Dear Gero Strobel ,

The journal “Journal of Applied Business and Economics” is published by “North American Business Press”.

First recommended step for an unfamiliar journal is to look whether the journal (or the publisher behind it) is not listed in the Beall’s list (as you might know a first indicator on whether you are dealing with a potential predatory journal).

However, the mentioned journal is a subscription-based journal so by definition it will not be included. Still there are quite some red flags:

-Unclear location, the mentioned “Headquarters”: 30 N Gould St Ste R Sheridan, Wyoming 82801 is the address for a lot of other companies as well. In other words, why be so ambiguous about it (are they really American or do they want to pretend to be ‘bigger’ than they actually are and is it in reality a one man’s operation…).

-The mentioned journal has no clear editorial board. At least on their journal site no editor is mentioned and suspicious names in the section editorial contributions. It looks like they select some names in the field and list them as the editorial board.

-In the indexing section it states “North American Business Press uses the h-index to measure the impact of its research. We chose this approach as the ISI (Thomson Reuters) citation approach only includes journals listed within their proprietary database.” Mentioning Thomson Reuter (outdated since it is Clarivate nowadays…) suggests indexing in WoS while they are not.

What contrast these troublesome indications is the fact that the journal is included in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List:

https://abdc.edu.au/research/abdc-journal-list/2019-review/

although in the lowest quality category C, it is included in a list that is having some credibility in the field of business-related research.

So hard to say. I tent to say avoid. Even if they are legit who will ever read these behind a paywall published papers. Subscription based journals by Elsevier, Springer Nature and so on, are at least accessible at a substantial number of universities worldwide.

Best regards.

Please ignore such emails. It is a common experience to receive invitation mails to publish articles and even be a part of the editorial team from several bogus journals very frequently. No good journal will invite your papers for publication unless you are that well-known in your research area.

Consider a journal credible/ worthwhile only if you find the journal name (with the exact same ISSN No.) in ABDC or Scopus list. To this end, download and keep the latest ABDC ranking master file (excel) and also the list of Scopus indexed journals for quick reference.

Publishing is an extremely difficult affair, especially for beginners. If you find your rout to publication easy and smooth, you are more likely in the wrong direction. Hope it helps.

Use the ISSN to search for the journal in good indexing database.

Please double check the credibility of such an invitation, most times predatory journals without good online presence and reputable indexing organisation are likely to make such swift invitation of praise singing of your professionalism. Most time, they hardly conduct peer review and in the next few days, the article is published online with massive mistakes. ..

I am firmly concerned because the journal in question is not even in your area of publication and expertise over time, so why inviting you to publish in such a journal when you are a biomedical scientist.... I am afraid though.

Dear Gero Strobel ,

The journal “Journal of Applied Business and Economics” is published by “North American Business Press”.

First recommended step for an unfamiliar journal is to look whether the journal (or the publisher behind it) is not listed in the Beall’s list (as you might know a first indicator on whether you are dealing with a potential predatory journal).

However, the mentioned journal is a subscription-based journal so by definition it will not be included. Still there are quite some red flags:

-Unclear location, the mentioned “Headquarters”: 30 N Gould St Ste R Sheridan, Wyoming 82801 is the address for a lot of other companies as well. In other words, why be so ambiguous about it (are they really American or do they want to pretend to be ‘bigger’ than they actually are and is it in reality a one man’s operation…).

-The mentioned journal has no clear editorial board. At least on their journal site no editor is mentioned and suspicious names in the section editorial contributions. It looks like they select some names in the field and list them as the editorial board.

-In the indexing section it states “North American Business Press uses the h-index to measure the impact of its research. We chose this approach as the ISI (Thomson Reuters) citation approach only includes journals listed within their proprietary database.” Mentioning Thomson Reuter (outdated since it is Clarivate nowadays…) suggests indexing in WoS while they are not.

What contrast these troublesome indications is the fact that the journal is included in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List:

https://abdc.edu.au/research/abdc-journal-list/2019-review/

although in the lowest quality category C, it is included in a list that is having some credibility in the field of business-related research.

So hard to say. I tent to say avoid. Even if they are legit who will ever read these behind a paywall published papers. Subscription based journals by Elsevier, Springer Nature and so on, are at least accessible at a substantial number of universities worldwide.

Best regards.