Academy of Management Review

EDITORS’ COMMENTS
SENSE AND STRUCTURE: THE CORE BUILDING BLOCKS OF
AN AMR ARTICLE

Journal: Academy of Management Review

Manuscript ID AMR-2016-0225-FTE

Manuscript Type: From the Editor (AMR Editors Only)

Keywords: Corporate Crime, Garbage Can Models, Learned Helplessness

Abstract: na
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15 EDITORS’ COMMENTS
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SENSE AND STRUCTURE: THE CORE BUILDING BLOCKS OF AN AMR ARTICLE
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20 Donald Lange
21 Arizona State University
22 don.lange@asu.edu
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25 Michael D. Pfarrer
26 University of Georgia
27 mpfarrer@uga.edu
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There’s more than one way to skin a cat, the old saying goes.1 Even as we write that,
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6 we’re imagining coming across a future conceptual exploration of the subject, perhaps in an
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8 academic journal devoted to all manner of cat studies. We note the title of this imagined article—
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something like: “Equifinality in feline pelt removal: A critical examination”—and begin reading.
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13 The authors invite the reader in by laying out a noncontroversial starting point. We nod our
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15 heads in agreement with the authors as they describe the common ground. Yes, cats can be
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18 skinned in different ways. That’s intuitive, and the authors emphasize the common wisdom of
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20 that idea by describing how it has been developed in the academic literature. But, upon
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22 establishing that common ground with the reader, the authors proceed to throw in a complication.
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25 They say, “Although that idea about cat skinning is taken for granted, little thought is given to
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27 what good it would do you or your cat to separate it from its outer covering.” Aha; now we’re
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intrigued. We’re beginning to imagine how little utility—and compassion—there would be in a
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32 skinless cat, and feel further drawn into the story.
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34 The authors proceed to point out why the complication they’ve raised is of concern. They
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37 note that the cat skinning literature, with its increasing emphasis on process over outcome, has
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39 become divorced from the real-world considerations of people and cats. The authors have now
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41 set the table; the reader is primed and ready to learn the authors’ course of action—how they
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44 plan to solve the important complication they’ve introduced. The authors proceed to describe that
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46 course of action, which involves developing criteria for assessing different approaches to cat
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48 skinning and for deciding how and why cat skinning would even be called for. Finally, the
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51 authors give us well-reasoned arguments about how their approach, which ultimately throws into
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53 doubt the whole idea of cat skinning equifinality, is an important contribution to the literature.
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58 No cats (or catfish, to which the idiom actually refers) were harmed in the making of this article.
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We close our imagined article, and note to ourselves how it featured the five core
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6 building blocks that we recognize in virtually all AMR articles. We have alliteratively named
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8 them: common ground, complication, concern, course of action, and contribution. We will
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elaborate on them below. We call these the core building blocks, because, simply stated, an AMR
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13 article, or any quality scholarly article in our field, cannot be complete without them. In making
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15 that contention, we note it is not an idea original to us. Rather, we are drawing on work by Davis
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18 (1971), Grant and Pollock (2011), Huff (1999), Locke and Golden-Biddle (1997), and Minto
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20 (2002), among others, who have talked about how academic writers must find a starting point
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22 that will be understandable and agreeable with the reader, and then proceed to challenge the
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25 reader’s thoughts and assumptions. What we can offer here is a distillation of these ideas and an
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27 application of them to effective writing in AMR.
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We start by providing further explanation of the five core building blocks. We then
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32 discuss how those building blocks fit into the structural elements of an article. We follow that by
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34 illustrating the building blocks in action in a set of exemplary AMR articles. We conclude by
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37 describing some ways in which these building blocks could be useful for authors submitting to,
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39 or reviewing for, AMR or another academic journal.
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41 THE FIVE CORE BUILDING BLOCKS
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44 Management theory development can seem daunting, both hard to write and hard to
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46 structure. Authors may find it difficult to know where to start—or once started, how to
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48 proceed—feeling that the seemingly boundless possibilities for developing arguments and
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51 structuring an article make choosing one approach difficult. Yet, the experienced and successful
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53 writer recognizes that there really is only one way to skin a cat. An AMR article must establish
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all five of the core building blocks in a convincing and compelling way. These building blocks
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will appear in an abridged form in the article’s abstract, in an enticing way in the article’s
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6 introduction, and in a fully elaborated way in the article’s theory development.
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8 Common Ground
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Davis (1971: 342) writes, “All social theories which are found interesting involve a
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13 certain movement of the mind of the audience who finds them so.” To move the mind of your
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15 readers, you’ll need their interest and tacit consent. Now, if you are setting about moving
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18 something, you should know not only where that something is being moved to, but also where it
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20 is currently located. It follows that you should describe that current location to your readers in
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22 such a way that they will concur with you. If you fail to get your readers nodding their heads in
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25 agreement with you initially—if you cannot establish common ground with your readers—it is
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27 likely that they will dismiss your work as untethered to reality or simply find it irrelevant to
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anything they can relate to or wish to read more about (Davis, 1971; Minto, 2002).
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32 Huff (1999) employs the very useful metaphor of joining a conversation when she
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34 describes establishing common ground with readers. We build on this metaphor by visualizing
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37 entering a conference room in the midst of an academic discussion. The discussion could be
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39 heated and contentious, or there could be a relatively high level of agreement in the room. It
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41 could be that there are multiple discussions related to the same subject going on within
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44 subgroups in the room, yet the subgroups are not interacting with each other. You (the aspiring
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46 author) have entered the room with your readers. Your initial task is to orient the readers to the
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48 discussion in a way that is accessible to them and relevant to their interests. If it so happens that a
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51 reader is one of the parties actively engaged in the discussion, your job remains the same—
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53 orient, don’t alienate—the reader.
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In the process of establishing common ground with your readers, you identify the primary
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6 literature you are contributing to and communicate your knowledge of that literature. Common
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8 ground means that you have laid out the basic assumptions, boundary conditions, and
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prescriptions of the literature, forming an agreeable starting point with your readers that gives
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13 them confidence that you are a reliable guide. Common ground means not only that you have
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15 convinced the readers that you have drawn in the relevant citations and areas of the literature, but
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18 also that you have synthesized and presented that literature with accuracy and efficiency. Once
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20 you have established a common ground with your readers, you can then illuminate the
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22 limitations—or complications—of the current conversation.
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25 Complication
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27 By now you’ve entered our metaphorical conference room, and you’ve oriented the
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reader to the nature and nuances of the academic discussion you wish to join. But, how to join
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32 the conversation? How do you pique the interest of those involved? How do you get them to turn
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34 to you and listen to what you have to add? You do all of that by pointing out to your reader some
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37 kind of complication to the common ground that you’ve already established (Minto, 2002). The
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39 complication will be a problem, puzzle, or twist in the ongoing academic conversation. Locke
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41 and Golden-Biddle (1997: 1040) refer to this task as “Problematizing the Situation,” and describe
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44 your options as identifying how the current academic conversation is inadequate or incomplete.
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46 Davis (1971) describes this task in terms of challenging the assumptions of your readers, and
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48 presents his “Index of the Interesting” (p. 313) as a guide for doing so. Practical examples from
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51 the world of management and organizations can also help you make your point. Whatever your
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53 approach, if you are able to introduce a compelling complication, you will inspire your reader to
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continue following the story you are laying out. As Grant and Pollock (2011) point out, your
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readers will not be inspired if you are too tentative in challenging their assumptions, but your
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6 readers also are likely to be turned off by a scorched-earth attempt to overthrow their assumption
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In the process of identifying a complication to the current academic discussion, you
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13 expose its limitations. You capture your readers’ attention and direct their interest to some
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15 missing element or failure in the literature. To do so successfully, you must negotiate the tradeoff
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18 between novelty and incrementalism. The greater the complication’s novelty, the less anchored it
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20 may be to the current literature and the more challenging it may be for your readers to
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22 understand and accept. In contrast, a more incremental complication may strike your readers as
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25 trite and mundane. It follows that, after introducing a complication, you must then make a
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27 compelling case to your readers that the complication is of concern—that it is important.
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Concern
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32 Alvesson and Sandberg (2011) and Grant and Pollock (2011) join many others in noting
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34 that simply pointing out a gap in the literature—that something has gone unstudied—is
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37 insufficient in motivating a study unless you are able to explain to your reader why the gap
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39 matters. Whatever complication you have identified in the literature, you must convince the
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41 reader that the complication is of concern. That need for a compelling explanation of the
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44 complication’s importance is a high hurdle, as inconsistencies, contradictions, and missing pieces
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46 are often relatively easy to identify in academic literatures, but readers may judge attention to
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48 these kinds of gaps as trivial, pedantic, or simply needless.
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51 Again, imagine that you are standing in our metaphorical conference room appealing to
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53 the very scholars engaged in the discussion, and that you are attempting to convince them that
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you have an important point. Your readers must believe in the relevance of the complication you
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have raised to issues they are concerned about. If you describe shortcomings in the literature—
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6 such as how the literature is incoherent, misleading, contradictory, or incomplete—you must
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8 further describe how and why those shortcomings matter. For the purposes of AMR in particular,
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how do those shortcomings limit our theoretical and practical understanding of organizations and
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13 management?
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15 In the process of explaining to your readers why the complication is of concern, you
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18 justify your search for a solution. When your readers are truly convinced that the complication
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20 matters, they will be eager to learn what you intend to do about it. Thus, having established
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22 common ground with your readers, shown them the complication to that common ground, and
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25 convinced them why the complication is of concern, you have set the stage for introducing your
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27 unique contribution to the literature—your course of action.
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Course of Action
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32 In describing your course of action, your job is to explain to your readers how you will be
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34 addressing and resolving your paper’s central complication. For the purposes of an AMR paper,
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37 how will you be developing or refining theory? Will it involve new constructs, modeling
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39 relationships among constructs, exploring a theoretical process, or a developing a typology? Will
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41 you be laying out argumentation challenging dominant theory? Will you be synthesizing existing
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44 theoretical perspectives to shed new light on a problem? Will you otherwise be identifying a
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46 novel approach to the theoretical topic?
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48 Clearly there are different paths to theory development and refinement. Our purpose here
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51 is not to describe those different paths in detail, as that subject has received a great deal of
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53 attention elsewhere. See, for example, Cornelissen’s (2017) recent article on the “Challenges of
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Writing Theory without a Boilerplate”, and the other the articles cited on the AMR “Theory
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Building Resources” page, found at http://aom.org/Publications/AMR/Theory-Building-
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6 Resources.aspx. Instead our purpose is to point out that you will need to identify and explain
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In the process of laying out the paper’s course of action, you work to convince the reader
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13 that the course of action is both relevant and effective. To be convincing, the logic in the course
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15 of action must be tight, well explained, and clearly directed at the central complication of the
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18 paper. Naturally, the course of action building block is the heart of the paper, but it is a building
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20 block that is interdependent with, and cannot be effective without, the four other building blocks.
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22 Having described a convincing solution to a compelling complication, you will now be in the
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25 position to highlight how the paper has influenced the academic conversation—how it makes a
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27 valuable contribution to the literature.
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Contribution
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32 Returning to our metaphorical conference room, you now are at the table—your ideas are
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34 now part of the ongoing conversation—but it is up to you to describe to your readers how and
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37 why that is so. This entails explaining how your work will shape or change the conversation—
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39 how it makes a distinct contribution. This doesn’t mean that you should exaggerate or puff up
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41 your contribution to the literature. Doing so will undermine your credibility with your readers.
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44 Rather, your job now is to highlight the ways in which your work may create “a certain
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46 movement of the mind of the audience” (Davis, 1971: 342). How might your work influence
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48 how prior literature is interpreted and understood? How might your work influence the trajectory
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51 of related scholarship?
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53 In the process of describing the paper’s contribution, you work to explain to the readers
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how the ideas in the paper are novel and meaningful, and how they take the readers beyond what
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they think they know from received theory. Ideally, you will describe in a convincing way how
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6 the paper may lead to further theoretical exploration and empirical investigation, as well as to
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8 insights that will influence practice in organizations and management. It is only by being
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effective with the other four building blocks—common ground, complication, concern, and
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13 course of action—that you will be able to make this convincing culminating argument about
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15 contribution.
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18 As you can see from our description of the five core building blocks, their explication is
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20 intertwined with a paper’s structure. Whereas the building blocks are not structure, a paper’s
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22 structure should complement and convey the building blocks in a logical way. Below, we outline
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25 this relationship.
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27 STRUCTURING THE CORE BUILDING BLOCKS
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29 The five core building blocks, as we described above, are:
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• Common ground
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• Course of Action
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39 The building blocks represent the content of your paper, and they typically follow a
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41 logical sequence reflected in your paper’s structure. As you design your paper, you should
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44 consider how the structure incorporates the building blocks and facilitates communication of the
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46 building blocks to the reader.
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48 Two of the structural elements of your paper, the abstract and the paper’s introduction,
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51 should contain all five building blocks. The abstract should therefore convey the state of the
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53 literature (what we know), the limitations to the literature (what puzzle exists), the importance of
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55 those limitations, your intended solution, and the value you are adding to the literature with your
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58 solution. Space in the abstract is limited (about 200 words), so you will necessarily deliver the
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building blocks in an abridged fashion. The introduction, at about 3-4 pages, mimics the abstract,
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6 but describes each of the five building blocks in a more elaborated way.2 You can even think of
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8 the building blocks as you are coming up with a title for your paper. A catchy title that highlights
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more than one of the building blocks will help convey the nature of your paper to the prospective
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13 reader. The structural signposts in your paper, including headings and figure/table labels, will
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15 help you further orient your readers to how you are explaining the building blocks.
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18 In the body of the paper, you will elaborate on the common ground, complication, and
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20 concern that you mentioned in the introduction. For example, in the second section of the paper,
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22 which typically spans about 5-7 pages following the introduction, you could elaborate on the
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25 common ground, or what we know from the received literature. This could include a review of
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27 the relevant literature, a description of your context, and an explanation of any boundary
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conditions or assumptions for your arguments. Keep in mind that typical AMR papers involve a
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32 theoretical synthesis of a given literature, and not just a basic descriptive review. That is, your
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34 literature review should be a means to an end. It is not feasible to review all the received
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37 literature in the space you have available, so you must focus on those areas of the literature that
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39 speak directly to your research question and core audience. Use your literature review to show
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41 how your theoretical contributions begin at the point where the literature falls short.
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44 You could end the second section by highlighting the complication and concern, i.e., by
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46 explaining the limitations of the current literature and their importance. You then can foreshadow
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48 the remainder of the paper, which will entail your course of action and contribution. Got a figure
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51 that’s a roadmap? The end of section two can be a good place to insert it.
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57 We recommend these page lengths based on our experience as authors, reviewers, and editors, as well as the
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You can then use the rest of the body of the paper, about 10-15 pages, to develop that
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6 course of action and how it represents a unique and valuable contribution to the literature. The
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8 paper’s final section, the discussion section, can then be devoted to elaborating on the
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contribution of your paper. A useful way to structure your discussion is to offer an opening
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13 summary paragraph that reflects the key contributions you laid out in the introduction. You can
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15 then elaborate on each of these contributions in a separate subsection, followed by a section on
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18 practical implications of your theory as well as any limitations and future research directions. For
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20 an initial submission, we suggest a discussion section of about 3-5 pages. Taken together, then,
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22 an initial submission should be about 30 pages, with an abstract on page 1, an introduction
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25 ending by page 5, the second section ending by page 10 or 12, the core of your theoretical
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27 development reaching page 25, and the discussion culminating about page 30.
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As we mentioned above, theoretical contributions come in many forms (see Cornelissen,
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32 2017), but all of them reflect the five building blocks, conveyed and highlighted through the
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34 paper’s complementary structure. In practical terms, a reader should be able to read your title,
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37 section headings, propositions (where applicable), and figures/tables and have a good
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39 understanding of what your paper is about, how you are extending the current literature, and
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41 what your key contributions are. Then, each of the major parts of your paper should reflect the
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44 relevant building blocks.
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46 In our final section, we look at a set of exemplary articles that emphasize the value and
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48 complementary nature of an article’s five building blocks and related structure.
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51 SENSE AND STRUCTURE: THE CORE BUILDING BLOCKS IN ACTION
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53 To illustrate how authors employ and structure the five core building blocks, we set out to
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identify them in a select set of AMR articles. We decided to focus on the winners of the annual
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AMR Best Article award, as they have been judged to be exemplars, but the building blocks will
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6 be evident in virtually all AMR articles. We looked at the Best Article winners from each of the
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8 past five years (i.e., Mainemelis, 2010; Sitkin, See, Miller, Lawless, & Carton, 2011; Afuah &
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Tucci, 2012; Ashcraft, 2013; Furnari, 2014) and, in particular, at the articles’ introductions (the
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13 text following the abstract and preceding the first major heading).
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15 “Stealing Fire: Creative Deviance in the Evolution of New Ideas” (Mainemelis, 2010)
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18 Common ground. In the first sentence of this article, Mainemelis works to establish non-
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20 controversial common ground with the reader: “In recent decades organizational science has
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22 witnessed a proliferation of research on workplace creativity and workplace deviance” (2010:
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25 558). As we read on, he makes clear what he means by the terms “workplace creativity” and
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27 “workplace deviance,” and he distinguishes between the two. Mainemelis explains that the
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relationship between the two constructs hasn’t received a lot of research attention, but there has
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32 been some preliminary consideration of how tolerance for non-conformity could be positively
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34 associated with creativity. In his short opening paragraph he has set the stage for the
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37 complication.
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39 Complication. The complication, then, is that the academic discussions on deviance and
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41 creativity are largely taking place separately, even though those discussions are highly relevant
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46 Concern. Is that complication a trivial “gap” in the literature? Mainemelis builds the case
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48 that it is much more than that—that this lack of interplay between the deviance and creativity
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51 discussions ignores how often and importantly those constructs are interrelated in the real world.
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53 To make that case, he touches on five different empirical examples, all described within a
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reasonably short second paragraph of the article.
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Course of action. Mainemelis is now ready to describe the solution that he will develop
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6 in the article. In these next few sentences he transitions from explaining the complication to
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8 introducing the course of action, which he then describes further in about four paragraphs:
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The evolution of new ideas often entails a dynamic transition: when first proposed, new
12 ideas are often rejected because they are perceived as weird, inappropriate, unworkable,
13 or too risky, but these same ideas may later result in an outcome that the social context
14 accepts as useful and breakthrough (Staw, 1995). The five cases I list above suggest that
15 deviance—specifically, the violation of a managerial order to stop working on a new
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idea—plays a role in that transition. In this article I refer to this individual-level
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18 nonconforming behavior as creative deviance, and I propose a theory about its general
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21 Contribution. Concluding the introduction, Mainemelis lays out quickly but effectively
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how this work is apt to change the scholarly conversation. He does this by describing the
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26 implications of his theory development:
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28 I argue that the organizational conditions that creativity research has long portrayed as
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stimulants of creativity induce structural strain, which, in turn, increases the rate of
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31 creative deviance. In addition, I argue that when the organization places a relatively
32 higher emphasis on creativity than on conformity to orders, it is likely to employ
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34 (maintains up to a desirable degree) the rate of creative deviance. I suggest that creative
35 deviance mitigates some of the tensions of the social structure in which it occurs, fosters
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37 the evolution of radical new ideas, and allows the organization to respond in a flexible
38 manner to the inherent uncertainty that both creativity and deviance entail. (Mainemelis,
39 2010: 560)
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41 “The Paradox of Stretch Goals: Organizations in Pursuit of the Seemingly Impossible”
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(Sitkin, See, Miller, Lawless, & Carton, 2011)
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45 Common ground. Sitkin et al. start this article by refreshing the reader on the tension
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47 between exploration and exploitation in organizations. “An organization can ensure continued
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50 survival only by performing well in the near term while positioning itself for strong performance
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52 in an uncertain future” (2011: 544). The reader can easily agree with the authors when they point
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54 out that exploration is crucial for the health and survival of an organization, but for a number of
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57 reasons exploration is often crowded out by pressures for exploitation. Sitkin et al. go on to
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describe some approaches that organization theorists have proposed for promoting organizational
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6 exploration, and then focus on how the pursuit of “stretch goals”—goals that are seemingly
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8 impossible—can stimulate exploratory learning in organizations.
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Complication. Having used the majority of the article’s introduction to lay out the above
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13 common ground, Sitkin et al. then proceed to efficiently introduce the complication in a few
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15 provocative questions about stretch goals. The complication is that it isn’t yet clear whether and
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18 why stretch goals could “increase learning or performance in some circumstances but decrease
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20 them in others” (2011: 546), and it isn’t clear if the organizations likely to pursue stretch goals
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22 will be the ones most likely to benefit from them.
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25 Concern. Although the building blocks often appear in articles in somewhat linear
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27 progression, this article represents a good illustration of how they can be presented elsewise.
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Here discussion of the value of addressing the complication actually precedes the introduction of
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32 the complication, as Sitkin et al. have interwoven concern and common ground. The reader joins
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34 the conversation understanding not just that exploration and exploitation are in tension, and not
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37 just that stretch goals can help resolve that tension, but also that exploration efforts (and thus
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39 stretch goals) are critical to the success and survival of the organization.
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41 Course of action. Sitkin et al. conclude the introduction by describing their course of
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44 action briefly and efficiently. That course of action includes defining stretch goals, examining
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46 “the underlying cognitive, affective, and behavioral mechanisms through which stretch goals
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48 might positively or negatively influence organizational learning and performance outcomes,”
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51 formulating “propositions around recent performance and slack resources as the key contingency
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53 factors determining when stretch goals will facilitate versus disrupt learning and performance,”
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and offering “propositions concerning how these same contingency factors also determine the
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6 likelihood that an organization will be drawn to using stretch goals” (2011: 546).
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8 Contribution. Again, shaking up the linear progression of the building blocks, in this
9
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11
article the explanation of the contribution proceeds the description of the course of action. In one
12
13 paragraph Sitkin et al. lay out how their work will make a number of contributions to the
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15 literature, including providing new insights about the relationships between stretch goals and
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18 crucial organizational processes and outcomes, such as exploration of new practices, risk taking,
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20 learning under conditions of ambiguous feedback, and developing dynamic capabilities. As
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22 Sitkin et al. list the contributions of the study, they highlight a key implication of their study,
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25 “We suggest that as goals become extreme, there are complex yet predictable organizational
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27 effects that are likely to be negative except under a limited set of specifiable circumstances”
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29
(2011: 546).
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32 “Crowdsourcing as a Solution to Distant Search” (Afuah & Tucci, 2012)
33
34 Common ground. The central construct in this article, “crowdsourcing,” is a term that,
35
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37 according to the article’s introduction, was coined only about 10 years ago (although the idea
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39 behind the term has existed and been in practice for centuries). To establish common ground
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41 with the reader—to give the reader an accessible entry point to the conversation—Afuah and
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44 Tucci provide a clear definition of the construct and some of its variants. Afuah and Tucci
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46 further build the common ground by offering a number of examples, both contemporary and
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48 historical, of how crowdsourcing has appeared in practice.
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51 Complication. As a result of the common ground work, the reader understands that
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53 crowdsourcing is a type of outsourcing by the firm for the purpose of problem solving.
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Crowdsourcing stands in contrast both to the firm doing the problem solving itself, and to the
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firm outsourcing the problem solving to a non-crowd (to a designated agent). The complication
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6 is that the literature provides no clear answer as to why crowdsourcing would be a better
7
8 mechanism for problem solving than the alternatives.
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Concern. As in the Sitkin et al. (2011) article that we discussed above, Afuah and Tucci
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13 have interwoven the value of addressing the complication—the concern building block—with
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15 their introduction of the common ground. They did this though their use of examples, illustrating
16
17
18 the effectiveness of crowdsourcing. One example they give is of Facebook’s need to translate
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20 internet content from English into other languages. “…[I]t turned to the public. A crowd of
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22 translators worked together on the translation and completed it for Facebook in record time—
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25 from English to French in a few days, from English to Spanish in two weeks, and so on” (2012:
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27 355). The implication of this and the other examples is that crowdsourcing can be a very
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29
effective means of organizational problem solving, and therefore it is important to understand the
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31
32 conditions that allow it to be so effective.
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34 Course of action. To make the case for their chosen course of action, Afuah and Tucci
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37 first explain why transaction cost economics, a predominant theory for understanding insourcing
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39 versus outsourcing decisions, is not satisfactory for the question of when and why crowdsourcing
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41 will be effective. Afuah and Tucci instead draw on the behavioral and evolutionary theories of
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44 the firm. They write, “In particular, we argue that under certain circumstances crowdsourcing
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46 transforms distant search into local search, thereby enabling firms to enjoy the many benefits of
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48 distant search without having to endure many of its costs” (2012: 356).
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51 Contribution. Afuah and Tucci wrap up their introduction by describing the promise of
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53 the article—that the reader will gain an understanding of when solutions require distant search,
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and therefore when crowdsourcing will be a superior mechanism relative to insourcing or
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6 designated contracting.
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8 Specifically, the probability a focal agent (individual, group, or organization) will use
9 crowdsourcing to solve a problem is high when (1) the problem is easy to delineate and
10
11
broadcast to the crowd, (2) the knowledge required to solve the problem falls outside the
12 focal agent’s knowledge neighborhood (requires distant search), (3) the crowd is large,
13 with some members of the crowd motivated and knowledgeable enough to self-select and
14 solve the problem, (4) the final solution is easy to evaluate and integrate into the focal
15 agent’s value chain, and (5) information technologies are low cost and pervasive in the
16
environment that includes the focal agent and the crowd. (Afuah & Tucci, 2012: 356)
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18
19 “The Glass Slipper: ‘Incorporating’ Occupational Identity in Management Studies”
20 (Ashcraft, 2013)
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22 Common ground. The introduction in this particular article is the shortest of the five
23
24
25 articles we are examining, taking up only four paragraphs. Yet, we are not surprised to find that
26
27 the five core building blocks are clearly identifiable, and introduced with efficiency. That starts
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29
with the common ground, delivered essentially in the first three sentences of the article:
30
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32 Management scholars have long split the study of work and diversity, based on the
33 assumption that it is reasonable for “mainstream” research on the nature of work to
34 proceed apart from “diversity” research on the allocation of social groups to certain lines
35 of work (Ridgeway & Correll, 2000; Weeden, 2002). Although scholars in both areas
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37 acknowledge such phenomena as gender- and race-segregated occupations, we regard
38 these as the purview of diversity studies. Meanwhile, we assume that the content, value,
39 practice, and administration of work have little to do with issues like race or gender.
40 (Ashcraft, 2013: 6)
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42
43
Complication. Ashcraft then argues that the management literature is not recognizing
44
45 important evidence from other literatures that contradicts that common ground. The
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47 complication, then, is that “it is not tenable to theorize work and diversity separately because we
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50 judge the nature of work by the gender and race of associated practitioners” (2013: 6).
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52 Concern. Ashcraft then immediately addresses why the complication should be of
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54 concern to the reader:
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[T]heories of phenomena in which we take keen interest—such as professional identity
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5 and professionalization; contemporary work practices; work meaningfulness; recruitment,
6 hiring, and promotion; occupational prestige; wage differentials and the distribution of
7 wealth; and the diversification of occupations and organizations—may reflect serious
8 distortions based on the erroneous assumption that so-called diversity issues play a
9 peripheral, rather than constitutive, role in the organization of work. (Ashcraft, 2013:6)
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11
12 Course of action. The course of action proposed by Ashcraft is to foster a “bilateral
13
14 view” (both that people derive identity from work and that work derives identity from associated
15
16
people). She writes that she will theorize “the glass slipper—a metaphor that encapsulates how
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18
19 occupations come to appear, by nature, possessed of central, enduring, and distinctive
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21 characteristics that make them suited to certain people and implausible for others” (2013: 7).
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Contribution. Finally, Ashcraft highlights how her theorizing will influence the
25
26 literature. In particular she writes, “The glass slipper exposes systematic forms of advantage and
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28 disadvantage, in this case stemming from alignment between occupations and social identities”
29
30
31 (2013: 7).
32
33 “Interstitial Spaces: Microinteraction Settings and the Genesis of New Practices Between
34 Institutional Fields” (Furnari, 2014)
35
36
37 Common ground. In the 2014 AMR Best Article award winner, Furnari establishes a
38
39 non-controversial starting point with the reader by describing the early days of the computer
40
41 industry in Silicon Valley.
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44 [S]mall-scale settings hosted informal, occasional interactions between people from
45 distant institutional fields, such as hippie anti-war activists and “serious engineering
46 types,” becoming “perhaps the oddest of cultural and technical intersections” (Markoff,
47 2004: 265). New practices emerged from these apparently inconsequential “interstitial
48 spaces” between fields, bearing the “imprinting” (Stinchcombe, 1965) of the early-stage
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50 moments in which different cultures first met in these transitory settings. …Such situated
51 microinteraction dynamics, and their important effects on the genesis of new practices,
52 are not unique to the high-tech world but characterize several important phenomena at the
53 intersection of fields… (Furnari, 2014: 439)
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Complication. Furnari then describes the complication to this common ground, which is
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6 that we don’t know much about these “early-stage, transitional periods when ‘the possibility of a
7
8 new practice first emerges and is recognized as an opportunity for some social groups’
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11
(Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007: 994)” (2014: 440). And, there hasn’t been a lot of research
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13 attention to “transitional situations in which actors from different fields interact, and to how
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15 these situated microinteractions between fields can affect the emergence of new practices…”
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17
18 (2014: 440).
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20 Concern. Furnari describes how the complication is of concern, as the initial early-stage
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22 transitional periods “turn out to be fundamental in explaining how new practices emerge”, and
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25 the “genesis of new practices has remained relatively undertheorized in institutional research”
26
27 (2014: 440). Furnari argues further that taking the:
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29
…microinteractions into account is important because, ultimately, it is through situated
30
31 interactions that institutions acquire their “local force and significance” (Hallett &
32 Ventresca, 2006: 213), shaping how meanings are encoded into practices “on the ground”
33 (McPherson & Sauder, 2013: 2; see also Binder, 2007, and Reay, Golden-Biddle, &
34 Germann, 2006). (Furnari, 2014: 440)
35
36
37 Course of action. Having established the common ground, along with the complication
38
39 and its importance, Furnari next lays out his course of action. He will investigate the research
40
41 question, “How do situated microinteractions between individuals positioned in different
42
43
44 institutional fields affect the genesis of new practices” (2014: 440).
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46 To understand how new practices can emerge in interstitial spaces, I develop a model
47 linking the features of these interaction settings, the microinteraction dynamics that can
48 occur in them, and the genesis of new practices. Specifically, I illustrate how the three
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50 defining features of these settings facilitate the individuals interacting in them to
51 temporarily break free from existing institutions and experiment collectively with new
52 activities and ideas, which can, in turn, constitute new practices. (Furnari, 2014: 441)
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54 Contribution. Furnari concludes the article’s introduction by highlighting three ways it
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56
57 makes contribution to the literature, including extending research on positions between fields,
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contributing to research on microlevel processes of practice emergence, and adding to the stream
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6 of research on microfoundations of institutional theory.
7
8 Incidentally, in AMR’s new video library, you can watch Furnari talking about the
9
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process of writing his article (http://aom.org/videos/amr/).
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13 FINAL THOUGHTS ON HOW YOU MIGHT USE THIS FRAMEWORK
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15 We’ve deliberately presented this framework simply, at the risk of seeming too derivative
16
17
18 of the more nuanced writing advice given by others. Yet, we think the simple nature of the five
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20 core building blocks framework can make it easy to remember and valuable to employ. Here are
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22 four occasions when you might find it useful to think in terms of the core building blocks.
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25 Idea Finding
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27 How does a prospective AMR writer come up with a great idea? We expect that the worst
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way to do so is to sit in front of a blank computer screen, with the cursor blinking at you
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32 incessantly, while your mind searches for some way you can start writing and make a
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34 contribution. Instead, we suggest you might have more success and enjoyment in your quest if
35
36
37 you follow the five core building blocks as a linear guide. The common ground and complication
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39 building blocks require you to immerse yourself in a literature of interest. You must become an
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41 expert on the nature and nuances of a particular academic discussion. By doing so, you’ll start to
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43
44 get a sense of the gaps. What problems, puzzles, or twists in the ongoing academic conversation
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46 become evident? Further, why are they of concern? What is possibly incoherent, misleading,
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48
contradictory, or incomplete about the literature, and how do those shortcomings distort or
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51 impede our theoretical understanding of organizations and management? How is current theory
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53 or the current literature limited in its practical relevance to and prescriptions for the real world of
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management and organizations? By being clear on the problem you are trying to solve, you can
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then move on to your solution, to your course of action, and you can create it with an eye toward
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6 the contribution you will be making. How will your paper influence the academic conversation?
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8 This linear approach to idea finding is in contrast to what we would call the backward approach:
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thinking up a cool solution and then trying to figure out a problem that it might address. Whereas
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13 scholars may use the latter approach successfully, we see it as riskier than an approach rooted in
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15 common ground and complication.
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18 Writing for Scholarly Publication
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20 In writing the actual article, you likely will fail if you miss one of the five core building
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22 blocks. As we’ve reviewed AMR papers in the past, and in our current roles at associate editors,
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25 we are constantly noting authors falling short on one or more of these basic points. We
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27 recommend that, as an exercise in paper development, you deliberately write out answers to the
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29
five core building blocks, as if they were questions. Much of your paper development work will
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32 entail thinking about, writing, and repeatedly refining your answers to the building blocks. When
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34 you have them all well thought out, you can condense them into a paper abstract, you can write
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37 them enticingly in the introduction, and you can develop them in a fully elaborated way as you
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39 craft your complete paper. Of course a caveat is that, even if you think that your five building
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41 blocks are in place and coherently connected, AMR reviewers may not find that you have made a
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44 persuasive line of argumentation on your issue of concern. Our point is that a focus on the
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46 building blocks will help you be successful, but cannot ensure your success in the difficult
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48 endeavor of theory writing.3
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51 Reviewing for Scholarly Journals and Conferences
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3
54 We remind readers that AMR papers must make a clear theoretical contribution that builds on the existing
55 literature. Manuscripts need to account for received theory and research, while also offering a novel perspective that
56 sheds new light on the focal phenomenon and guides future research. The paper must be grounded in an appropriate
57 set of assumptions with clear boundary conditions, and it also needs to offer a coherent and consistent set of
58 arguments (http://aom.org/amr/).
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We find the core building blocks can be a valuable tool to organize our thinking as we
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6 review others’ work. We ask, did the author present the five core building blocks in a compelling
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8 way? Did we enjoy a clear systematic orientation to the pertinent academic discussion? Were we
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then intrigued by the author’s challenge to that discussion? Did the author convince us that the
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13 challenge is nontrivial and requires resolution? Did the author offer a well-thought out plan of
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15 action and make a compelling case that it resolves the paper’s central conflict? Did the author
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18 convince us that the paper is likely to influence the academic discussion in a meaningful way?
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20 We would typically refrain from talking about the building blocks per se in our reviews, as that
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22 might seem overly schoolmasterish. But, we think it is important to give comprehensive and
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25 constructive feedback on their content to authors. We would remark on how well the authors did,
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27 or on how a paper might need improvement, on one or more of those basic points—doing so in a
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developmental way to help authors address these issues.
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32 Reading and Remembering the Literature
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34 A fourth possible use of the framework is as a guide for quickly and efficiently digesting
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37 a scholarly article. Along the same lines, the framework can be a good tool for organizing notes
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39 on articles, or otherwise retaining them in your memory. For example, a student working to learn
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41 a literature in preparation for a comprehensive examination might read academic articles with an
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44 eye toward answering the five core building blocks as if they were questions. Jotting down quick
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46 notes about each of the building blocks would create an efficient summary of the article. The
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48 result of a series of such notes might look something like the article analyses that we did above
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51 on the five AMR Best Article winners.
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53 CONCLUSION
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Returning one last time to our metaphorical conference room, it is ultimately the job of a
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6 scholar to find a way to sit down at that table, to join the academic conversation, and to shape the
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8 discussion into the future. Maybe your grateful, intact cat will be there to purr you on. We hope
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you find the five core building block framework useful as you do so, or as you mentor others in
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13 their learning about scholarly writing.
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6 Afuah, A., & Tucci, C. L. 2012. Crowdsourcing as a solution to distant search. Academy of
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8 Management Review, 37: 355-375.
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Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. 2011. Generating research questions through problematization.
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13 Academy of Management Review, 36: 247-271.
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15 Ashcraft, K. L. 2013. The glass slipper: "Incorporating" occupational identity in management
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18 studies. Academy of Management Review, 38: 6-31.
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20 Binder, A. 2007. For love and money: Organizations' creative responses to multiple
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22 environmental logics. Theory and Society, 36: 547-571.
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25 Cornelissen, J. P. 2017. Developing propositions, a process model or a typology? Tthe
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32 Davis, M. S. 1971. That’s interesting! Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1: 309-344.
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34 Furnari, S. 2014. Interstitial spaces: Microinteraction settings and the genesis of new practices
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39 Grant, A. M., & Pollock, T. G. 2011. Publishing in AMJ--Part 3: Setting the hook. Academy of
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44 Hallett, T., & Ventresca, M. J. 2006. Inhabited institutions: Social interactions and organizational
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20 Markoff, J. 2004. What the dormouse said: How the sixties counterculture shaped the personal
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27 drug court. Administrative Science Quarterly, 20: 1-32.
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32 Reay, T., Golden-Biddle, K., & Germann, K. 2006. Legitimizing a new role: Small wins and
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34 micro-processes of change. Academy of Management Journal, 49: 977-998.
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37 Ridgeway, C. L., & Correll, S. J. 2000. Limiting inequality through interaction: The end(s) of
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39 gender. Contemporary Sociology, 29: 110-120.
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41 Sitkin, S. B., See, K. E., Miller, C. C., Lawless, M. W., & Carton, A. M. 2011. The paradox of
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48 Staw, B. M. 1995. Why no one really wants creativity. In C. M. Ford & D. A. Gioia (Eds.),
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