1. Statement and Full Disclosure

Ultima Management requires all parties involved in the scholarly publishing process including authors, reviewers, and editorial board members to fully and honestly disclose any relationships or interests that could potentially influence the objectivity, neutrality, or integrity of the manuscript evaluation process. Conflicts of interest can be financial or non-financial and carry the potential to introduce bias into the evaluation of article content.

2. Responsibilities of Authors

Upon manuscript submission to Ultima Management, the primary and corresponding authors must declare the existence or absence of any potential conflicts of interest in their cover letter or through the OJS submission metadata form. These conflicts include, but are not limited to:

• Financial Interests: Receipt of research funding, honoraria, stock ownership, royalties, institutional grants, or commercial employment relationships with organizations that stand to gain or lose from the publication of the research findings.
• Non-Financial Interests: Personal relationships, academic rivalties, political affiliations, professional competition, or institutional ties that could bias data interpretation and research conclusions.
• If no conflict exists, authors must state explicitly at the end of the manuscript: "The authors declare that they have no competing or conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article."

3. Responsibilities of Reviewers and Editors

• Peer Reviewers: Reviewers must decline or recuse themselves from the evaluation process if they have a direct conflict of interest with the authors, including close personal relationships, active research collaborations within the past two years, sharing the same institutional department, or direct commercial competition regarding the research topic.
• Editorial Board: Any managing editor who has a conflict of interest with a submitted manuscript is strictly prohibited from participating in the editorial decision-making process for that paper. The manuscript handling will be fully delegated to an independent and neutral board member.

4. Handling Policy Violations

If a conflict of interest disclosure is intentionally violated or if an undisclosed competing interest is discovered after the article has been published, the Editorial Board will initiate an investigation following COPE protocols. Sanctions can range from publishing an official correction notice (Corrigendum) on the OJS platform to a formal Article Retraction if the undisclosed conflict is proven to have compromised the validity of the scientific findings.