Journal Policy
Open Access Policy
The journal will provide open access to its contents. The journal will provide readers with free access to all published content immediately after acceptance. Thus, two forms of contents would be available to readers, (i) articles accepted but not assigned volume/issue, i.e. early cites or ahead of prints, and (ii) articles with volume, issue and page numbers. The purpose of providing early cites/ahead of prints to provide readers an opportunity to access the latest studies in the field and to provide authors an opportunity in earning citations and credit of their work.

Licensing and Copyright Terms
Copyright notice
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

• Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  
• Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  
• Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Copyright Instruction
The Copyedit Instructions will be made available to Copyeditors, Authors, and Section Editors in the Submission Editing stage. Below is a default set of instructions in HTML, which can be modified or replaced by the Journal Manager at any point (in HTML or plain text).

The copyediting stage is intended to improve the flow, clarity, grammar, wording, and formatting of the article. It represents the last chance for the author to make any substantial changes to the text, as the next stage is restricted to typos and formatting corrections. The file to be copyedited is in Word and therefore can be easily edited as a word processing document. This set of instructions displayed here proposes two approaches to copyediting. The one is based on Microsoft Word's Track Changes feature and requires that the copyeditor, editor and author have access to this program. A second system, that is software independent, has been borrowed, with permission, from the Harvard Educational Review. The journal editor is in a position to modify these instructions, so suggestions can be made to improve the process for this journal.

Copyediting Systems
Instructions for Making Electronic Revisions to the Manuscript — Please follow the following protocol for making electronic revisions to your manuscript:

Responding to suggested changes — in order to incorporate all changes please highlight the text or mark it in different color and specify Making additions and deletions — if the author adds some new text/section than it should be specified in different color than all other changes

Responding to Queries of the Reviewer/Editor (QAs) — in order to address the queries of reviewers and editors, the researcher should prepare a compliance report and should create response against each of the query or question raised by the parties.

Compliance report — should specify all the changes made and their locations. A good report may help reviewers and editors in making a fair decision.

Time span for changes — the time span given to authors may vary depending upon the nature of changes recommended by the reviewers, their recommendations and final decision of the editor/section editor/managing editor. Authors are encouraged to submit their revisions well in time to facilitate the publications process.

Proofing Instructions
The proofreading stage is intended to catch any errors in the spelling, grammar, and formatting of the page. More substantial changes cannot be made at this stage, unless discussed with the Section Editor. Only the proof after language editing and all formatting would be published online.

Plagiarism Policy
The Entrepreneurship and Small Business Review Journal follows the HEC guidelines/criteria for all types of plagiarism. The same can be accessed at HEC Plagiarism Policy. All the submitted manuscripts are subjected to plagiarism checking through the software Turnitin (courtesy HEC). Manuscripts with similarity index more than 19% are not processed further unless rectified. It is the authors' responsibility to apprise themselves of plagiarism in any form including paraphrasing and self-plagiarism.
For a plagiarized article (multiple submissions) in processing, the identification of act will lead to dropping of article from further processing / consideration of publication. The corresponding author will be required to give an explanation on demand. In case of an unsatisfactory reply, the matter will be referred to the disciplinary committee that may decide the course of action. For a published article, the allegedly plagiarized article will be temporarily retracted from publication and a notice to the effect will be published in the JIS. The author will be served an explanation demand. In case of non-response in the stipulated time or unsatisfactory explanation, the article will be permanently retracted and the author will be blacklisted. HEC and author's institute will also be notified. In case of multiple submissions, other editors will also be informed. The author(s) will have to provide documentary proof of retraction from publication, if such a defense is pleaded. Those claiming intellectual / idea or data theft of an article must provide documentary proof in their claim.

Appeal Process Policy:
Appeal can be made to editor by sending an email at editor.esbr@hcc.edu.pk within 15 days.

Ethics Policy
As ESBR follows the HEC guidelines and policies, that's why it is obligatory for authors to read, understand and follow these ethical guidelines https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/services/faculty/journals/Pages/default.aspx. These include fraudulent authorship, originality of material, privacy of participants, conflict of interest, and falsification of data, plagiarism and fabrication of results.

Conflict of interest Policy:
The editorial committee is responsible to avoid any conflict of interest in the research publications that may affect the interpretation of results and assessment by the reviewers. In case of any potential conflict of interest, the author (s) shall provide a clear statement about bearing the responsibility. They shall disclose the possible conflicts of interest that can influence the decision about the publication of the manuscript.

Manuscripts will not be considered by the editorial board for review if competing interests arise from the collaborative or competitive connections of any of the author (s) or relevant institutions. It is desired that all contributors shall disclose conflicting interests while submitting the manuscript. If there is any such revelation after the research is published, corrections or expressions of interest and retraction will be issued where needed.

Disclaimer
Research papers published in the journal have been checked through plagiarism software. All views expressed in the journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or preferences of journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Review or Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab, Lahore. HCC does not accept any responsibility or liability for the statement, contents, opinions expressed or conclusions drawn by the contributors of the journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Review.

Copyright and License
We are licensed under CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE. This Copy right allows you to copy and distribute your work provided you implement citation of the author for his credit appropriately. Authors hold copyright and publishing rights without restrictions.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

According to CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE 4.0
You are free to -

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
• For any purpose, even commercially.
• The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

Attribution - You must give appropriate credit provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.