Conflicts of Interest and Funding Disclosure

Conflicts of Interest and Funding Disclosure

The Journal of Leadership in Sport and Management (JLSM) requires authors, reviewers, and editors to disclose relationships or circumstances that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, their professional judgement in relation to a submitted or published work.

The existence of a conflict of interest does not necessarily prevent submission, review, or publication. Transparency is essential so that potential influences can be appropriately assessed and managed.

Authors

Authors must disclose all relevant financial and non-financial conflicts of interest.

Financial conflicts may include employment, consultancy, honoraria, grants, research funding, ownership of stocks or shares, patents, paid expert testimony, or other financial relationships relevant to the submitted work.

Non-financial conflicts may include personal or professional relationships, institutional affiliations, academic competition, advisory or leadership roles, or other circumstances that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the work.

If no relevant conflict exists, authors should provide an explicit statement such as:

“The authors declare no conflicts of interest.”

Funding

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support for the research and/or preparation of the manuscript.

Funding statements should identify the funding organisation and, where applicable, the grant or project number.

Authors should also describe any relevant role of the funder in study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

If the funder had no such role, this may be stated explicitly.

Where no external funding was received, authors should state:

“This research received no external funding.”

Reviewers

Reviewers must disclose potential conflicts of interest before accepting a review assignment.

A reviewer should decline an invitation when a financial, professional, institutional, collaborative, competitive, personal, or other relationship could reasonably compromise the independence of the review.

Reviewers should not use information obtained through peer review for personal, academic, commercial, or competitive advantage.

Editors and Editorial Board Members

Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where they have a conflict of interest.

Such manuscripts will be assigned to another suitably qualified editor who is independent of the authors and the work.

Where an editor or Editorial Board member is an author of a submission, that individual will have no involvement in reviewer selection, peer review, editorial deliberation, or the final decision.

Institutional Relationships

An author’s affiliation with the publisher, editorial office, Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, or an institution represented within the journal does not provide preferential treatment.

Editorial decisions must be based on the scholarly quality, integrity, relevance, and suitability of the manuscript.

Undisclosed Conflicts

If a relevant conflict of interest is identified after submission or publication, JLSM will assess its significance and determine whether further action is required.

Depending on the circumstances, this may include requesting clarification, amending a disclosure statement, publishing a correction, or taking other appropriate editorial action.