BEFORE YOU BEGIN • Ethics in Publishing • Conflict of interest • Submission declaration • Copyright • Retained author rights • Role of the funding source • Funding body agreements and policies • Language and language services • Submission • Referees PREPARATION • Use of wordprocessing software • Article Structure • Artwork • Electronic Artwork • References • Submission checklist AFTER ACCEPTANCE • Use of the Digital Object Identifier • Proofs • Offprints AUTHOR INQUIRIES

Ethics in Publishing

For information on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.

Conflict of interest

All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.

Submission declaration

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.

Retained author rights

As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.

Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated. Please see http://www.elsevier.com/funding.

Funding body agreements and policies

Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.

Language and language services

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or our customer support site at http://epsupport.elsevier.com for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions: http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.

Submission

General Submissions.
ECRA uses electronic submissions only as a means for reviewing new and revised papers. All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted via the journal's online submission and peer-review system, called the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) at the following external link http://www.ees.elsevier.com/ecra. Thereafter, please follow the instructions given on this website to submit your paper.

Special Issues and Special Section Submissions.
If you are submitting a paper to a Special Section or Special Issue of ECRA, then follow these instructions:
1. Author registers in EES, and follows the submission instructions given on the site.
2. Select 'Submit Manuscript' from the 'Main Menu.'
3. When choosing 'Article Type' please select the title of the Special Section or Special Issue to which you wish to submit.

Then follow the steps as laid out in EES. Your manuscript will be submitted to the Editorial Office, which then assigns it to the Guest Editor in charge of that specific Special Section or Special Issue.

Referees

Please submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of 3 potential referees. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.



Use of wordprocessing software



It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. If possible, do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier: http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication. See also the section on Electronic illustrations. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions of your wordprocessor.

Article Structure



General.
Manuscripts submitted to ECRA should be prepared for electronic submission to the EES website using single-column, double-spaced 11 or 12 point fonts, with 1 inch or 2.5 centimeter margins. Authors should avoid double justification. Please do not use a constant right-hand margin, since it diminishes readability for the reviewers. Also, ensure that each new paragraph is clearly indicated by indenting the first line. Also to enhance readability, authors should embed tables and figures in the manuscript in places that are near to the text that refers to them. Number all pages consecutively. Consult a recent issue of the journal to become familiar with layout and other formatting conventions. If you require a sample issue, please click on the 'Free Sample Issue' link under the 'For Readers' menu on the right hand side of this page. Here are some additional requirements related to formatting:

Title Page. Authors should include a Title Page as the first page of their submission, containing the article title, author(s) names and affiliations, an abstract not exceeding 150 words, and a list of 5 to 10 keywords that best describe the overall contents of the article for indexing and retrieval purposes. The title page should also contain related footnotes and acknowledgments that pertain to the paper and the authors.

Corresponding Author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, including post-publication correspondence. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers with country and area code are provided, in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.

Artwork

Electronic Artwork

General points

•Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
•Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
•Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, •Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
•Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files, if you include separate ones.
•Provide captions to illustrations.
•Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised after your paper has been accepted, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as 'graphics'.
TIFF: color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
DOC, DOCX, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply 'as is'.

Please do not:
•Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
•Supply files that are too low in resolution;
•Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Figures, Tables and Illustrations
Provide all figures, tables and illustrations in high-quality format suitable for reproduction, which may include reduction. These should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred to in the main body of the text. Mark all of these with a table or figure number and an explanatory caption or title. For detailed guidelines on electronic figures, please refer to the 'Artwork Instructions' at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to "gray scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.

References

Reference Section Formatting.
References should be included in alphabetical order in the Reference section of the paper at the end. (ECRA no longer numbers references or identifies them by the consecutive order in which they appear in the text, since this diminishes the usefulness of the Reference section.) Authors should use the following sample reference formats for journal articles, books, book chapters, papers in conference proceedings, papers in sources available from the Internet, and working papers and other unpublished works.

Journal articles:

•Forman, C., Goldfarb, A., and Greenstein, S. Geographic location and the diffusion of Internet technology. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 4, 1, Spring 2005, 1-13.
•Banker, R. D., and Mitra, S. Procurement models in the agricultural supply chain: a case study of online coffee auctions in India. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 6, 3, Autumn 2007, 309-321.

Books:

•Jank, W., and Shmueli, G. Statistical Methods in E-Commerce Research. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY, 2008.
•Whinston, A. B., Choi, S. Y., and Stahl, D. The Economics of Electronic Commerce, 1st edition. MacMillan, New York, NY, 1997.

Book chapters, papers in edited volumes, conference proceedings papers, and theses:

•Dai, Q., and Kauffman, R. J. Partnering for perfection: An economic perspective on B2B electronic market strategic alliances. In K. Tomak (ed.), Economics, IS and E-Commerce, Idea Group Publishing, Harrisburg, PA, 2004, 43-79.
•Segev, A., and Bichler, M. Component-based electronic commerce. Chapter 15 in M. Shaw, R. Blanning, T. Strader and A. Whinston (eds.), Handbook of Electronic Commerce, Springer, New York, NY, 313-338.
•Lenstra, A. K., and Lenstra, H. W., Jr., Algorithms in number theory. In J. van Leeuwen (ed.), Handbook of Computer Science, Vol. A, Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1990, 673-715.
•McKee, P., Taylor, S., Surridge, M., Lowe, R. and Ragusa, C. Strategies for the service marketplace. In J. Altmann and D. J. Veit (eds.), Grid Economics and Business Models, Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop (GECON2007), Rennes, France, August 28, 2007, Springer, New York, NY, 2007, 58-70.
•Techatassanasoontorn, A. A. The State-Based and Regional Contagion Theories of Technology Diffusion. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 2006.



Other unpublished works, working papers, presentations and standards papers

•Nolan, R. L., and McFarlan, F. W. Governance in the information economy. Working paper no. 05-045, Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA, 2005.
•Spohrer, J. Services sciences, management, engineering: A next frontier in education, innovation and economic growth. Presentation, Services Marketing Workshop, Center for Services Leadership, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ, February 16, 2005.
•OASIS. A reference model for service-oriented architecture. White paper, Service-Oriented Architecture Reference Model Technical Committee, Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, Billerica, MA, February 2006.

Published Materials on the Internet and Foreign Language Sources. Provide as complete information as possible, although pages may not be available. Indicate the URL where the materials can be found, and indicate the last data the materials were accessed. Please click here for examples.

Citation Formats in Text. All citations in the main body of the paper, the footnotes, the tables, the figures and the appendices should be included in the Reference section at the end of the paper. In the main body of the paper, the references should be indicated in the following manner:
•Works with a single author. '(Ng 1996)' or 'Ng (1996)'
•Works with two authors. '(Lang and Vragov 2006)' or 'Lang and Vragov (2006)'
•Works with three or more authors. '(Hughes et al. 2008)' or 'Hughes et al. (2008)'
•Citing multiple works: '(Ng 1996, Lang and Vragov 2006, Hughes et al. 2008)' or 'Ng (1996), Lang and Vragov (2006), and Hughes et al. (2008)'
•Citing multiple works by the same author: '(Ng 1996, 2001) or 'Ng (1996, 2001)'
•Citing multiple works by the same authors, and other authors: '(Ng 1996, 2001; Lang and Vragov 2006)' or 'Ng (1996, 2001), and Lang and Vragov (2006)'

Submission checklist

It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are present:
One Author designated as corresponding Author:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been "spellchecked" and "grammar-checked"
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at http://epsupport.elsevier.com.



Use of the Digital Object Identifier

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Proofs

One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Uncorrected Proofs are not to be regarded as 'drafts,' and authors should not view them as providing an opportunity to make major content changes. Only minor copy-editing corrections are permitted. . No changes in, or additions to the accepted and subsequently edited manuscript will be allowed at the end of this stage. So it is important to ensure that all changes to the Uncorrected Proof are indicated in one communication with the Elsevier Production staff. Subsequent corrections will not be possible. Prior to the Uncorrected Proof stage, an ECRA Co-Editor may request that a paper should be edited for English. Elsevier's Language Editing Service will handle this.

Offprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.



For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's homepage. You can track accepted articles at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed. Also accessible from here is information on copyright, frequently asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher.