Submissions

Author Guidelines

 Guidelines publishing in the African Journal of Business Incubation & Acceleration

The African Journal of Business and Incubation Acceleration (ABIA) is an online open-access journal that will be published twice a year. The ABIA publishes original research papers comprising emerging issues in Business Incubation, Agri business, entrepreneurship, livelihood and resilience, authoritative reviews; synthesis articles and editorials; chapters and book reviews as well as short communications that may not warrant publication as full papers. All submissions must have a focus on economic resilience and self-reliance among various communities and as such, authors and contributors will be required to contextualize their work to fit this focus and scope. The primary purpose of the ABIA is to share knowledge on all aspects that contribute to sustainable rural development and improving livelihoods and development broadly as widely as possible. All articles and opinions therein published in the ABIA reflect views of the authors and not necessarily those of the African Journal of Business Incubation & Acceleration.

ABIA is published by the African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN) with an Editorial Secretariat in Accra, Ghana.

In fulfilment of some of the objectives of the African Journal of Business Incubation & Acceleration (ABIA), the editor-in-chief of ABIA invites academicians and researchers to submit well-researched papers, written in English, in the areas of business innovation and business incubation and acceleration for publication in the next journal issue for the period July-December 2023. The paper should be concise and use a direct style of writing.

The main purpose of the Journal: The main purpose of the African Journal of Business Incubation & Acceleration (ABIA) is to promote the concept of business incubation and acceleration in nurturing and growing start-ups into profitable and sustainable enterprises on the African continent and beyond.

Format and page numbering

Title: The paper title should not exceed 20 words and it should be bolded. The title must reflect the contents of the paper.

Authors' names and institutional affiliations: Full names (with no titles or qualifications), name of the institutions (Faculty, Department, Institute, City, & Country), and email addresses for all authors must be given. The corresponding author should also be given first with the words (corresponding author).

Paper length: The whole paper should not exceed 3,000 words in Calibre 11 font size on a standard paper size. Each sentence in the paper must be comprehensible and should not contain spelling or grammatical errors. The acceptable text file is MS Word with extension (.DOC or DOCX) only. Acceptable figure file extension is .PDF or PJG.

References: Authors are advised to follow the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style. Only papers in peer-reviewed journals or published textbooks MUST be used for reference. Papers that have been submitted for publication but not yet accepted should not be cited. The list of references must appear at the end of the paper.

Authors must make sure that the paraphrased information is similar to the information given in the reference(s). No publication should appear in the list of references when it does not appear in the main body of the paper and no publication should appear in the main body and it does not appear in the list of references.

1. Citation from a journal

Authors, year of publication, Title of the article, Journal name (in italics), Volume (Issue), Pages. Example: Hirsh, H., Coen, M. H., Mozer, M. C., Hasha, R. & Flanagan, J. L. 2002. Room service, AI-style. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 14 (2):8-19.

1. Citation from an E-journal

Authors, "Title of Article," Title of Journal (in italics), Volume (Issue), pages, month year. [Format] Available: Database Name (if appropriate), article number (if given), internet address. [Accessed date of access]. Example: Altun, A. 2003. Understanding hypertext in the context of reading on the web: Language learners' experience, Current Issues in Education, 6(12), pp. [Online]. [Online]. Available from: http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume6/number12/. [Accessed on Dec. 2, 2004].

1. Citation from a textbook

Authors, Year of publication, Title, Publisher, City of Publication, page numbers (if appropriate). Example: 1. Fogg, B.J. 2013. Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Boston, pp. 30-35.

1. Citation from an E-textbook

Authors, year of publication, Title of E-book (in italics), Publisher, Date of original publication. [Format] Available: Source. Example: Eckes, T. 2000. The Developmental Social Psychology of Gender, Lawrence Erlbaum. [E-book] Available: netLibrary e-book.

1. Citation from Conference Proceedings

Authors, year of publication, Title of the article. In: Title of conference (in italics), Publisher, Pages. Example: Leclercq, P. & Heylighen, A. 2013. Analogies per hour: A designer's view on analogical reasoning, in: 7th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Design, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 285-303.

1. As you write your paper, you will cite your references. A citation to a reference in the body of the text is indicated in brackets by indicating the author could be single authorship, shared or multiple responsibility shared or corporate body, separated by a comma and followed by a year of publication. Full details must be given in the list of references.

2. Reference Formats.A complete reference should contain the name(s) of the author(s) and/or editor(s), year of publication and a full stop. Then the title of the article, the name of the book or conference proceedings where appropriate, and bibliographic information about the article such as the name of the publisher, the city of publication, and the page numbers. The basic concept is that the reference should be sufficiently complete so that the reader could readily find the reference and can judge the authority and objectivity of the reference. All author names appear as Last name, Initials. For example, if Margaret Ssonko is the primary author and Alice Agogino is the second author, the correct appearance of the author names would be: Ssonko, M. & Agogino, A. 2012.

Acknowledgements: The authors should acknowledge direct contributions in the preparation of the paper and the source of research funding, if any.

Tables

The table title should be concise, no more than one sentence. The rest of the table legend and any footnotes should be placed below the table. Footnotes can be used to explain abbreviations. Tables must be cell-based, such as would be produced in a spreadsheet program or in Microsoft Word. Do not provide tables as graphic objects. Tables must be no larger than one printed page (7inches x 9.5inches). Larger tables can be published as online supporting information. Do not include color, shading, lines, rules, text boxes, tabs, returns, or pictures within the table. Table headings should be placed (centered) above the table. All Tables should be referred to in the text as Table 1, Table 2, etc.

Figures

Figures should be as small and simple as is compatible with clarity. The goal is for figures to be comprehensible to readers in other or related disciplines, and to assist their understanding of the paper. Unnecessary figures and parts (panels) of figures should be avoided: data presented in small tables or histograms, for instance, can generally be stated briefly in the text instead. Avoid unnecessary complexity, coloring and excessive detail. All illustrations should be original drawings or photographic prints of originals. Photographs should be glossy prints. Photocopies are often not good enough and should be avoided. All illustrations must be numbered consecutively, as Fig. 1, Fig. 2. Center figure captions beneath the figure. Do not assemble figures at the back of your article but place them as close as possible to where they are mentioned in the main text. No part of a figure should go beyond the typing area.

Deadlines for paper submission: Papers for publication must have reached the editor-in-chief (editorinchief@africaain.org) latest by 15^th June every year for the January-June issue and latest by 15^th January of every year for the June-December issue. The submitted papers for publication in the ABIA MUST not have been submitted or even accepted for publication anywhere else.