General Information for Authors

EM invites contributions in the field of digital business, platforms and ecosystems. Although the guidelines differ between the various journal sections, there are some general aspects that authors should consider:

  • EM aims at publishing original research. This means that manuscripts are unpublished and not submitted or under review elsewhere while under review for EM.
  • EM supports cumulative research. Following a cumulative research tradition EM encourages to publish research that has already received feedback from prior publications, e.g. at a conference. EM follows the AIS policy on conference and journal publication, which means that you may submit your earlier version even without changes. However, you should aim to exploit the recommended length of papers (see below) and make the paper as strong as possible (e.g., with the feedback from the conference reviews and discussions). Please declare the prior publication upon submission and briefly summarize your changes in separate change sheet.  
  • Submissions to EM should fit the journal's scope. Please consider that EM is a journal from the information systems discipline and ensure that your research topic falls with the scope of EM. In case the submitted paper is out of scope for EM there is a high probability that it will be desk rejected soon after submission.
  • EM aims at publishing influential and novel research. Please critically check, whether your research includes clear implications to the field of information systems from a theoretical as well as from a practical point of view. Your research will not only need to be methodologically sound, but also be meaningful for the readers and the community.
  • EM supports multi-perspective research. Researchers are encouraged to seek for a critical reflection of their research and results. For example, findings should not only be analyzed from a single perspective (e.g. economics, technology), but from multiple perspectives (on researcher perspectives see also this paper).
  • EM applies a double-blind peer review process. After passing the desk reject stage, submissions will be reviewed in a double-blind peer review process by at least two independent reviewers. Besides clarity of writing, grammar and style, criteria are relevance, strength of theoretical foundations and methodology, value of the paper for business, economy, or society, contribution of new knowledge and quality of the conclusions.
  • EM offers the possibility of online resources for articles. Articles published in EM should be presented in a style that features a clear writing. Although mathematical reasoning is necessary for some research methodologies, we encourage authors to limit these in the article and make use of the publisher's online resources, which ensure a persistent accessibility.
  • Submitting to EM is free of author processing charges. EM charges no submission or acceptance fees. For authors of many countries, accepted papers will even be published open access (see below). However, please consider that we expect authors to be available as reviewers for other submissions.

Please take the time to carefully read the three steps before making a submission as well as the following guidelines:

  • The preferred length of manuscripts is around 10,000 words for research papers, and around 8,000 words for position papers and around 5,000 words for fundamentals (all excluding reference list).
  • Please read the copyright information carefully before submitting an article. All submissions to EM are subject to a plagiarism check (iThenticate) to avoid unethical use of content.
  • Regarding the use of generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT), EM adheres to the general guidelines of Springer. These tools may be used, but their usage must be made explicit in the manuscript.
  • EM has adopted the continuous article publishing model in 2023. is means that all submissions that have successfully passed the review process will be published directly online and are immediately fully citable with a DOI.

Thank your for considering these suggestions. In case any questions arise, please contact the Editorial Office.

Open Access Publishing

Since 2020, EM's publisher Springer offers authors from listed institutions the Open Access option free of charge. Among the countries with such an agreement are Austria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherland and the UK.

To benefit from these agreements, the corresponding author of an article needs to be affiliated with an eligible institution. Authors from these institutions and countries will usually be identified and contacted by Springer. To increase the chances of being recognized, corresponding authors are advised to use their email address from the respective institution instead of their private email address.

Additionally, the corresponding author must explicitly state his/her primary affiliation in the published manuscript, which is the institution at which the bulk of the research for the article was conducted. Also, the author must identify him-/herself during the author identification process (once the article has been accepted for publication). The institution selected during this process should be the primary affiliation, as this institution will be asked to verify eligibility and will be billed if the article is approved.