Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Pena Dimas is a peer reviewed journal in economics and business focusing on Enterprise Driven Impact Economic Transformation through Community Empowerment and Sustainable Community Development. The journal publishes articles that are analytically rigorous, grounded in relevant theory, and supported by evidence. These articles examine the design, implementation, evaluation, and impact of community empowerment initiatives through enterprise development, entrepreneurship, market systems, financial inclusion, institutional strengthening, and social innovation. Manuscripts must address relevant community or socioeconomic problems, propose clear and applicable solutions, explain the theoretical and methodological basis of the empowerment approach, and demonstrate novelty in the approach, intervention model, implementation strategy, or evaluation method. The analysis must be supported by measurable outcomes and evidence of sustainable impact, including stronger community capacity, independence, productivity, income, employment quality, competitiveness, institutional sustainability, and resilience over the long term. These outcomes are expected to contribute to inclusive growth, responsible economic governance, sustainable value creation, and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Manuscripts that merely describe activities, report participant enthusiasm without systematic evaluation, or lack analytical depth, adequate evidence, measurable results, and meaningful impact will not be considered for publication.

 Scope of the Journal

Pena Dimas invites contributions in, but is not limited to, the following thematic areas that support community empowerment, sustainable community development, and community resilience, with their outcomes and impacts expected to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

  1. Enterprise Upgrading and Productivity Dynamics: MSME development, cooperative strengthening, entrepreneurial capacity development, value chain integration, performance improvement, and competitiveness strategies that contribute to community productivity and economic independence.
  2. Impact-Oriented Financial and Business Ecosystems: Financial literacy and inclusion, development and MSME finance, impact investment, enterprise financing, and business ecosystem development that generate measurable benefits for communities.
  3. Institutional Innovation and Economic Governance: Institutional capacity strengthening, organizational development, regulatory support, economic governance, and collaborative frameworks that promote inclusive and sustainable community development.
  4. Digital Transformation and Market Systems Development: Digital entrepreneurship, financial technology, digital platforms, technology adoption, digital marketing, and market access development that strengthen enterprise performance and community economic capacity.
  5. Sustainable Enterprise and Responsible Economic Practices: Green and circular business models, ethical and halal enterprise systems, resource efficiency, sustainable production and consumption, and other responsible economic practices that support community and environmental resilience.

Pena Dimas publishes analytical and evidence based articles derived from community empowerment and development initiatives, including participatory approaches, intervention and program evaluations, analytical case studies, policy analyses, systematic reviews directly related to the design, implementation, evaluation, or development of community empowerment programs, and theoretically grounded practice-based reflections.

 

Section Policies

Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts must be submitted and processed exclusively through the Pena Dimas Online Journal System. Manuscripts submitted through email will not be processed. Each manuscript received undergoes an initial assessment by the editor to determine whether it aligns with the journal’s aims, scope, and submission requirements. Manuscripts that do not comply with these criteria may be rejected at this stage without being sent for review.

Manuscripts that pass the initial screening will be checked for plagiarism. Only those that meet the journal’s originality and similarity standards will move forward to the peer review stage. Pena Dimas implements a double-blind peer review process, ensuring that both authors and reviewers remain anonymous throughout the evaluation. Each eligible manuscript is assigned to two (2) independent reviewers.

All manuscripts are evaluated through a rigorous blind review process. Reviewers assess the scholarly merit, relevance, and overall contribution of the manuscript using the journal’s standardized review form. They provide detailed comments, scores, and a recommendation regarding publication. Authors will be informed whether their manuscript is accepted, requires revision, or is rejected.

If revisions are required, the journal will provide the author with the review form outlining specific comments and indicating whether the revisions needed are minor or major. Authors must submit the revised manuscript within the deadline given by the editor. Revised manuscripts may be re-evaluated by the reviewers or editor to ensure that all requested improvements have been addressed satisfactorily. All submitted manuscripts must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration by any other journal.

Final editorial decisions are based on the reviewers’ recommendations, using the following categories:

  1. Accepted without revisions
  2. Accepted with minor revisions (to be checked by the editor)
  3. Accepted with major revisions (requiring substantial changes as recommended by reviewers)
  4. Rejected

In the review process, reviewers evaluate manuscripts according to the following criteria:

  • Relevance and originality of the theme
  • Clarity, coherence, and quality of argumentation
  • Methodological rigor and integrity, including appropriate use of data (when applicable)
  • Depth of engagement with literature and theoretical frameworks
  • Quality of language and effectiveness of scholarly communication

Reviewers provide a score for each evaluation category, an overall recommendation, and constructive comments intended to improve the manuscript.

Additionally, we encourage all authors to review our AI and Research Integrity, which outlines appropriate use and disclosure of AI-assisted tools in manuscript preparation. Transparency in this area is crucial to maintaining scholarly standards and ethical publishing practices.

We appreciate your attention to these matters and look forward to reviewing your work.

 

Publication Frequency

Pena Dimas, published by the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Islam Malang (FEB UNISMA), is an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal issued biannually in April and October. The journal is nationally accredited Rank 5 (SINTA 5) based on the Decree of the Director General of Higher Education, Research, and Technology Number 0173/C3/DT.05.00/2025, with accreditation validity covering Volume 1 Number 1, 2022, through Volume 5 Number 2, 2026.

Pena Dimas is a journal in economics and business focusing on Enterprise Driven Impact Economic Transformation through Community Empowerment and Sustainable Community Development. The journal publishes articles that examine the design, implementation, evaluation, and impact of community empowerment initiatives through enterprise development, entrepreneurship, market systems, financial inclusion, institutional strengthening, and social innovation. Manuscripts must address relevant community or socioeconomic problems, propose clear and applicable solutions, explain the theoretical basis and methods used, and demonstrate measurable outcomes, such as strengthened community capacity, increased productivity and income, improved employment quality, financial inclusion, competitiveness, institutional sustainability, and long-term community resilience. These outcomes and impacts are expected to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Manuscripts that merely describe activities, report participant enthusiasm, identify problems without providing meaningful solutions, or lack adequate analysis, novelty, measurable results, and sustainable impact will not be considered for publication.

 

Open Access Policy

Pena Dimas provides immediate open access to its content based on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All articles published in this journal are accessible online to all users immediately upon publication, without requiring any subscription or payment.

The journal publishes fully open access content, ensuring that every article can be read, downloaded, copied, distributed, remixed, adapted, and built upon by users, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original work. All published articles undergo a rigorous blind peer-review and editorial evaluation to maintain high academic quality and integrity.

Articles in Pena Dimas are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license, which permits users to share and adapt the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided that appropriate credit is given and any derivative works are distributed under the same license.

Through this open access commitment, Pena Dimas supports broader scientific communication, inclusive knowledge dissemination, and the advancement of research in community development and community empowerment worldwide.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Article Withdrawal

Authors may request manuscript withdrawal before acceptance by submitting a written explanation to the editor. After acceptance, withdrawal is permitted only in exceptional and justified circumstances and requires editorial approval. Pena Dimas does not impose punitive withdrawal charges. Any publication fee that has already been paid is governed by the journal’s publicly stated publication-fee and refund policies.

 

Publication Fees

Pena Dimas applies the following fees:

Article Submission Fee: IDR 0
Authors are not required to pay any fee when submitting a manuscript.

Article Publication Fee

a. IDR 300,000 for manuscripts written entirely by authors affiliated with institutions in Indonesia.

b. Free of charge for manuscripts written by authors affiliated with institutions outside Indonesia or in collaboration with at least one author affiliated with an institution outside Indonesia.

The publication fee is payable only after the manuscript has been accepted and covers DOI registration and publication processing.

Waiver Policy

Authors who are unable to pay the publication fee may request a waiver. The request must be submitted through the Comments to the Editor field during manuscript submission. Waiver requests will be considered without affecting the editorial and peer review processes.

Refund Policy

The article publication fee is nonrefundable once payment has been made.