Submissions

Author Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit manuscripts to Decision-Makers.

Manuscripts must be submitted through the OJS platform by the corresponding author. All authors must be registered in the OJS system.

Articles should be between 8,000 and 12,000 words, excluding references.

Submissions must comply with the following formatting requirements:

• Microsoft Word format;
• Arial, 12-point font;
• Double spacing;
• Left-aligned (not justified);
• No manual tabs or extra paragraph breaks;
• File metadata must be anonymized to preserve author anonymity.

Each manuscript must also include:

• An abstract of 150–250 words;
• Six keywords.

Decision-Makers follows the APA Publication Manual (7th edition) for citations, references, manuscript structure, abbreviations, tables, figures, and all stylistic conventions.

A cover letter must accompany every submission. It should follow the journal’s template, identifying the manuscript title, all authors, their affiliations, and confirm acceptance of the journal's editorial policies.

All listed authors must consent to authorship and to submission of the manuscript for peer review. Authorship is limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the conception, execution, writing, and revision of the research. The cover letter must also specify each author's contributions using CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), including, where applicable:

• Project administration. Management and coordination of the planning and execution of the research activity.
• Formal analysis. Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
• Conceptualization. Development of ideas; formulation or refinement of overarching research goals and aims.
• Data curation. Activities to annotate (produce metadata), clean, maintain, and preserve research data (including software code, where necessary for interpreting the data) for initial use and subsequent reuse.
• Writing – original draft. Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically the writing of the initial draft, including substantive translation where applicable.
• Writing – review & editing. Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work by members of the original research group, specifically involving critical review, commentary, or revision, including both pre- and post-publication stages.
• Research. Research process and investigation, including the performance of experiments and the collection of data or evidence.
• Methodology. Development or design of the research methodology; creation of models.
• Funding acquisition. Acquisition of financial support for the project leading to the published work.
• Resources. Provision of study materials, laboratory samples, patients, research participants, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analytical tools.
• Software. Programming, software development; design of computer programs; implementation of computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
• Supervision. Oversight and leadership, responsibility for planning and execution of the research, including external mentorship of the research team.
• Validation. Verification of the overall replication and reproducibility of results, experiments, or other research outputs, either as part of the research activity or independently.
• Visualization. Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically data visualization and presentation.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce all copyrighted materials included in the manuscript, including images, documents, and datasets. Figures should be submitted in publication-quality formats, preferably SVG (for vector graphics) or high-resolution JPG or PNG files (minimum 300 dpi).

Where applicable, research involving human participants or animals must have received approval from the appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the country in which the study was conducted.

Authors must disclose all sources of research funding, including the project title, funding organization or sponsor, and, where available, the project identification code.

Authors also agree to cooperate with the journal in issuing corrections or retractions if necessary at any stage of the publication process. Requests should be submitted to the Editor by email and will be handled in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policy.