Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism Policy

Conditions for submission: plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate submission, preprint disclosure, and responsible reuse of marketing data, consumer insights, images, instruments, and research materials.

Mercatura: Journal of Marketing upholds high standards of academic integrity and only considers original and unpublished scholarly work. All submitted manuscripts are screened using Turnitin to assess textual similarity. However, the similarity score is only a screening tool; the final determination of plagiarism, improper quotation, duplicate publication, self-plagiarism, or inappropriate reuse of marketing research materials remains a matter of editorial judgment.

Plagiarism includes the use of another person's words, ideas, theories, marketing concepts, consumer data, datasets, scales, questionnaires, models, tables, images, campaign materials, analytical frameworks, or findings without proper acknowledgment. Self-plagiarism or text recycling refers to the substantial reuse of one's own previously published material without proper citation, disclosure, or justification. Both are considered serious violations of publication ethics.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all quotations, paraphrases, borrowed ideas, consumer datasets, survey instruments, marketing scales, brand materials, market reports, visual content, conceptual frameworks, and reproduced materials are clearly cited and properly referenced. Where necessary, authors must also obtain permission or comply with applicable licenses for reused copyrighted, proprietary, organizational, or third-party materials.

A low similarity score does not automatically mean the manuscript is free from plagiarism, and a high similarity score does not automatically prove misconduct. Editors assess the nature, location, source, context, and significance of the matching material before making a decision.

Duplicate or redundant publication occurs when an author submits or publishes substantially the same work in more than one venue without proper disclosure, cross-referencing, or scholarly justification. This includes substantial overlap in title, objectives, consumer samples, datasets, survey instruments, market contexts, hypotheses, models, analyses, results, discussion, managerial implications, or conclusions.

Manuscripts that are under review in another journal, already formally published, or submitted simultaneously to more than one outlet will not be considered. If any part of the manuscript has appeared previously in another form, including conference proceedings, research reports, marketing reports, working papers, institutional repositories, theses, dissertations, datasets, consultancy reports, or another language version, authors must disclose this clearly at the time of submission.

The journal may consider manuscripts previously posted as preprints, provided that the preprint has not undergone formal journal publication and that the preprint status is fully disclosed during submission.

Authors must provide the preprint server name and URL or DOI, and must ensure that the preprint version does not conflict with copyright, participant confidentiality, consumer-data protection, organizational agreements, proprietary market information, ethical obligations, or third-party restrictions. Once the article is published in the journal, authors are encouraged to update the preprint record with a link to the final published version.

Editorial Follow-Up and Author Responsibilities

• All manuscripts may be checked through Turnitin before peer review and, where necessary, after revision.
• The Editorial Board may provide or request a similarity report during the editorial process.
• Authors must revise problematic sections carefully, especially where quotation, paraphrasing, citation, source acknowledgment, or reuse of marketing materials is insufficient.
• Authors must appropriately acknowledge reused marketing scales, questionnaires, datasets, consumer surveys, brand materials, campaign images, market reports, conceptual models, analytical scripts, and other research resources.
• Substantial reuse of previously published descriptions of market contexts, instruments, methods, consumer samples, analyses, findings, or managerial implications must be transparently disclosed and properly referenced.
• Authors must respect copyright, trademark, brand ownership, consumer confidentiality, dataset licenses, organizational permissions, contractual restrictions, and third-party rights when reusing marketing-related materials.
• Failure to address similarity or originality concerns adequately may result in rejection or discontinuation of the review process.
• If plagiarism, inappropriate reuse, or other originality problems are identified after publication, the journal will take appropriate action according to its ethics and correction policies.