Format and style

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Article files should be provided in Microsoft Word format. The manuscript should be in English using Times New Roman font.

Article files should be provided in Microsoft Word format. The manuscript should be in English using Times New Roman font.

The article should be formatted double line spaces (except the abstract) and page size should be A4. The margins must be set as Top and Bottom = 1.00" and Left and Right = 1.00". The article body should use the Times New Roman font (12pt) with below mentioned exceptions.

The manuscript may organize under the headings of;

• Introduction,
• Literature review and hypotheses development,
• Methodology,
• Findings and discussion,
• Conclusion(s)
• References

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Title Page

The manuscript should have a title page providing the title of the paper (14pt and Bold), author/s name (11pt), affiliation/s, e-mail, corresponding e-mail. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. State the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Also indicate the ORCID No. of author/s and DOI of the manuscript. Details of copyright policy and DOI will be assigned by the editorial team.

Indicate all affiliations with a lowercase superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

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Corresponding Author

Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about Methodology and Materials.

Contact details of the corresponding author, including a valid e-mail address and postal details, should be included in the footer on the article's title page.

The corresponding author is the person who signs the publishing agreement on behalf of all of the authors and whose contact details are included in the article. After publication, they should be available 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.
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Article length / word count

Articles should be between 6000 to 9000 words in length. This includes all text, such as the structured abstract, references, text in tables, and figures and appendices.

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Article title

Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations.
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Structured abstract

All submissions must include a structured abstract, following the format outlined below in single column. These four sub- headings and their accompanying explanations must always be included:

• Purpose
• Design/methodology/approach
• Findings
• Originality

The following three sub-headings are optional

• Research limitations/ Future research directions
• Theoretical and Policy implications
• Social implications

The maximum length of your abstract should be 250 words in total, including keywords and article classification.

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Keywords

Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of').

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JEL Classification

The author should classify the subject matter of the article according to the code of The Journal of Economic Literature (JEL).

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Headings

Headings must be concise, with a clear indication of the required hierarchy.

Three categories of heading are defined: Heading 1 (Bold, Left and 12pt), Heading 2 (Left and 12pt) and Heading 3 (Italic, Left and 12pt). Keep 1.0 line space before the paragraph for each level of headings.
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Notes/endnotes

Notes or endnotes should only be used if absolutely necessary. They should be identified in the text by consecutive numbers enclosed in square brackets.
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Formulas

Formulas are to be formatted in Times New Roman, 10 pt, center aligned and numbered.

e.g., Y = Mx+C               (1)
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Tables and figures

Tables and figures must be center aligned. Place figures and tables as close as possible to the first reference to them in the manuscript. Figures and tables must be numbered using uppercase roman numerals. Figure captions must be center aligned, 10pt, bold and placed below the figure. Table captions must be center aligned, 10pt, bold and placed above the table. The source should be placed right below the figure or the table, 09pt and italic. Graphics should be in full color.
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Citations and References

Citations and references should comply with the APA 7th format. Footnotes and endnotes should not be used for citations. URLs for the references should be provided and it is advised to include the DOI of the references wherever possible. The reference list (12pt), placed at the end of the manuscript must be in alphabetical order of authors.

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Appendices

Any appendices should present after the list of references. They should be numbered consecutively in
Arabic numerals (e.g. Appendix 1, Appendix 2, etc.). All appendices should be referred to in appropriate places in the main text.
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Plagiarism

We take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice.
Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software.
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Previous distribution and/or publication

Any manuscript you submit to this journal should be original. That means it should not have been published before in its current, or similar, form. If any substantial element of your paper has been previously published, you need to declare this to the journal editor upon submission.
Your work should not have been submitted elsewhere and should not be under consideration by any other publication. If you have a conflict of interest, you must declare it upon submission; this allows the editor to decide how they would like to proceed.

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 Fees

We do not charge any submission fee or processing fee for publishing manuscripts.
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Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere.
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Research funding

Your article must reference all sources of external research funding in the acknowledgements section. You should describe the role of the funder or financial sponsor in the entire research process, from study design to submission.
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Copyright

The copyright of all work published in the SAJF remains with the author(s). Authors are required to grant a license to the publisher, the Department of Finance, Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies, University of Kelaniya by an agreement to publish the research work in the South Asian Journal of Finance in all forms of media, either specified or modified later. The author(s) has the right to publish the work in all forms of media, whether already known or hereafter modified, acknowledging that the work was first published in the South Asian Journal of Finance.
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