citation.
• Self-plagiarism / duplicate submission: reuse of one's own previously published material without disclosure and proper citation, or simultaneous submission to another journal.
• Mosaic plagiarism: piecing together phrases from multiple sources without adequate citation.
• Citation plagiarism: misattributing ideas or omitting sources for borrowed concepts, data, or figures.

Similarity Screening Procedure

1. Every manuscript is screened using recognised plagiarism-detection software (e.g., Turnitin / iThenticate or equivalent) at the point of initial submission.
2. Acceptable overall similarity index (excluding references, properly cited quotations, and standard methodological phrasing) is applied according to the corresponding author's category, as set out below; any single source contributing more than 3% is flagged for editorial review regardless of category.
3. Manuscripts exceeding the acceptable threshold are returned to the author for revision or are rejected, at the Editor-in-Chief's discretion, depending on severity and intent.
4. A similarity report is retained in the manuscript's permanent record.

Submitter Category	Maximum Acceptable Similarity Index
Students (UG / PG / Ph.D. scholars)	Below 15%
Faculty, Researchers, and Academicians	Below 10%
AI-generated content (all categories)	Below 20%

AI-Content Detection

In addition to textual-similarity screening, every manuscript is screened using recognised AI-content detection software to identify text generated or substantially rewritten by generative AI tools. An AI-generated content score of below 20% is required for all submitters, regardless of category (student, faculty, researcher, or academician). Manuscripts at or above this threshold are returned to the author for disclosure and substantial rewriting in the author's own words, or rejected at the Editor-in-Chief's discretion. Authors must, in all cases, disclose any use of generative AI tools in the preparation of the manuscript in the Declarations section, consistent with COPE guidance on authorship and AI tools.

Consequences of Confirmed Plagiarism and AI-Policy Breach

• Immediate rejection of the manuscript at any stage of review or production.
• Retraction of the article if plagiarism is discovered after publication, with a formal retraction notice published and linked to the original article.
• Notification to the author's home institution and, where applicable, to funding bodies.
• A minimum three-year submission ban for the corresponding and/or offending author(s).
• Cases are handled in accordance with COPE's plagiarism flowcharts.
• The same escalation process applies where AI-generated content is found to be at or above the 20% threshold without disclosure, or where AI tools have been used to fabricate data, citations, or results.

Author-Initiated Withdrawal

1. A withdrawal request must be submitted in writing (email) by the corresponding author, countersigned or corroborated by all co-authors, stating the reason for withdrawal.
2. Requests made before the assignment of reviewers are ordinarily processed without penalty within 5 working days.
3. Requests made during or after peer review, but prior to publication, may be granted at editorial discretion; the journal reserves the right to levy a nominal processing fee to recover reviewing and administrative costs already incurred.
4. Once a manuscript has been formally accepted, typeset, assigned a DOI, or published (online or in print), it cannot be "withdrawn" — any subsequent removal is handled exclusively under the Post-Publication Retraction procedure, not as a withdrawal.

Unauthorised or Repeated Withdrawal

Withdrawal after acceptance without valid justification, or a pattern of repeated withdrawals by the same author(s), is treated as a breach of academic integrity and may result in a formal notice to the author's institution and a temporary submission ban of up to two years.

Post-Publication Retraction

• Retraction is reserved for confirmed cases of plagiarism, data fabrication/falsification, duplicate publication, unethical research, or major errors that invalidate the article's findings.
• Retractions follow COPE's Retraction Guidelines: a retraction notice is published, linked bidirectionally to the original article, and the original article is watermarked "RETRACTED" but remains permanently accessible in the archive.
• Corrections/Erratum notices are issued for minor errors that do not affect the overall validity of the findings.

Withdrawal Request Format

Withdrawal requests should include the manuscript ID, article title, names of all authors, the specific reason for withdrawal, and signatures/consent (email confirmation acceptable) of all listed authors.

Copyright and Licensing

Authors retain copyright of their published work. Upon acceptance, authors grant SGRCR/SRCAA a non-exclusive licence to publish, distribute, and archive the article. Unless otherwise specified, articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, permitting reuse with appropriate credit to the original source.

Author Warranties

• The submitted work is the author's original creation and does not infringe any third-party copyright, patent, trademark, or other proprietary right.
• All necessary permissions for reproduced material (images, tables, extended quotations) have been obtained and are disclosed at submission.
• The manuscript contains no defamatory, unlawful, or fraudulent statement.

Disclaimer of Liability

The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in published articles are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board, SRCAA, or its affiliates. SRCAA, its editors, and reviewers accept no liability for any loss, damage, or claim arising from the use of information published in the journal, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.

Third-Party Content and External Links

SRCAA is not responsible for the content, accuracy, or availability of third-party websites, repositories, or data sources referenced or linked within published articles.

SGRCR's academic and publication practices are designed in accordance with the core criteria applied by Scopus/Elsevier's Content Selection and Advisory Board for journal evaluation, and with the standards of COPE, ICMJE, and DORA.

Key Indexing-Readiness Criteria

• Peer-review process: rigorous double-blind review with a minimum of two reviewers per manuscript.
• Regularity and timeliness of publication: a fixed, published, and consistently maintained publication schedule (e.g., quarterly/bi-annual issues).
• Online content availability: full-text availability in English (or with English abstracts/references), a functional and stable journal website, and article-level metadata in English.
• Diversity of editorial board and authorship: editors and authors drawn from a range of institutions and, over time, countries.
• Clarity of aims and scope: a clearly defined, consistently applied scope statement.
• Quality and completeness of references: consistently formatted, complete, and verifiable reference lists (APA 7th edition).
• Publication ethics statements: publicly available policies on authorship, conflict of interest, plagiarism, and misconduct.
• Persistent identifiers: DOI assignment for every published article via a recognised registration agency (e.g., Crossref), and ISSN/e-ISSN registration.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship is based on the ICMJE criteria: (i) substantial contribution to the conception, design, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the work; (ii) drafting or critically revising the manuscript for important intellectual content; (iii) final approval of the version to be published; and (iv) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work. All those who meet these criteria are listed as authors; all who contributed but do not meet them are acknowledged separately. Ghost authorship and gift/guest authorship are prohibited.

Research and Publication Ethics

• Studies involving human participants or animals must have appropriate institutional ethics approval, stated in the manuscript.
• Informed consent must be obtained and documented for studies involving identifiable human subjects.
• Data fabrication, falsification, image manipulation, and selective/misleading reporting of results are strictly prohibited.
• Authors must disclose all sources of funding and any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest.
• Redundant or duplicate publication of substantially the same data or findings in more than one journal is not permitted.

Policy Review

This policy manual is reviewed by the Editorial Board at least once every two years, or earlier where required by changes in international publication-ethics standards or indexing-body requirements. The current version and effective date are stated at the top of this page.

Issued by the Editorial Board, SRCAA Global Review of Contemporary Research, under the authority of Shakti Research Centre and Academia (SRCAA), Bengaluru, India.

Title of the Journal	SRCAA Global Review of Contemporary Research (SGRCR)
Print ISSN	Applied for
e-ISSN	Applied for
DOI Prefix	To be assigned (Crossref)
Language of Publication	English
Subject / Scope	Commerce, Management, Economics, Social Sciences, and allied interdisciplinary fields
Periodicity	Bi-annual (twice yearly)
Year of Commencement	2026
Publisher / Owner	Shakti Research Centre and Academia (SRCAA)
Country of Publication	India
Format of Publication	Online (Open Access)
Registered Office	Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Print/e-ISSN and DOI prefix fields will be updated with registration numbers immediately upon confirmation from the ISSN National Centre (India) and Crossref.

SGRCR is published on a fixed, bi-annual schedule to meet ISSN India and indexing-body requirements for regularity and timeliness.

Issue	Submission Window	Publication Month
Volume 1, Issue 1	Rolling (2025–26)	2026
Volume 1, Issue 2	To be announced	To be announced
Volume 2, Issue 1	To be announced	To be announced

The publication calendar will be updated on this page at the start of each editorial cycle; any change to periodicity is announced at least one issue in advance.

Every published issue is retained here permanently, with article-level links, for continuity of access as required under ISSN India and COPE archiving standards.

• Volume 1 Issue 1 (2026)

  • Article 1 Conscious Consumers, Connected Futures: Digital Marketing for Sustainable FMCG Growth Shaping Green Choices in the Digital Era — BHARATHI S, Dr. V.HEMANTH KUMAROpen Article
  • Article 2 Ai In Business Decision Making: Transforming Organisational Intelligence In The Digital Era; Digital Era — Dr.Anjana Radhakrishnana, Shrivardhan POpen Article
  • Article 3 GEN Z Expections From HR : A Study On Flexibility,Mental Health Support And Digital Integration; Digital Era — DR.Deeksha B Kailash, Dr.Brahma Teja NOpen Article

  Individual article-level links (title, authors, abstract, DOI, PDF) will be added under each issue as they are assigned Crossref DOIs.

Contact the Editorial Office