Author Guidelines

The Chief Editor invites original, scholarly articles and research papers consistent with the aim and scope of the Journal. Articles and research papers which have not been published previously or submitted elsewhere, and which are not under review for another publication in any medium (e.g. printed Journal, conference proceedings, electronic or optical medium) should be submitted to the Chief Editor, Kindler – the peer-reviewed Journal of Army Institute of Management Kolkata. The articles that establish the intuition, argument and implications using clear and concise English and improve our understanding of the management theory and practice knowledge are preferred. All contributions should be well-written in English and supported by either original/empirical data or a well-justified theoretical or mathematical model. Kindler takes no responsibility for any spelling and/or grammatical errors made by the authors. Kindler publishes the following article types:

  • Research articles: 4000-8000 words normally, 8000-10000 words in exceptional cases
  • Case studies and short communications: 2000-4000 words
  • New ideas / new areas of work / innovations / action research / ongoing investigations / conference and seminar and workshop outcomes: 2000-4000 words
  • Book reviews: Within 1500 words

The length of the article includes all text, for example, the structured abstract, references, and all text in tables and figures and appendices. Please allow 250 words for each figure or table.

General Guidelines

Corresponding author: The one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the Journal during the manuscript submission, peer review and publication process, and typically ensures that all the Journal's administrative requirements are properly completed. The corresponding author is the person who signs the Copyright Agreement and Undertaking form on behalf of all of the authors and whose contact details are included in the article. The corresponding author should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the Journal for data or additional information, should questions about the paper arise after publication.

In multi-authored papers, it is important that ALL authors who have made a significant contribution to the paper are listed. Those who have provided support but have not contributed to the research should be featured in an Acknowledgement section. Author(s) should never include people who have not contributed to the paper or who do not want to be associated with the research. Kindler shall not take responsibility for any claim of authorship post publication of an article.

Research funding: The manuscript must reference all sources of external research funding in the Acknowledgement section, if applicable. The role of the funder or financial sponsor should be described in the entire research process, from study design to submission.

The entire manuscript (except the list of References) should be typed using the font Times New Roman, point 12, with 1.15 line spacing. References at the end of the manuscript should be typed in Times New Roman, point 11 font size with 1.15 line spacing.

The author(s) are required to ensure that the manuscript has been "spell-checked" and "grammar-checked". Also, the following should be ensured:

  • Abbreviations (e.g., etc., i.e.) should only be used in parenthetical comments and not in the text itself, ideally. Within the text, they should be spelled out, for example, "that is" and "for example".
  • Acronyms including those in common use should be spelled out at first occurrence, with the acronym/abbreviation following in parenthesis, for example, World Trade Organization (WTO). Thereafter the acronym only may be used.
  • Italics should be used for non-English words, which are not found in a standard English dictionary or are otherwise uncommon. Translations of foreign words within parentheses are not to be italicized. Italics also should be used for book titles and Journal names, and less frequently for emphasis.
  • The following conventions are to be used when using capital letters: In general, capital letters should only be used for place names, personal names and at the beginning of sentences. In the main title, the first letter in all words except prepositions, conjunctions etc. should be in capital.
  • Consistent use of either British or American spelling is advised, but not both at the same time.
  • The following conventions should be adhered to as well: please use "13th" instead of "thirteenth century"; use "1960s" instead of "nineteen sixties". Date format: April 24, 2021.
  • Spell out numbers from one to nine but from 10 and above, the usage should be numerical.
  • In measurements, please use the following conventions: 5 km, 20 L etc., i.e. numerals with units and not five km or kilometres.

Organization of the Manuscript

  • Manuscript: The first page of the manuscript needs to provide the complete title of the research paper accompanied by a brief abstract and keywords. This condition does not apply to book reviews. The manuscript should be prepared based on the guidelines mentioned below.
  • Abstract: It should be concise and factual. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and the major conclusions. The abstract should be presented separately from the manuscript, so it must be able to stand alone. References should be avoided in the abstract. Non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. The maximum length of the abstract should be 250 words excluding keywords. The Abstract should be in Italics. 
  • Keywords: Mention 3-4 keywords after the abstract. The keywords should be short and appropriate to capture the principal topics of the paper. The keywords should be in Italics and mentioned below the Abstract.
  • Sections: Scholarly papers should have introduction, objective of the study, literature review, methodology, results/findings, discussion/managerial implications, conclusion and references as mandatory sections. Appendices may be used to amplify details where appropriate. Tables and Figures should be typed in their respective position in the text. Please supply a camera-ready copy of all figures, as these shall not normally be redrawn. The print version will have only black and white tables/figures. Footnotes to the text should be avoided, but where used, should be numbered consecutively and presented as end notes.
  • Citations and Reference Style: Citations of other works should be limited to those strictly necessary for the sake of arguments. Short quotations should be included in the text within inverted commas (“ ”) while quotations of more than 30 words should be placed in a separate paragraph indented from the main body of the text. However, all quotations should be accompanied by precise references. All references mentioned in the Reference List should be cited in the text, and vice versa. Kindler adheres to the APA reference style. See www.apastyle.org/ to obtain information about APA style. The full guidelines are published in the Seventh Edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and anyone working on APA-style Journals is strongly encouraged to refer to this Manual in the first instance. References should be typed in Times New Roman, point 11, with 1.15 line spacing.
  • Copyright permissions: The author(s) should obtain copyright clearance for materials used in the manuscript, wherever applicable.


Submitting the Manuscript

Authors interested in sending their contributions or any correspondences pertaining to the Journal may send it through e-mail to kindler@aim.ac.in with a copy to protik.basu@aim.ac.in. It will be assumed that the submission of a manuscript to this Journal implies that all the foregoing conditions are applicable. Please refer to Publishing Policies for details on publication, peer review policy and publication ethics.

On Acceptance and Publication

If the manuscript is accepted for publication after peer review, the corresponding author will first be asked to complete the Copyright Agreement and Undertaking form. The corresponding author will need to submit a scanned copy of the filled-in signed form to kindler@aim.ac.in. If the said form is not submitted after acceptance of the manuscript, then the manuscript will be liable for rejection. There is no article processing charge to publish in Kindler. One of the many benefits of publishing a research article in an open access journal is the speed of publication. The manuscript will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all. The print version of the Journal will be couriered shortly to the corresponding author.

Copyright Agreement & Undertaking (Article)    Download
Copyright Agreement & Undertaking (Book Review) Download