Open Access Policy

The IFSMRC African International Journal of Research in Management (AIJRM) is committed to the principle that high-quality scholarly research should be freely accessible to all without financial, legal, or technical barriers. AIJRM operates as a fully open-access journal, ensuring the unrestricted availability of published research to readers worldwide.

This policy supports the global exchange of knowledge and promotes wider dissemination, visibility, and impact of scholarly work in management and related disciplines.

1. Open Access Commitment

AIJRM provides immediate and permanent open access to all published content. All articles published in the journal are made freely available online upon publication without subscription fees or paywall restrictions.

Readers may access the full text of all published articles at no cost.

This means that anyone may:

  • Read articles online free of charge
  • Download full-text articles
  • Copy and share published content
  • Print articles for academic use
  • Cite and reference published work
  • Link to full-text articles without restriction

AIJRM believes that open access promotes broader knowledge sharing, greater research visibility, and stronger academic collaboration across regions and disciplines.

2. Benefits of Open Access

By adopting an open-access publishing model, AIJRM aims to:

  • Increase global visibility and discoverability of published research
  • Enhance citation, readership, and scholarly impact
  • Promote knowledge exchange across institutions and countries
  • Support equitable access to academic research, especially in developing regions
  • Encourage interdisciplinary and international collaboration
  • Contribute to evidence-based policy and management practice

Open access ensures that research is available not only to academics, but also to practitioners, policymakers, students, and the wider public.

3. Access and Use Rights

All content published in AIJRM is freely accessible for lawful academic, educational, and research purposes.

Users are permitted to:

  • Access and read articles without charge
  • Download and store articles for personal and academic use
  • Share articles with colleagues and students
  • Use published content in teaching and research
  • Cite and reference articles with proper attribution

Any use of published content must acknowledge the original author(s) and the journal as the source of publication.

4. Author Rights

Authors publishing in AIJRM retain copyright of their work.

By publishing with the journal, authors grant AIJRM the non-exclusive right to publish, archive, preserve, and distribute the article as the original publisher.

Authors may also:

  • Share their published articles on personal websites
  • Deposit articles in institutional repositories
  • Archive articles in academic repositories
  • Use their work for teaching and scholarly communication

Provided that proper citation to the original publication in AIJRM is included.

5. Licensing and Distribution

AIJRM supports the free distribution of scholarly content in accordance with open-access principles.

Published articles may be used, shared, and distributed for non-commercial academic purposes with proper attribution to:

  • Author(s)
  • Article title
  • Journal title
  • Original publication source

Any reuse must preserve the integrity of the original work and provide full acknowledgment of the source.

6. No Access Barriers

AIJRM does not impose subscription fees, pay-per-view charges, or reader access restrictions.

There are:

  • No subscription charges for readers
  • No registration barriers for article access
  • No paywalls for full-text content
  • No restrictions on lawful academic use

This ensures that all published research remains openly and universally accessible.

7. Long-Term Accessibility

AIJRM is committed to preserving and maintaining long-term digital access to published content through responsible archiving, indexing, and digital preservation practices.

The journal works to ensure that published articles remain permanently accessible to the scholarly community and the public.

8. Open Knowledge Mission

AIJRM supports the global open knowledge movement and believes that unrestricted access to scholarly research strengthens education, innovation, and societal progress.

By removing access barriers and promoting responsible knowledge sharing, AIJRM contributes to a more inclusive, accessible, and impactful scholarly publishing environment.