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Die Unternehmung

Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice

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About

Die Unternehmung is aimed at students and lecturers at universities and universities of applied sciences as well as at practitioners of business administration. With its concept of combining theoretical requirements and practical relevance in high-quality articles, it is one of the leading German-language journals in business administration.

The journal’s range of topics includes both the core subjects of business administration (e.g. marketing, accounting/controlling, organization and corporate management) and newer areas such as technology and innovation management.

The company’s aim is to disseminate new findings in business administration research, to draw attention to important problems in business practice, to present scientifically based approaches to practical solutions and, in general, to promote the exchange between science and practice.

In four issues per year, Die Unternehmung publishes:

  • Scientific contributions of an original nature that have not been published before in a similar way. These include theoretical and conceptual contributions as well as results of empirical studies,
  • Practical contributions with a theoretical foundation as well as essays on current business management problems in practice,
  • contributions to discussions on current topics in the section “BWL-Dialog”,
  • reviews of interesting new publications in business administration literature,
  • dissertation presentations and
  • chair portraits.

The quality of the essays is ensured by a double-covered review process according to internationally accepted standards. Experts from the respective scientific fields act as reviewers. In most cases, these are scientists with a background in business administration. About every second manuscript submitted is accepted for publication. As is usual with scientific journals, there are usually several rounds of review. The time from submission to publication varies widely, but usually takes between ten and 18 months.

Find all issues of Die Unternehmung in the Nomos eLibrary.

ISSN Print 0042-059X
ISSN Online 2942-318X
Published quarterly

Editors

Die Unternehmung is an organ of the Swiss Society for Business Management (SGB)
L’organe de la Société suisse de gestion d’entreprise

Advisory Board

Editorial Office

Manuscripts are welcome at any time. Hints for the formal design can be found here.

SGB-Membership

Swiss Society for Business Administration (SGB)

Founded on the initiative of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Karl Käfer as the Association of Swiss Business Economists on February 9, 1952 (as SGB since 1990)

Goals and purpose of the society

The Society promotes the interests of business administration in Switzerland in the areas of teaching and research, as well as the exchange of ideas and cooperation between academia and practice. It provides business practice with insights from business administration research and equally promotes an orientation and research of teaching according to the needs of business practice. Targeted promotion of young academics is another concern of the society.

Activities

The Society is the publisher of the journal Die Unternehmung and thus enables the publication and dissemination of findings in business administration research and practice.
The Swiss Society for Business Administration regularly organizes information, discussion and further education events for its members and other interested persons. It is a member of the Swiss Academy of Humanities.

Board of Directors

The Board is composed of representatives from all Swiss universities:

President

Prof. Dr. Dieter Pfaff, University of Zurich

Vice President

Prof. Dr. Claudia Wöhle, Paris Lodron University Salzburg

Vice President

Prof. Dr. Jean-Paul Thommen, European Business School (EBS), Management Kompetenz AG

Board members

Prof. Dr. Manfred Bruhn, University of Basel
Dr. Dorothea Schaffner, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Prof. Dr. Martin Wallmeier, University of Fribourg
Prof. Dr. Claudia B. Wöhle, Paris Lodron University Salzburg

Members

Persons who have completed a university degree in the field of business administration or have acquired corresponding knowledge in professional practice

Become a member of the SGB

Special Issues

Call for Papers

Call for Papers

Call for Papers 3/2025
Circular Economy: Transitioning to Sustainable Systems Within Planetary Boundaries
Submission Deadline: November 15, 2024

Call for Papers 4/2025
Innovation Efficiency and Effectiveness
Submission Deadline: February 28, 2025

Call for Papers 1/2026
Responsible and Human-centered Artificial Intelligence in Business Ethics – Standards, Processes and Behaviors
Submission Deadline: September 1, 2025

Guidelines for Authors

Guidelines for Authors

Open Access Policy

Green Open Access: Each article is made Open Access after an embargo of 12 months. It is then freely accessible in the Nomos eLibrary. Authors are allowed to make secondary use of their article in the pre-print and accepted post-print version 12 months after publication, i.e. make it available on private and institutional websites as well as in non-commercial repositories without any restrictions.

Abstracting & Indexing

Die Unternehmung is included in the VHB Publication Media Rating 2024 (rank C for the area ratings STEU, INT, MARK, OR, ORG, PERS, RECH, STRAT, TIE, WI, and WEW as well as rank 3 for STRAT_prac).

Die Unternehmung is indexed in:

Die Unternehmung is included in the following ProQuest databases:

The OAI-PMH interface is created in the Nomos eLibrary. The OAI-PMH protocol is web-based. OAI (Open Archives Initiative) is an initiative whose mission is to define an open interface for the exchange of metadata. https://www.openarchives.org/pmh/

Publication Ethics

Quality Guidelines

Die Unternehmung – Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice pursues the goal of disseminating new findings in business research, drawing attention to important problems in business practice, presenting scientifically based approaches to solutions for practice, and generally promoting the exchange between science and practice.

The publication of original articles includes the following categories:

  • Scientific articles of an original nature that have not been published before in a similar way. These include theoretical and conceptual contributions as well as results of empirical studies;
  • Practical contributions with a theoretical foundation as well as essays on current business problems in practice.

Pure company presentations or descriptions of entrepreneurial problems that do not involve problem-solving components will not be published.

Obligations of authors, publishers and editors

Authors must certify that they are submitting an original manuscript that has not been published elsewhere or submitted for publication.

Manuscripts submitted for publication in Die Unternehmung may not be offered for publication elsewhere until the review process has been completed.

The editors decide whether to publish articles based on the quality and suitability of the article for the journal; the publisher has no control over this.

Each manuscript submitted to Die Unternehmung by potential authors is evaluated based on a double-blind review process. Experts from the respective scientific disciplines act as reviewers. In most cases, these are scientists with a background in business administration. Since the reviews must contain detailed points of criticism, cases in which the rules of good scientific practice have been violated are easy to identify.

In case of own conflicts of interest, the editor-in-chief asks one of the editors to coordinate the review process for a submitted article. Likewise, he/she handles conflicts of interest on the part of staff, authors, reviewers, and editorial board members.

As is typical for scientific journals, there are usually several rounds of review. While reviews from a first round are sent to authors within three months, the time from submission to publication varies widely but usually does not exceed 12 months.

In order to promote scientific discourse and cumulative research, as well as to ensure quality, the editors make it a point to create the greatest possible transparency with respect to the data used when reviewing papers.

When submitting the manuscript, authors of empirical contributions agree that they will sufficiently document the manner in which data were collected and/or the datasets provided by third parties (e.g., databases) to make the research findings replicable and to allow for secondary analyses. At the same time, they declare their willingness to make the data used available for further scientific research to the extent possible in each case.

Authors wishing to publish in Die Unternehmung are advised to consult the author’s notes available here before submitting their manuscript.

Authors are not required to pay article processing or submission charges (APCs).

To avoid plagiarism, authors must clearly mark in their manuscript when content is taken from other sources. Authors must ensure that their contribution does not contain defamatory information and does not infringe copyrights or other intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties.

The order of authorship should be determined jointly by all co-authors. The authorship listing should accurately reflect who wrote the article and conducted the research.

Once their manuscript has been submitted to the journal, all authors should be aware and agree to have the lead author(s) sign a copyright transfer form on their behalf.

In addition, any conflicts of interest related to the publication of a particular article should be disclosed by the authors.

If there is a significant error in their published article, authors should inform the publisher(s) and work with the publisher to publish an erratum, addendum, or retraction, if necessary.

Obligations and Role of the Publisher

Publishing Guidelines

Nomos Verlag places particular emphasis on the high quality of its journal portfolio and monitors compliance with editorial quality standards for articles published in Die Unternehmung. Our general ethical publishing guidelines can be found here.

Copyright

Nomos Verlag and the editors accept no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. By accepting a manuscript, the publisher acquires all rights from the authors, including in particular the right to further reproduction for commercial purposes by photomechanical or other techniques. Detailed information on Nomos’ copyright policy can be found here.

Long-term archiving

To ensure long-term archiving and access to Die Unternehmung, Nomos works together with Portico.

Peer Review Process

The quality of the articles published in Die Unternehmung – Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice is assured by a double-blind peer review process according to internationally accepted standards. This procedure is designed to preserve the anonymity of both authors and reviewers. If a reviewer has knowledge of the identity of at least one of the authors of the manuscript, he or she is required to inform the editorial board and declare any possible competing or conflicting interests.

Because the peer review process is critical to maintaining high publication standards, we rely on reviewers who are experts in the relevant academic branch, usually with a background in business administration. Reviewers are required to declare potential competing or conflicting interests. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for assessing whether these conflicts of interest may affect the quality of the review itself. Reviewers are instructed to evaluate the work in an unbiased and objective manner. If, during the review process, reviewers determine that they are not qualified to conduct the review (e.g., do not have the requisite expertise) or discover potential conflicts of interest or competing interests, they must notify the journal’s editorial board. Reviewers must not use information from the ongoing review process to benefit themselves or a third party. This includes suggesting that authors refer to their own work or that of a colleague when this is not necessary. Any other ethical concerns should also be brought to the attention of the editor. Unless specifically permitted, reviewers should not involve a third party to conduct the review.

As is customary with scientific journals, there are usually several rounds of review. Since we aim to send the first round of reviews to authors within three months, we ask our reviewers to submit the review before the deadline, provided that the time constraint does not affect the quality of the review. Since the reviews must contain detailed criticisms, cases where the rules of good scientific practice have been violated are easily identifiable. The journal does not prescribe a particular format or style for the review. However, it is customary to submit confidential comments to the editor with a recommendation to accept/review/reject the manuscript. Reviewers are asked to provide comments and suggestions on the quality and accuracy of the study and should refrain from rewriting the manuscript to suit their needs. A carefully prepared review will help the authors to improve their work. Therefore, we expect constructive suggestions for improvement and clearly stated comments for the authors and editors. Reviewers should also refrain from artificially prolonging the review process by asking for unnecessary or irrelevant information. The review process must always adhere to the highest standards of scholarly work and scientific integrity.

Copyright

Copyright

Media Kit

Media Kit