Author Guidelines

STRUCTURE OF PAPER MANUSCRIPTS

Paper manuscripts submitted to this journal should structured as follows:

INTRODUCTION (should not have any sub-sections)

Provides background to the topic including significance of the study topic, issues under discussion in literature, highlight any contentions, indicate extant gaps, articulate research problem, and purpose of the study, as well as the research questions.

LITERATURE REVIEW (should not have any sub-sections)

Provides a crtical review of extant literature and theories related to the study topic in order to construct a conceptual framework

METHODS (should have the following sub-sections)

       Sampling Methods

       Source of Data

       Data Analysis and Results

DISCUSSION (should not have any sub-sections)

Proffer interpretation of the findings, compare and cpntrast with previous studies highlighting points of convergence and divergence, explain the cause of divergence or any surprise results. Discuss the implications of the findings to current conversations.

CONCLUSION (should not have any sub-sections)

Highlight the limitations of the study and the significance of the study findings.

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ETHICAL ISSUES

Originality

The Editor invites original articles that fall within the mission and scope of the Journal. The submitted work should not have been previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Publication of abstracts and presentations at conferences do not jeopardize the publication of an article.

The author(s) shall be required to make a declaration that their work has not been published, and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Further, they have to declare that the submitted work is their own and no copyright has been breached in seeking the publication of the article.  Moreover, the author(s) should pull down any drafts or abstracts placed on the internet immediately after submitting the work. The author(s) have a responsibility to obtain full permission to use copyrighted material that they may require in their work. Documentary evidence of such a permit may be required.

Authorship

Author(s) of articles should meet all the three criteria mentioned below.   Authorship credit should be based on substantial contribution to:

• the research design, acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data
• drafting the article or revising it critically
• approval of the submitted and final versions of the paper.

The author of an article should make acknowledgements of all significant contributions received from individuals who do not qualify to be author(s) e.g. data analysts, copy typists, translators mentioning the contribution made by each. Where a paper is co-authored a listed of all contributing author(s) should be provided by the corresponding author and should declare that nobody who qualifies to be an author has been excluded from the list. A short description of each author's contribution to the work submitted will be required. The author(s) should also state that their work has been approved by the relevant authorities where such approval is required.

Conflict of interest

The author(s) of articles have a responsibility to disclose any relevant information about competing interests (financial, political or religious affiliations) that might appear to affect their objectivity. The disclosure should include details of interests e.g. employment, share ownership, consultancy, funding in any organization that may benefit from their publication. If the work is funded, then the role of the funder should be clearly stated. The sources of the funding of the research and publication should be disclosed.

Copyright

Submitted papers must be original work of the author(s) and should not violate any existing local and international copyright laws. The copyright of published papers shall be held by KCA University but author(s) retain the right to use their own work in other publications provided they acknowledge KCA University as the original publisher. Each time the author(s) use their own work published by KJBM in other publications a full citation must be made.

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PEER REVIEW

KJBM uses double blind review to review articles submitted for publication. The authors are therefore advised to ensure that no information in the body of the text or the appendices reveal their identity. When papers are submitted to the peer reviewers, the title page will be removed to conceal their identity. The peer review reports are sent to the editor who removes any information disclosing the identity of the reviewer before forwarding the reports to the authors.

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STYLE GUIDE

We recommend that the work submitted for review should be no more than 5,000 - 7000 words (not more than 20 pages single-spaced in 12-point Times New Roman fonts) excluding the appendices.

Title page. The title page should contain the title of the paper, a list of author(s)' names, their positions and institutional affiliations, the complete address of each author (including the official e-mail) and telephone numbers. For multiple author(s) the first author on the list shall be considered to be the contact person. Any acknowledgement should also be placed in the title page.

First page. The first page should begin with the title of the paper without the author's name and an abstract of no more than 200 words. The abstract should summarize the whole paper and should be single spaced using12 point New Times Roman fonts.

Body of text. The text of the papers should be double spaced with a minimum of 1 inch left and right margins using 12 point New Times Roman fonts. The headings and paragraphs should not be numbered and should be limited to at most three levels. Main headings should be in bold capital letters and center justified. Second-level headings are in bold with first letter of the key words capitalized and then left justified. Third-level titles should have the first letter of first word capitalized, bold, indented, italicized and running into paragraph.

Example:

To ensure anonymous review, the author(s) should not directly or indirectly identify themselves in the text.

Figures, tables and footnotes. All illustrations, figures, and tables should be placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end. The illustrations, tables and footnotes should be numbered separately. Tables and figures should be labeled using upper case labels followed by the number e.g.

TABLE 1
Financial Impact of Profit Sharing

FIGURE 1
Relationship between Expected Return and Risk Factor 

The title of the table or figure should appear under the label in bold, centered and in upper and lower-case letters. Footnotes should be single spaced and should not be used for citing references. Care should be taken in using footnotes and any pertinent material should be integrated in the main text. The footnotes should be numbered using superscripts. Endnotes should not be used.

NB: Figures and images must be clear and easy to view. Use images imported from a drawing program instead of using Word Drawing objects.

Keep equations in your running text unless they contain oversized symbols or division, and/or are very important in your research.

Examples:

Y = β₀ + β₁X₁ + β₂X₂ + ... + β_kX_k + ε

(1)

Define each new term in all equations

Hypotheses. The hypotheses should have distinct numbers to label them and should be stated separately in full. The hypotheses should be set off in indented blocks and italicized. The hypotheses should be stated in the positive rather than the null form. However, the null form may be used to support a theoretical position or where no prior expectation exists.

Example

The standard statistical tests used should be clearly stated and the level of significance indicated correct to 2 decimal places.

Language. Define any technical terms used to make your article have a wide accessibility. Abbreviations should only be used in names of organizations and research instruments but the full name should be used the first time any of these are mentioned. Names of computer software or databases may be abbreviated without writing them in full e.g. SPSS, SAS. In reporting statistics use regular words instead of symbols e.g. write chi-square instead of the symbol. Equations should be kept in the running text and all new terms in the equation defined. Illustrative results should be put in parenthesis and introduced by a complete sentence.

Example

The writing should be in active voice rather than passive and first person to describe what you and your co-author(s) did.

Example

Research Instruments. If research instruments referred to in the paper are not fully reproduced then a note should be inserted in the text indicating the address where they can be obtained.

Citations. In writing your article or paper you may refer to other research works which are referred to as in-text citations. The citations should be made in a uniform style using the American Psychological Association (APA) style with author(s)' names and year in parentheses. This can be done in one of the two ways as illustrated below:

Example

If work is done by more than two but less than six author(s), cite all author(s) the first time the reference is made and in subsequent citations include only the surname of the first author followed by "et al" and the year. For work done by two author(s) both must be cited every time the work is cited. For works with six or more author(s), use only the surname of the first author followed by "et al" whenever the work is cited.

Example

For work done by an organization, the organization should be cited as the author followed by the year.  Where more than one author is cited the citations should be ordered alphabetically. If a cited author or a group of author(s) have work published in the same year, then letters e.g. a, b, should be added after the year with the earliest publication assigned 'a' and so on.

Example

NB: the use of alphabetical order in the citations.

When copying a section of a text verbatim the quotation marks should be used. Further, the citation must include the author(s)' names, year and page number.

Example

If a paper has no author just cite the periodical as the author.  The citation for electronic sources is the same as that of the print sources but if the author cannot be identified then give the full internet address.

References. Every work cited in text must have a corresponding reference. The references must be in ascending alphabetical order and should appear at the end of the paper on a separate page. The references should conform to the APA style. References for books should use the following the style:

Author's surname, initials. (Year). Title of book (in bold italic and first letter of first word capitalized). city of publication: Name of publisher.

Example

In referencing periodicals use the form:

Author's surname, initials. (Year). Title of paper or article. Name of Periodical (in bold italic and title-style capitalization), volume number and issue number (issue number is only needed if every issue of the periodical starts with page 1): page numbers. For magazines include month and day.

Example

Chapters in books, including annuals should follow the form: Author(s)' Surnames, initials. (Year). Title of chapter (regular type, single-capital rule. In Editors' initials and last names (Eds.), Title of book: Page numbers. City  Publisher.

Examples

Unpublished works that include working papers, dissertations, and papers presented at meetings should be listed as illustrated below.

Examples:

For electronic work include the author(s)' name, if available; the full title of the document; the full internet address and the date the document was posted.

For more information please refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th edition, 2001.

Biography. Author(s) are requested to provide a brief biographical note to accompany the article. This should be not more than 75 words.

If there is a need to present lengthy but essential methodological details or extensive data, such explanations can be presented in one or more appendices at the end of the report.  This material should be presented in as condensed a form as possible; full sentences are not necessary. A single appendix should be titled APPENDIX.  If more than one appendix is needed, they should be titled APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.