Business Horizons: Scopus Indexing, Metrics, Submission Requirements and Journal-Fit Guide

Key Takeaways

• Business Horizons is published by Elsevier for the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and appears six times per year.
• The supplied Scopus source record identifies Source ID 20209; Elsevier also lists Scopus among the journal’s indexing services.
• Official ISSNs are 0007-6813 (print) and 1873-6068 (online).
• Elsevier currently displays CiteScore 15.4 and Impact Factor 7.0; verify the applicable reporting year before using either in institutional documentation.
• The journal uses double-blind peer review after an initial editorial suitability assessment.
• Manuscripts should not exceed 25 pages all-inclusive and should include a 150–200 word abstract plus 3–5 keywords.
• The journal offers hybrid publishing: subscription publication with no author publication fee, or optional open access with a currently displayed APC of USD 3,410 excluding taxes.
• Fit depends heavily on translating scholarship into accessible, prescriptive insights for business academics and practitioners.

Business Horizons at a Glance

What This Page Covers

• Aims, scope and readership
• Scopus and SSCI indexing
• CiteScore and Impact Factor context
• Manuscript fit and article style
• Formatting and abstract rules
• Submission and peer review
• Open access and APC choices
• Ethics and author declarations
• Publication-readiness support

Methodology and Source Note

This journal profile was prepared from the supplied Scopus-identifying source record and current authoritative publisher information available through Elsevier and ScienceDirect. The principal references are the official Business Horizons journal page, Journal Insights, and the Guide for Authors. Scopus identity is cross-referenced to Source ID 20209.

Journal information is time-sensitive. Metrics, editorial leadership, fees, author instructions, indexing coverage, calls for papers, and production timelines may change. For that reason, any high-stakes institutional decision—such as whether the journal satisfies a doctoral publication rule—should be checked again immediately before submission using the database or policy your institution recognizes.

What Role Does Business Horizons Play in Business Scholarship?

Business Horizons is not positioned as a purely technical research outlet. It is the bimonthly journal of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and is published by Elsevier. Its editorial identity is built around making scholarship useful to business decision-makers while retaining an academic foundation. That combination explains why its readership extends across university researchers, instructors, executives, managers, consultants, and other practitioners who need evidence-informed discussion without excessive disciplinary jargon.

The journal has a long publication history; recent ScienceDirect records show Volume 69 in 2026, while archival issues extend back decades. For a researcher evaluating reputation, longevity can provide context, but it should not substitute for checking current indexing, citation performance, editorial direction, and fit with recent papers.

One practical implication is that the manuscript’s contribution must work on two levels. It should add something meaningful to scholarly understanding, but it also needs to answer the practitioner’s question: what does this change about how organizations should think or act? A paper that ends with generic “managerial implications” after a highly technical analysis may need substantial reframing to meet that expectation.

Aims, Scope and the Kinds of Business Problems It Addresses

The official aims and scope describe a broad business journal focused on original articles of interest to business academics and practitioners. Rather than restricting authors to one narrow discipline, Business Horizons welcomes work across the general field of business, with particular emphasis on identifying important issues or problems and recommending solutions. Elsevier’s Journal Insights page identifies Business and International Management, Marketing, and Strategy and Management among its subject areas.

In practice, that remit can include strategy, leadership, organizational change, marketing, digital transformation, innovation, sustainability, corporate responsibility, international business, governance, technology and work, customer strategy, entrepreneurship, and other issues when the article has a clear business-facing contribution. Recent and special-issue material has addressed themes such as ESG, business and peace, data sovereignty, customer centricity, AI-related organizational questions, and phygital business transformation.

What “practical and academic” means here

Business Horizons expects scholarship, but the author guide cautions against unnecessary jargon and technical terminology. Manuscripts should be clear enough for a broad business readership. Successful papers typically do more than report a result: they organize a problem, explain why it matters now, develop the argument through appropriate evidence, and offer sound prescriptive advice.

That does not mean the journal is anti-methodology. Empirical evidence, conceptual reasoning, frameworks, synthesis, and other scholarly approaches can all support an article. The key question is whether methodology serves the business insight rather than becoming the only reason the paper exists. Researchers considering submission should read several recent articles close to their topic and compare not only subject matter but also narrative style, density of technical detail, use of evidence, and strength of recommendations.

Topics that may struggle for fit

As an editorial interpretation, manuscripts are more likely to struggle if they are narrowly descriptive, primarily mathematical or econometric without accessible managerial implications, written for a very small technical community, or built around a local case with no broader business lesson. A conventional academic paper that simply adds a small variable to an established model may also need reframing if its practical consequence is unclear. These are fit considerations, not formal rejection rules.

Understanding Its Scopus Coverage and Journal Metrics

Elsevier’s official Journal Insights page lists Scopus and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) among the journal’s abstracting and indexing services. The supplied journal record identifies the Scopus source as 20209. For authors whose PhD programme, employer, or funding body requires Scopus coverage, the source ID is more reliable than name matching alone because it identifies the exact journal record.

When checked on 10 August 2026, the publisher page displayed a CiteScore of 15.4 and an Impact Factor of 7.0. The publisher page also references SJR and SNIP, but a current numeric SJR or SNIP value was not verified from an authoritative current record for this article. Likewise, this guide does not label Business Horizons Q1, Q2, Q3, or Q4 without a current year- and category-specific database result.

Is Business Horizons a Good Match for Your Research?

A manuscript is more likely to align when the central research problem matters to organizations beyond a narrow academic niche and the article can offer specific, defensible guidance. Before adapting your paper, try to summarize it in two sentences: first, the business problem; second, what decision-makers can do differently because of your analysis. If the second sentence is vague, the paper may not yet be ready for this journal’s editorial style.

A five-question fit test

1. Can you identify a current business problem or opportunity that the paper addresses directly?
2. Is the argument grounded in credible scholarship without depending on specialist jargon?
3. Will a manager or executive understand why the findings matter?
4. Does the paper offer concrete recommendations, a framework, decision logic, or another form of prescriptive value?
5. Do recent Business Horizons articles show comparable topic relevance and a similar level of technical accessibility?

What Does the Journal Publish?

ScienceDirect issues show a mix of content labels, including research articles, editorials, discussions or interviews, special articles, guest-editor perspectives, and occasional other material. That visible variety should not be interpreted as permission to submit any format without checking. The current Guide for Authors is the governing source for unsolicited submissions.

For a standard manuscript, the safest assumption is to prepare an original, journal-aligned article that addresses a topical business issue and delivers practical insight. If you are considering a review, interview-style contribution, perspective, or another nonstandard format, confirm with the editorial office whether that format is open to unsolicited authors.

The journal also publishes themed collections and special issues. These can be useful if your topic matches a current call, but a special-issue title should not tempt authors to force a marginally related manuscript into scope. Read the call carefully, note the guest editors and deadline, and make sure your paper still reflects the journal’s broader practical-academic style.

Preparing a Manuscript for Business Horizons

The official author guide is unusually specific about presentation. Manuscripts that do not conform may be returned for reformatting before review, so preparation is not merely cosmetic.

Write for a broad business reader

One of the most important requirements is stylistic rather than mechanical. The guide asks for clear, non-technical language and discourages unnecessary jargon. That means authors may need to translate disciplinary constructs, abbreviations, advanced methods, or theoretical distinctions into plain business meaning. Technical details that are essential to credibility should remain, but the narrative should not require a specialist reader to decode every paragraph.

Build the paper around the problem and prescription

As a publication-readiness step, examine each major section and ask what job it performs. Early sections should establish the business issue and why it is important. Evidence and theory should help the reader understand the problem rather than becoming a detached literature catalogue. Later sections should convert the analysis into recommendations, choices, frameworks, cautions, or other forms of practical guidance. The recommendations must follow from the evidence; they should not be generic management advice added after the analysis.

How Submission and Peer Review Work

The current official Guide for Authors directs authors to submit manuscripts electronically in an MS Word-compatible format to bushor@iu.edu. It states that submissions are acknowledged within 72 hours. Business Horizons uses double-blind peer review: the editor first assesses whether a contribution is suitable for the journal, and papers judged suitable are sent to independent expert reviewers. The editor is responsible for the final decision.

The guide says editorial decisions may take up to three months and that articles typically appear in print 8–12 months after final acceptance. The publisher’s Journal Insights page separately displays approximately two days from acceptance to online publication. These figures refer to different stages: “acceptance to online publication” is not the same as time from initial submission to a decision or time to assignment in a print issue.

The guide also states that authors are limited to a maximum of three submissions per calendar year. A submitted manuscript should not already have been published, be under consideration by another journal, or have a pre-existing copyright that conflicts with publication. Authors agree not to submit the manuscript elsewhere while it is under review.

Open Access, APCs and the Subscription Route

Business Horizons uses a hybrid publishing model. Authors can choose open access or the subscription route. When this profile was checked, Elsevier displayed an open-access article publishing charge of USD 3,410 excluding taxes and noted that the amount may be reduced during submission where applicable. Under the subscription option, the journal states that no publication fee is charged to authors.

For open-access articles, the official guide describes immediate public availability and Creative Commons licensing options. Authors should review the current license choices, funder requirements, institutional read-and-publish agreements, and tax treatment before choosing a route. Do not assume that a university will reimburse the APC or that every author qualifies for a waiver or discount unless that support is confirmed in writing.

The existence of an APC does not indicate a higher acceptance likelihood, and choosing the subscription route does not reduce editorial scrutiny. Peer review and editorial decisions are separate from the author’s publication-access choice.

Publication Ethics and Author Responsibility

At minimum, authors should comply with Elsevier’s publishing ethics and copyright policies and the journal’s own submission conditions. The manuscript must be original, not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere, and suitable for publication from a copyright perspective. Authorship should accurately reflect contributions, references should support the claims they are attached to, and data or evidence must not be fabricated, manipulated, or misrepresented.

For researchers using generative AI or language tools, the safest publication-readiness approach is to review the publisher’s current policy at the time of submission. Tools may assist with language or workflow, but they do not become accountable authors, and the human authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality, citations, confidential material, and the final manuscript. Policies in this area evolve quickly.

Ethical editing can improve clarity, organization, consistency, and presentation without changing authorship or manufacturing intellectual contribution. Editors should not invent data, citations, reviewer identities, or research findings; should not impersonate authors in peer review; and should not promise acceptance.

A Publication-Readiness Checklist Before You Submit

Three Manuscript-Fit Examples

How Contentxprtz Can Support Publication Readiness

Contentxprtz can support researchers who have already developed their own study and need help preparing it for a journal such as Business Horizons. Appropriate support may include manuscript assessment, academic editing, language polishing, structural editing, proofreading, reference and citation consistency, journal-format review, cover-letter editing, and reviewer-response editing after peer review.

For this particular journal, useful editorial work often involves making a technically sound paper more accessible without weakening its scholarly basis. That can mean clarifying the business problem, reducing avoidable jargon, strengthening transitions between evidence and recommendation, tightening the abstract, improving heading logic, and checking whether practical prescriptions truly follow from the analysis.