Authors must register before submitting a manuscript. The submission process is designed to ensure that manuscripts meet the journal's standards for quality, originality, transparency, and publishing ethics.

Authors are required to submit manuscripts through the journal's online submission system. Before submission, authors should ensure that the manuscript is within the journal's Aims and Scope, follows these Author Guidelines, and includes all required statements and supporting documents.

Upon submission, manuscripts undergo an initial editorial assessment for completeness, scope, originality, ethical compliance, and similarity using iThenticate or an equivalent similarity-checking service. Manuscripts that pass the initial assessment may be sent for peer review.

The journal uses a double-blind peer review process, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are not disclosed to one another during peer review.

Authors will be notified of the editorial decision by email. Where appropriate, authors may be invited to revise and resubmit their manuscript in response to editorial and reviewer comments.

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide their ORCID iD during submission. Where provided and verified, the ORCID iD may be displayed with the author's published article.

If you do not yet have an ORCID iD, you can register for a free ORCID iD.

Before submitting a manuscript, authors should confirm that the following requirements have been met:

• The manuscript has not been formally published previously and is not under consideration by another journal.
• Any relevant prior dissemination, preprint, or related submission has been disclosed to the journal.
• The manuscript is consistent with the aims and scope of Transnational Supply Chain Research.
• The manuscript follows the journal's Author Guidelines and applicable Publishing Ethics requirements.
• The manuscript includes 3–5 concise Article Highlights.
• The manuscript is prepared using the journal's Microsoft Word template, where applicable.
• All figures and tables are cited in the text and placed near their first appropriate point of reference.
• The manuscript has been carefully checked for spelling, grammar, formatting, and consistency.
• All authors have reviewed and approved the submitted version.
• Author contributions, funding information, data availability, and conflicts of interest have been provided where applicable.
• Any required ethical approval, informed consent, or other research ethics information has been provided where applicable.
• Authors have reviewed the journal's policies on publishing ethics, copyright, licensing, and other relevant publication requirements.

In addition to the main manuscript, authors should provide the following documents or statements where applicable:

• Cover Letter
• Supplementary Materials, including supplementary data, information, figures, tables, or other supporting material, where applicable
• Ethics Approval Statement, where the research involves human participants, animals, or other research requiring ethical review
• Conflict of Interest Statement
• Funding Statement
• Data Availability Statement
• Author Contributions Statement, where applicable
• Preprint Disclosure, where the manuscript has previously been posted on a recognized preprint server

Authors should submit a cover letter as a separate document. The cover letter should provide sufficient information to help the editors understand the manuscript and its suitability for the journal.

The cover letter should include:

• Manuscript title and article type.
• All authors' names and affiliations, including:
  • the corresponding author's name and contact details;
  • the ORCID iD of authors, where available;
  • the institutional affiliation of each author in a consistent format, for example: Department, University or Institution, City/Province/State, Postal Code, Country.
• A brief description of the research, including its main objective, novelty, contribution, and significance.
• Originality statement confirming that the manuscript has not been formally published and is not currently under consideration by another journal.
• Author approval confirming that all authors have reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript and agree to its submission to Transnational Supply Chain Research.
• Disclosure of relevant information, including conflicts of interest, funding, prior dissemination or preprint posting, and any other information that may be relevant to the editorial assessment.

Authors must provide 3–5 concise Article Highlights that summarize the main contributions and findings of the manuscript. Highlights are intended to help editors, reviewers, and readers quickly understand the significance of the work.

Effective highlights should:

• Clearly identify the research problem, objective, or question.
• Summarize the principal methods, analytical approach, or research design where relevant.
• Present the most important findings or results.
• Emphasize the principal academic, practical, methodological, or theoretical contribution.
• State important implications or applications where appropriate.

Authors should avoid:

• unnecessary background information;
• unsupported claims of novelty or importance;
• excessive technical jargon;
• unexplained abbreviations; and
• claims that are not supported by the manuscript.

Transnational Supply Chain Research accepts several types of scholarly contributions. Authors should select the article type that best reflects the nature and purpose of their manuscript.

These length specifications are intended as general guidance. Authors should prioritize clarity, completeness, methodological rigor, and appropriate presentation of the research.

Editorials are generally invited or commissioned by the editorial team, although proposals may be considered.

The following structure is primarily intended for Research Articles. Review Articles, Short Communications, Editorials, and other article types may use a different structure where appropriate.

Title

The title should be concise, informative, and accurately reflect the content of the manuscript. Authors are encouraged to keep the title to approximately 20 words or fewer and to avoid unnecessary abbreviations, jargon, and excessive punctuation.

Abstract

The abstract is typically 200–250 words long. It should provide a concise and self-contained summary of the study, including the research background or objective, methods, principal results, conclusions, and significance, where appropriate.

For Research Articles, authors are encouraged to organize the abstract under the following components where appropriate: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions, and Significance.

References should generally not be cited in the abstract. Unexplained abbreviations and unnecessary technical details should also be avoided.

Keywords

Authors should provide 3–8 keywords immediately after the abstract. Keywords should be separated by semicolons and should accurately represent the main concepts, methods, topics, or applications discussed in the manuscript.

Authors are encouraged to select established terminology that is likely to be used by researchers searching academic databases. Keywords should not simply repeat the title and should avoid unnecessary abbreviations.

Introduction

The Introduction should provide a literature-based overview of the research background and current state of knowledge. It should clearly identify the research problem or gap, explain the rationale for the study, and state the objectives, research questions, or hypotheses where appropriate.

Section Headings

Section headings and subheadings should be clearly differentiated and numbered consistently throughout the manuscript.

• Main headings: 1, 2, 3, etc.
• Subheadings: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, etc.
• Further subheadings: 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc., where necessary.

Headings should be concise and descriptive. Excessive subdivision should be avoided.

Materials and Methods

This section should provide sufficient detail about the research design, data sources, materials, procedures, analytical methods, and statistical or computational approaches used in the study. The description should be sufficiently clear to support evaluation and, where applicable, reproducibility.

Where established methods are used, the relevant original or authoritative sources should be cited. Any modifications to previously published methods should be clearly described.

Results

The Results section should present the findings in a clear and logical order. Results should be reported accurately and should correspond to the research questions, hypotheses, or objectives presented in the manuscript.

Interpretation should generally be reserved for the Discussion section, although limited interpretation may be appropriate where necessary for clarity. A combined Results and Discussion section is acceptable when appropriate.

Discussion

The Discussion should interpret the findings in relation to the research questions and existing literature. Authors should explain the significance of the results, discuss similarities or differences with previous studies, address theoretical or practical implications, and acknowledge important limitations.

The Discussion should not simply repeat the Results section. Suggestions for future research may be included where relevant.

Conclusions

The Conclusions should summarize the principal findings and their significance without introducing substantial new information. Authors may also identify practical implications, limitations, or directions for future research where appropriate.

Author Contributions

For manuscripts with multiple authors, authors should provide a brief statement describing the individual contributions of each author. Contributions may include conceptualization, methodology, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, writing, visualization, supervision, project administration, or other substantive contributions, as appropriate.

All listed authors should have made a substantive contribution to the work and should have approved the final version of the manuscript.

Publishing Ethics

Authors must ensure that the manuscript complies with the journal's Publishing Ethics policy. Where appropriate, authors should provide information concerning ethical approval, informed consent, conflicts of interest, research integrity, and other applicable ethical requirements.

Funding

Authors should disclose all financial support received for the research and/or preparation of the manuscript.

Authors should provide the funder's official name and grant information accurately. Where applicable, authors may use standardized funder information available through Crossref's funding information.

Data Availability

Authors should provide a Data Availability Statement describing where the data supporting the findings of the article can be accessed, where applicable. If the data are publicly available, authors should provide a direct link, DOI, repository identifier, or other persistent access information.

Where data cannot be made publicly available because of privacy, confidentiality, legal, ethical, contractual, or other restrictions, the statement should explain the applicable restrictions and, where possible, describe the conditions under which access may be granted.

Conflict of Interest

All authors should disclose any financial, personal, professional, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation.

Acknowledgements

The Acknowledgements section may be used to recognize substantive assistance received during the research or manuscript preparation from individuals or organizations who do not meet the criteria for authorship. Examples may include technical assistance, administrative support, language or editorial assistance, provision of equipment, materials, data, or other non-author contributions.

Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI

Authors should disclose the use of generative artificial intelligence or other AI-assisted tools when such tools have materially contributed to the preparation of the manuscript, including content generation, substantial language editing, data analysis, image generation, or other relevant activities.

AI tools must not be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and appropriate attribution of all submitted content, including content produced or modified with the assistance of AI tools.

Figures, Tables, and Equations

All figures and tables should be cited in the text and placed near their first appropriate point of reference rather than collected at the end of the manuscript.

Figures and tables should have concise and informative titles or captions. Figure legends should explain the relevant symbols, abbreviations, panels, and other information necessary to understand the figure.

Examples:

Figure 1. [Figure title]
Figure 2. [Figure title]
Table 1. [Table title]
Table 2. [Table title]

Figures and tables should be numbered consecutively and separately according to their order of appearance in the manuscript.

Equations should be editable text rather than images. Authors are encouraged to use an appropriate equation editor, such as MathType or the built-in Microsoft Word equation editor. Equations should be numbered consecutively, with the equation number placed in parentheses and aligned consistently.

Transnational Supply Chain Research uses a numbered citation system for in-text citations. References should be numbered consecutively according to their first appearance in the text and enclosed in square brackets, for example [1], [2], and [3]. Each numbered citation must correspond to a complete entry in the reference list.

The bibliographic information in the reference list should follow APA 7th edition formatting principles while retaining the numerical order of first citation in the manuscript.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all references are accurate, complete, and consistent. Authors should verify the authorship, title, journal or book information, publication year, volume, issue, page range, and DOI or other persistent identifier before submission.

Where a DOI is available, it should be provided in the following format:

https://doi.org/xxxxx

Journal Article — TSCR Examples

Book

Chapter in an Edited Book

Government or Institutional Report

Conference Paper

Authors should use accurate and verifiable bibliographic information for all references. DOI and URL information should be checked before submission.

Articles published by Transnational Supply Chain Research are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated for specific material.

Authors retain appropriate rights in their work while granting the rights necessary for publication and distribution under the CC BY 4.0 license. The license permits others to share and adapt the published work, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors and source, a link to the license is provided, and any changes are indicated.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that they have the necessary rights and permissions for third-party materials included in their manuscript. Material that is not covered by the article's CC BY 4.0 license should be clearly identified, and appropriate permission should be obtained where required.

By submitting a manuscript, authors confirm that they have the necessary rights to submit the work for publication and that the submission does not knowingly infringe the copyright, privacy, confidentiality, or other rights of third parties.

The journal supports transparency, reproducibility, and integrity in scholarly research. Authors are encouraged to make the data, code, materials, and protocols underlying their research publicly available whenever possible.

Authors should include a Data Availability Statement in their manuscript indicating:

Recommended repositories include institutional repositories, discipline-specific repositories, and recognized general repositories.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that shared data comply with ethical, legal, privacy, confidentiality, and intellectual property requirements.

The journal does not require mandatory public release of data when legal, ethical, privacy, commercial, or security considerations prevent disclosure. In such cases, authors should clearly explain the restrictions in the Data Availability Statement.

Editors may request access to underlying research data during peer review or post-publication investigations when necessary to verify research integrity.