Statement of Commitment and Maximum Threshold

Ultima Management is fully committed to upholding academic integrity and preventing any form of plagiarism in its published articles. All manuscripts submitted to this journal must be original works, have not been previously published elsewhere, and are not currently under consideration by any other journal.
This journal establishes a strict maximum similarity index threshold of 20% as determined by standardized anti-plagiarism software (such as Turnitin or iThenticate). Manuscripts with a similarity index exceeding this limit will be subject to immediate desk rejection or returned to the authors for substantial revision before entering the peer-review process.

Scope of Plagiarism Violations

Actions categorized as plagiarism violations by Ultima Management include:

• Direct Plagiarism: Copying verbatim text from another author's work without proper citation and the use of quotation marks.
• Paraphrasing without Attribution: Rewording or restructuring someone else's ideas or text without acknowledging the original source.
• Mosaic Plagiarism: Patching together different sentences or phrases from various sources without proper referencing to create a new paragraph.
• Self-Plagiarism (Auto-Plagiarism): Reusing significant portions of the author's own previously published research or data without proper citation or disclosure.

Screening Procedures and Ethical Sanctions

• Pre-Review Stage (Initial Screening): Every submitted manuscript will undergo an initial similarity check using Turnitin software by the managing editor. If plagiarism or a similarity index above 20% is detected, the editor reserves the right to issue a desk rejection.
• Post-Publication Stage: If plagiarism is suspected or reported by a third party after the article has been formally published, the Editorial Board will conduct a thorough investigation following the COPE guidelines.
• Sanctions for Violations: If plagiarism is proven, Ultima Management will impose strict sanctions, including:
  • Formal retraction of the article from the digital OJS platform (Article Retraction).
  • Publication of an official retraction notice in the next available journal issue.
  • Blacklisting the authors from submitting any manuscripts to Ultima Management for a specified period (minimum of 2 years).
  • Sending an official notification letter to the authors' affiliated institution.