Competing Interests Policy

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests from the authors’ university need not be disclosed if there is no reason to believe that such support could create a competing interest or impart bias to the research.

Authors are requested to disclose interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work. Disclosure of interests provides a complete and transparent process and helps readers form their own judgments of potential bias. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate. Disclosure requirements also apply to any close relative or partner of the author.

Interests that should be considered and disclosed but are not limited to the following:

Funding: Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number) and/or research support (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia, and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript.

Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated (full-time or part-time) employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript. This includes multiple affiliations (if applicable).

Financial interests: Significant shares in companies (including holdings of spouse and/or children) that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication of this manuscript.

It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial interest becomes significant, any such figure is necessarily arbitrary, so one possible practical guideline is the following: "Any undeclared financial interest that could embarrass the author were it to become publicly known after the work was published."

Non-financial interests: In addition, authors are requested to disclose interests that go beyond financial interests that could impart bias on the work submitted for publication such as professional interests, personal relationships or relevant non-corporate organizational affiliations (amongst others). Examples that might impart bias include, but are not limited to: position on editorial board, advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships; writing and/or consulting for educational purposes; expert witness; mentoring relations; and so forth.

Terms of use: Each author must disclose if another party had the right to review and require changes to the paper prior to its circulation. Third party review that must be disclosed includes review by supervisors, employers, and data partners. Further, the nature of review shall be disclosed including limited review, such as disguising brand names, or complete review where the reviewing entity has total discretion in its approval.

The purpose of such disclosure is to provide context for the research. A disclosure should not be grounds in and of itself for the disposition of a manuscript. Nevertheless, failure to disclose competing interests can result in penalties up to and including rejection of an article, rescinding an article’s acceptance or, if published, retraction of the article.

Summary of requirements

The above should be summarized in a statement and placed in a ‘Declarations’ section before the reference list under a heading of ‘Funding and Competing Interests’.

Please provide blinded information at all stages (initial, resubmission, revision) of submission. Do not include author names or any other information linked to the authors, such as the origin of a grant or other source of funding. If your paper is accepted, you will be able to update the information to include author names before your paper is published.

If authors are uncertain whether to include the information, they should disclose it in the cover letter instead of the manuscript or contact the Marketing Science editorial office for further guidance.

The Funding and Competing Interests Declarations will appear on the first page of the published article.

Please see the various examples of wording below and revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

When all authors have the same (or no) conflicts and/or funding it is sufficient to use one blanket statement.

Examples of statements to be used when funding has been received:

• Partial financial support was received from [...]
• The research leading to these results received funding from […] under Grant Agreement No[…].
• This study was funded by […]
• This work was supported by […] (Grant numbers […] and […]

Examples of statements to be used when there are interests to declare:

Financial interests:

• Author A has received research support from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company W and owns stock in Company X. Author C is consultant to company Y.
• Author C has received speaker and consultant honoraria from Company M and Company N. Dr. C has received speaker honorarium and research funding from Company M and Company O. Author D has received travel support from Company O.

Non-financial interests:

• Author C is an unpaid member of committee Z.
• Author A received a speaking fee from Y for Z. Author B receives a salary from association X where s/he is the Executive Director.
• Author D has served on advisory boards for Company M, Company N and Company O.

Terms of use:

• Company M has complete rights to review and require changes to the paper for any material objectionable to its interests.
• Company N has a right to remove its intellectual property or trade secrets from the paper.

Examples of statements to be used when authors have nothing to declare:

• All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. The authors have no funding to report.

Acknowledgement

To develop this policy we have relied extensively on existing policies on competing interests. We particularly want to acknowledge that we have borrowed liberally from the policy of Quantitative Marketing and Economics available here (accessed May 2022).