AOM2020: AMR: Writing Theoretical Papers - A Workshop from the Editors
Professional Development Workshop on 8 August 2020
Key learning points:
1. Theory relates to statement of concepts and their relationships that shows how and why a phenomenon occurs, rather than what is happening (i.e. descriptive).
2. Hook reviewers and readers: Introduction is critical. It must address the following questions: What don’t we understand? What do we get wrong? What conversations need changing? What can scholars and practitioners do now that they couldn’t do before your paper existed?
3. Novelty: Have others addressed this using different labels? Being “First” or “Only” is not enough. There may be reasons why no one has looked at the topic. Hence, you must convince reviewers and readers that your work is novel and important.
4. Mind the scope. Tough to sell an incremental step. Find the right balance by focusing on 1-2 key issues/questions. Develop and present only what you can address in 40 pages. State your research question explicitly and clearly. Get to your key arguments as soon as possible.
5. Readers and reviewers want:
Clear: nearly effortless reading
Compelling: why is this important
Coherent and focused: 1-2 strong messages
Novel and exciting new ideas they can use.
One tip to ensure consistency and coherency is to take a look at the title, the section headings, the propositions, and the figures – see if the wordings and ideas are consistent.
6. Key issues to look out for: (1) is the relevant literature used and accurately cited? (2) are the constructs defined clearly? Avoid same constructs labelled differently, different constructs used synonymously, questionable selection of certain constructs, new label for same old ideas. As much as you get a friendly review, get a non-academic friendly review – make it pass the grandmother test. Ask your friendly reviewers to give 3 reasons why they would reject your paper if they were your reviewer.
7. Lange & Pfarrer (2017) – Control what you can. These five “C”s should be consistent within abstract and introduction.
(Para 1) Common ground: What we and the reader can agree on
(Para 2) Complication: Complication or twist to what we agree on in the literature
(Para 3) Concern: What is important, “In this paper…”
(Para 4) Course of action: “Specifically”
(Para 5) Contributions.
8. The five paragraphs above will form the structure for the rest of the paper.
Section 2 literature review reflects introduction paragraphs 1 & 2 by discussing what we know, and should end with tensions (common/concern).
Section 3 theory discusses what we do not know and elaborates on concerns. This section reflects introduction paragraphs 3 & 4.
Discussion section reflects introduction paragraph 5 by having a summary, theoretical and practical contributions, future research directions, conclusions.
General guideline for pages: Introduction (3-4), literature review (5), figure and theories from 10-30, discussion (5).
9. Ensure your writing is clear, direct, and precise. The focus is always to engage the reader and bring them with you on your journey.
Two afterthoughts:
1. One of the panelist shared that authors tend to tweak sections when an overhaul of the manuscript is needed. I think this happens when we cannot see how our manuscript falls short of the standards, may miss the main point we actually want to convey, or we cannot bear to cut away our writing. The panelist also talked about the difference between “academese language”, “plain English”, “clear writing”, and provided examples of each category. On hindsight, I think I can do more to move from “plain English” to “clear writing” by cutting away unnecessary explanatory or filler words and go straight to the bones of my idea.
2. The question I had before this PDW was how to take our preliminary ideas a step higher and move to a level of theoretical contribution. This is tied with my uncertainties around qualitative work as well. Integrating my learning from both sessions, theory papers need to have bold and fresh ideas yet at the same time limited within 40 pages. Ideas should be limited yet unbounded – what a paradox! One way is to focus the paper on 1 idea/contribution that will shape existing conversations around the focal topic.
Resources
1. Pollock & Bono (2013). Being Scheherazade: The Importance of Storytelling in Academic Writing. Academy of Management Journal, 56(3): 629-634
2. Lange & Pfarrer (2017). Editors’ Comments: Sense and Structure—The Core Building Blocks of an AMR Article. Academy of Management Review, 42(3): 407-416.
3. Ragins (2012). Reflections on the craft of clear writing. Academy of Management Review, 37(4): 493-501
