Journal of Business Venturing: Scopus, Scope, Metrics & Submission Guide

Key takeaways for prospective authors

• Published by Elsevier and focused specifically on entrepreneurship as a scholarly phenomenon.
• Officially listed by Elsevier as indexed in Scopus and the Social Sciences Citation Index.
• Scopus Source ID supplied for this journal: 23860; print ISSN 0883-9026; online ISSN 1873-2003.
• Current Elsevier display: CiteScore 16.6 and Impact Factor 8.9; verify the reporting year in the live databases.
• Uses double-anonymized peer review and requires a separate title page and anonymized manuscript.
• Offers open-access publication for an APC currently listed at USD 4,280 excluding taxes, or a subscription route with no publication fee charged to authors.
• The strongest fit is research that makes a meaningful, non-trivial contribution to understanding entrepreneurship using rigorous contemporary theory and methods.

Journal information at a glance

Metric caution: journal indicators change between reporting cycles. Always record both the value and year when a university, doctoral program, funder or promotion committee requires a metric.

What this page covers

• Aims and entrepreneurship scope
• Scopus and scholarly visibility
• Current official metrics
• Research and manuscript fit
• Double-anonymized peer review
• Submission files and formatting
• Open access and APCs
• Ethics and declarations
• Publication-readiness support

Methodology and source note

This profile was prepared using the supplied journal source record together with current authoritative publisher information, principally the official Journal of Business Venturing homepage, its Journal Insights page, the official Guide for Authors, and Elsevier’s publication information. The article distinguishes verified journal facts from practical publication guidance.

Metrics, editorial roles, special issues, fees and author instructions are time-sensitive. Reconfirm them on the journal website immediately before submission.

Understanding the journal’s aims and scope

The journal’s official scope is deliberately broad in disciplinary input but specific in intellectual destination. JBV seeks useful and interesting theories, narratives and interpretations concerning the antecedents, mechanisms and consequences of entrepreneurship. It describes itself as multidisciplinary, multifunctional and multicontextual.

Topics that may align well

Potentially relevant work may examine entrepreneurial entry, opportunity processes, venture creation and growth, entrepreneurial decision-making, financing, ecosystems, sustainability entrepreneurship, founder psychology, resource mobilization, entrepreneurial strategy, innovation in new ventures, institutions and entrepreneurship, or entrepreneurship across distinctive social and international contexts. These are examples of fit, not a closed list.

When a business paper may still be out of scope

A manuscript may be less suitable when entrepreneurship is only a convenient sample description and the paper’s actual contribution belongs primarily to a different field. For example, a study of generic employee satisfaction in start-ups may not fit if it does not explain an entrepreneurship question. A conventional marketing-performance paper may likewise be weakly aligned unless its theory and findings advance knowledge of entrepreneurial phenomena.

Practical fit test: remove the words “entrepreneur,” “venture” and “start-up” from your title and abstract. If the theoretical question remains essentially unchanged, ask whether the paper truly contributes to entrepreneurship scholarship or merely uses an entrepreneurial setting.

Understanding its Scopus coverage and journal metrics

Elsevier’s current Journal Insights page lists Scopus, the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), SNIP and the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) among its abstracting, indexing and impact information. This gives authors several ways to assess scholarly visibility, although institutional rules may recognize only selected databases or ranking systems.

The supplied source record identifies Scopus Source ID 23860. This identifier is particularly useful because a journal title can be confused with related publications, including Journal of Business Venturing Insights. JBV itself is identified by print ISSN 0883-9026 and online ISSN 1873-2003.

Elsevier currently shows 16.6 CiteScore and 8.9 Impact Factor. The official public extraction reviewed for this article did not display a reporting year alongside those values. For any formal claim—such as “2025 CiteScore,” “2025 Impact Factor,” or “Q1 in category X”—check the live Scopus/JCR record and note the category and year.

A numeric SJR, SNIP and current quartile were not independently verified from an official database view available during preparation, so this article does not manufacture values. Researchers should treat any undated third-party metric page as secondary evidence at best.

Is this journal a good match for your research?

JBV’s Guide for Authors makes clear that competition for space is intense. Successful qualitative and quantitative papers are described as sharing demanding features: an interesting and often novel issue, a precise research problem, a current literature review, persuasive theory or logic, high-quality data, contemporary methods, non-trivial results and clear implications for theory and/or practice.

For a prospective author, this means journal fit has at least three layers. First is topic fit: does the study directly address entrepreneurship? Second is conversation fit: does the manuscript engage the entrepreneurship literature and clarify what established understanding it changes or extends? Third is contribution fit: are the theory, evidence and implications strong enough for a highly selective research journal?

Read recent papers before deciding

As a practical publication-readiness step, compare your manuscript with several recent JBV articles and current calls for papers. The journal’s recent collections and calls show active interest in topics such as evidence-based entrepreneurial interventions, entrepreneurial ecosystems, scaling, customer involvement and other emerging entrepreneurship questions. Do not imitate titles or methods; use recent papers to understand the level of theoretical positioning, evidence and conversation expected.

Preparing and submitting a manuscript

The official Guide for Authors should control your final submission package. The requirements below summarize key points currently stated there.

Double-anonymized files

JBV uses double-anonymized review. Authors are asked to upload a title page and an anonymized manuscript separately. The title page should contain the article title, author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, declaration of interest, and the corresponding author’s full address and email. The anonymized manuscript should contain the main paper, references, figures and tables but no identifying author names or affiliations.

Abstract, keywords and highlights

The abstract must be concise and factual and should not exceed 250 words. Elsevier asks for 1–7 keywords in English. JBV also requires highlights: short bullet points describing novel results and, where relevant, new methods. Highlights are submitted as a separate editable file with “highlights” in the file name.

References at initial submission

The current guide states that strict journal reference formatting is not required at initial submission as long as the chosen style is consistent and the necessary bibliographic details are present. DOIs are encouraged. The publisher’s journal reference style is applied later, and missing data may need correction at proof stage. This flexibility does not mean references can be incomplete: every in-text citation should match a reference-list entry and vice versa.

Author contributions and declarations

Corresponding authors are required to acknowledge co-author contributions using CRediT roles where applicable. Funding sources must be disclosed, and authors must complete declarations of competing interests. Authorship should be finalized carefully before submission because the journal indicates that changes to authorship are generally not considered once a manuscript has been submitted.

What happens after you submit a manuscript?

The official guide states that submissions are first assessed by the editors for suitability. Papers considered appropriate can then proceed to double-anonymized peer review. For special issues and article collections, a guest editor may coordinate reviewer input and recommend a decision, but the journal editor oversees the process and remains responsible for the final acceptance or rejection decision.

Elsevier currently displays journal-level timing indicators of 5 days from submission to first decision, 68 days from submission to a decision after review, 480 days from submission to acceptance, and 12 days from acceptance to online publication. These figures describe journal-level historical workflow indicators; they are not promises about an individual manuscript. Complexity, reviewer availability, revision rounds and editorial judgment can make a particular paper much faster or slower.

Why an editorial rejection can happen before external review

Although the journal does not publish a simple universal checklist of desk-rejection reasons in the material reviewed, the Guide for Authors strongly signals what editors value. A manuscript that lacks a meaningful entrepreneurship question, offers little novelty, uses weak or outdated theory, has inadequate data or methods, or produces obvious findings may be less competitive. This is an interpretation of the stated selection attributes, not a formal list of automatic rejection rules.

Preparing for revision

If reviewers request changes, respond analytically rather than defensively. Map each comment to a specific action, explain where changes were made, and justify any recommendation you do not adopt. Keep the revised manuscript and response letter synchronized. Contentxprtz can support reviewer-response editing, but scientific decisions and author responses must remain the authors’ own.

Open access, subscription publication and fees

Journal of Business Venturing supports open access but is not presented as a fully open-access-only journal. Elsevier currently offers two publication routes. Under the open-access option, the listed article publishing charge is USD 4,280 excluding taxes; the amount may be reduced during submission where institutional, funder or other arrangements apply. Under the subscription option, Elsevier states that no publication fee is charged to authors, with the published article available immediately to subscribers.

Authors should not treat the current APC as permanent. Check the journal’s live publishing-options page immediately before submission and before budgeting grant or institutional funds. Also distinguish an APC from unrelated costs: the existence of an optional open-access fee does not mean payment can influence editorial acceptance.

Publication ethics and author responsibilities

JBV directs authors to Elsevier’s Publishing Ethics Policy. The submission declaration requires that the work has not been published previously except in permitted forms such as a preprint, abstract, published lecture, academic thesis or registered report; is not under consideration elsewhere; is approved by all authors and relevant authorities; and, if accepted, will not be republished in the same form without appropriate permission.

Authors must disclose financial and personal relationships that could inappropriately influence the work, including employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony, patents and grants where relevant. Funding sources and sponsor roles should be stated. The guide also includes a declaration requirement for generative AI use and broader policies on inclusive language, sex- and gender-based analyses, jurisdictional claims and informed consent where relevant.

As a practical integrity step, keep a transparent record of data provenance, analysis decisions, permissions, author contributions and substantive AI-assisted processes. Never use editing to conceal fabricated data, duplicate publication, undisclosed text reuse or inappropriate authorship.

How to make a manuscript more publication-ready for JBV

Publication readiness is not the same as “making a paper look polished.” For JBV, the most important work is intellectual alignment: a precise entrepreneurship question, a current and selective literature conversation, persuasive theoretical logic, high-quality evidence and a contribution that is not obvious or trivial.

1. Define the entrepreneurship phenomenon. State what entrepreneurial antecedent, mechanism or consequence the study explains.
2. Clarify the knowledge gap. Explain what existing entrepreneurship literature can and cannot currently account for.
3. Strengthen theory–method alignment. Ensure the design can answer the research question and test or develop the claimed logic.
4. Audit evidence quality. Check sample construction, measures, qualitative depth, robustness, transparency and limitations.
5. Make the contribution non-trivial. The conclusion should change how a knowledgeable reader understands entrepreneurship, not merely confirm an expected association.
6. Prepare anonymous files carefully. Remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgements and other self-identifying material from the review manuscript.
7. Run a final compliance check. Verify abstract length, keywords, highlights, declarations, references, permissions and current submission instructions.

Where professional editing can add value

For an otherwise strong manuscript, professional support may help make the research easier to evaluate. This can include improving argument flow, reducing ambiguity, checking whether the abstract accurately represents the paper, aligning headings and terminology, strengthening transitions between theory and hypotheses or propositions, and ensuring tables and figures are explained clearly.

Authors can also use journal-selection guidance, manuscript proofreading, or formatting and referencing support where relevant. Ethical editing should preserve the authors’ intellectual ownership and never fabricate results, citations, reviewer endorsements or claims of guaranteed acceptance.