Sage takes very seriously any attempts made by Journal Editors, Editorial Board members, Guest Editors, Reviewers and Authors to distort the published record. Sage will take necessary actions, in line with the guidance issued by COPE to correct the record, when it becomes aware of any activities related to manipulation or stacking of citations during submission screening or peer-review.
Excessive self-citation, unnecessary or gift-citations as well as other attempts to manipulate citations activity is a breach of publication ethics.
Suspected citation manipulation by the authors may result in the submission being rejected and the authors will be reported to their institutions. Reviewers, Guest Editors and Editorial Board members using their position on a journal to coerce authors into citing their publications will be removed from the peer-review or decision-making process. Authors are encouraged to report such requests or attempts by peer-reviewers to Sage.
The journal editor and Sage will take action on those who use the peer-review process to coerce authors into citing their publications. This may include removing reviewers from the peer-review process, and informing their institution. If detected post-publication, Sage will undertake an investigation and take action in line with Sage corrections and retractions policy.