Transcript On the Research, Writing, and Paper Organization for

Writing and Organizing Your Paper
for Asia Pacific Journal of
Management (and other
Mainstream Management Publications)
David Ahlstrom
Professor – The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Editor-in-Chief, Asia Pacific Journal of Management
[email protected]
ASIA PACIFIC
JOURNAL OF
MANAGEMENT
Official Journal of the
Asia Academy of
Management
http://www.baf.cuhk.edu.hk/asiaaom/index.html
David Ahlstrom
Editor-in-Chief
The Chinese University of
Hong Kong
[email protected]
The paper organization and submission
checklist – especially for empirical papers*
1) Shorten your title (it’s not an abstract!)
2) The Introduction is very important. Finish the Introduction section in
about 2-3 pages (about 5-7 paragraphs)
3) What is your research question? Frame research in terms of a question.
(more on that later) Can you make the title into a question?
4) Motivate / Situate your paper–the mini-lit review (in the Introduction)
5) Brief method statement (in Introduction)
6) What will the results of your paper contribute (briefly stated in the
Introduction).
7) Some authors finish the introduction with a list of what they will do
next, space permitting.
8) Literature review (Theory) should tell a story / progression of the
literature’s development. A good literature review:
a) It helps you to situate / locate / position (editors sometimes say
“motivate”) your paper properly.
b) It helps you to enter the research program (stream) in the ‘right place.’
c) 3. You convince reviewers and editors that you know the literature.
The paper organization and submission
checklist*
9)
If you have hypotheses, you usually need 1-2 paragraphs per hypothesis. Do not list
hypotheses. Do not put them into a table only.
10)
Try to start your Methods section no later than page 15 (for management papers).
Some papers may require a separate ‘Research Design’ subsection.
11)
Restate your hypotheses in the Results section (not word for word, but remind
readers of them, and then give your results – one by one)
12)
No new ideas and cites in Results (just your findings with very brief comment or
clarification about them)
13)
After the Results section, go right into the Discussion section. Try to start the
Discussion section with the Contributions subsection.
14)
If you need to explain more about your results, say it in the discussion section, in
context of the Contributions (probably empirical contributions)
15)
Limitations and future research should finish the discussion section (not at the end
of the paper).
16)
Have a 1-2 paragraph Conclusion (Don’t end with Limitations). Summarize for
those readers that did not want to read the whole paper. No need to restate each
finding, but give a summary of what you found (i.e. not linear but inverted U…)
17)
The shorter your paper, the better!
•
(Adopted from Mike Peng; and Ahlstrom, 2010 APJM, issue, 2 and 2011 issues 2, 3 and 4 )
•
Let’s Amplify and Expand on some of these…
Craft (and shorten) your title
Easy to remember (and cite!)
– Peng and Heath (1996 AMR): The growth of the firm in
planned economies in transition: Organizations, institutions, and
strategic choices (15 words)
– Peng (2003 AMR): Institutional transitions and strategic
choices (5 words).
Sometimes a standout or substitute word can help (“iron cage”;
seesaws; windmills, competing, etc – especially active words with -ing).
--Consider: Speed, competitive strategy, and its relationship with firm
performance (9 words, already a very good title, no subtitle)
--Changed to: Competitive speed and firm performance (5 words)
– Later, the author chose this title: Competing on speed (3 words—
reducing 2/3 of previous length, and “competing” replaced both
“strategy” and “performance”)
The Introduction is very important
One editor of AMJ said that he thought about half
the papers he desk rejected were primarily due
to the introduction.
Research question is important
Length is important (usually about 5-7 paragraphs,
maybe 2+ pages – this is what is in AMJ also in
recent years on average).
Motivating (situating, positioning) your paper in a
summary of past literature – the mini-lit review.
Contributions
The Research Question -- Raise questions,
preferably in the 1st sentence
– Peng (2003 AMR): “How do organizations make strategic choices
during the time of fundamental and comprehensive institutional transitions?”
– Peng (2004 SMJ): “Do outside directors on corporate boards make a
difference in firm performance?”
– And especially see Meyer, Estrin, Bhaumik, & Peng (2009 SMJ): “What
determines foreign market entry strategies?”
Raise a question in the title if possible
– Peng, Lee, & Wang (2005 AMR):
“What determines the scope of the firm over time? A focus on institutional
relatedness”
Pay attention to the question word (What, why, how, when, where, who, and do).
Usually ‘what’ is a common question word for a standard (hypothesis-driven)
variance study, such as “what factors are related to Y.” ‘How’ is more
associated with a process study, as in “how did this event occur (over time).”
Avoid ‘examine’; ‘investigate’; ‘explore’; ‘study
about’ (unless really is an exploratory study)
Avoid “questions” such as:
“We are going to examine innovation in China.” Or “explore
guanxi in China”
Or “We are going to look at the factors leading to good HR
performance in India.”
Or “We will investigate how TQM leads to firm performance.”
These are overly broad and hard to ‘answer’ in the context of
a paper (or they have already been answered by dozens
of past studies and now researchers have to find some
new area within this topic – usually some way of improving
the theory (new mediator or moderator), but this must be
carefully justified or motivated through the literature review
of the paper.
Consider this (too-broad) topic
Too broad: What are the factors that lead to firm ‘success?’
That is a better question than on the previous slides, but:
Focused enough? No - What are the factors that lead to firm
success in China? Very broad and tough to really answer in a 30
page research paper.
We do need to know about this, but before a paper, or a review
paper can be written about China firm performance in general,
we need to understand more specifics about firm performance
there.
For example, how much does the CEO (or Managing Director)
matter to firm performance? Does changing the CEO in China
impact firm performance?
See Entrepreneurship : Theory & Practice, (See Hayton, George & Zahra
2002) for a good set of sample research questions
Motivate / Situate your paper:
mini-literature review (in Introduction)
The Introduction should contain a miniliterature review. Give a quick summary of
the main relevant literature and its
development. Do not go into detail (i.e. the
results of those past studies) beyond what
is necessary in the introduction (see
Meyer et al., SMJ 2009)
Be careful about saying “little research has
been done on this topic.” If you write that,
try to be pretty certain it is correct.
Theory Contributions (mention in the introduction, then a longer
subsection at the start of the Discussion section)
Theory Contribution: Research question asked, “Is culture associated
with differences in rates of new firm formation [i.e. do different
countries have different levels of entrepreneurship] after controlling for
economic/structural factors?”
– Note that question suggests important moderators that were not
included in earlier studies and thus represents an important extension
(theory contributions) of previous research.
Sometimes the theory contribution can be answering a simple
question about theory, such as ‘what leads to firm growth in a
transition economy?’ The condition of a transition economy suggests
theory contributions, and further discussion in the introduction
introduced institutions and their importance.
Empirical & Practice Contributions
Empirical Contribution: Usually some interesting empirical
finding. Also relates to accurate and valid descriptions and
measurements of the variables.
-- In the growth example above, an empirical contribution could
be a finding about firm growth, particularly something new or
underdetermined in previous research.
Empirical contributions also can include a new variable or direct
effect on the dependent variable. New conditions seem to fall
sometimes as empirical contributions or theory contributions.
Practice Contribution: Something that can be used or
potentially used by practicing managers, supervisors, or
consultants (or even government officials).
– For the growth example, it is relatively easy to give practical
examples for managers about how firms grow and what factors
and strategic actions are most likely to lead to growth.
State contributions directly
This is also why seemingly good papers get rejected. The problem is they fail to
make any meaningful contribution to the literature. For example, a paper that
studies work motivation using very traditional theory (e.g. Expectancy Theory)
and variables would probably not be making any significant contribution over
what is already known. At least it would have to work hard to show that
contribution.
The first few papers on a topic provide a lot of contributions. The 50th paper on a
topic probably will provide a lot less contribution; at least the author must work
hard to show what that contribution is (and this leads into the literature
review…).
• One paper I received linked teams, feedback, and some
leadership variables to performance. No theory
structure – just a list of variables and their link to
performance which is already well known
• That is a little like sending a paper to medical journal
about aspirin’s effect on headaches.
• See my editorial in APJM on ‘Helpful sources’
(Ahlstrom, 2011 – issue 4) for more on ‘contributions.’
Literature review – Should be summarized very quickly in
the Introduction and then a longer Literature Review
section
See Introduction of Meyer et al. (SMJ 2009) for a good
example of a summary literature review –
www.mikepeng.com
After the Introduction section, you need some literature
review or summary of theory and past research. Do not go
directly to the methods section.
Short, focused -- no need to cite 1,000 articles
Your focus: Puzzles? Contradictions? Gaps?
Some authors just provide a short write-up and then a table
to list the papers. Not a good approach.
– Show your figure (usually your research framework) before you
start making complex arguments (end of Intro is a good place to
position this figure)
– Your figure becomes a road map . . . helping reviewers
Also see ‘research program’ slides below
The Literature Review and the current Research
Program (or research stream)
Important: At what stage is the literature in now and how can I
contribute? This is summarized in the introduction with a “mini
literature review” To do this, you must know what literature came
before.
All Nobel Prize winners start off their talk by summarizing what work came
before them, how they built off of that work, and where their work fits.
So editors may be upset or worried to read “very little research has been
done on this topic before.” Or just the skipping of the literature review.
Try to tell a little story about the development of the literature and where you
are entering the research program (stream). Are you redefining some
weakly defined measures? Were all observations thrown into a ‘bin’ with the
same or similar label (e.g. the work on corruption and bribery seems to have
done this), when in fact they should be analytically separated.
Is the literature “stuck” on more and more descriptive studies or bigger and
bigger SEM models? and has failed to cross over the “chasm” to
prescriptions for managers and firms?
Example -- a problem literature review
Example: “Different typologies of influence strategies exist, but this
research distinguishes two general categories of influence strategies -- so
says a 1980 article.”
First problem with this statement: What research? Past research? This
paper’s research? – be careful of vague pronouns like “this, that, these,
those” etc – be clear about what you are talking about (i.e. “This what…”).
The author did not clearly distinguish between “the past research” and
the “current research.”
Second problem: Huh? Is the author joking -- two categories of influence
strategies? Has the author bothered to read what the social psychology
literature says about influence and persuasion over the past sixty years?
Influence and persuasion are not the same things; this paper has not
recognized this.
In addition, there is about sixty years of past research. Why cite only a
couple of papers from the 1980s? How about a fuller story of influence and
what your paper can add to the sixty years of research (hint: it is certainly
not “two general categories of influence strategies” – there are many
more than that, both content of influence / persuasion, and process of
influence).
Literature review example - better:
Factors leading to firm growth
Consider the research program (stream of articles) on how /what factors
lead to firm growth.
Traditional approach linked firm growth to simple characteristics of the
firm. That is, smaller firms were more likely to grow, larger firms were
less likely. And then in later research, these simple characteristic
correlations were explained (theory-based mechanism) by risk-taking of
small firms versus (risk-averse) large firms.
Research in IO economics (Penrose; Porter) and later strategy (Peng &
Heath, AMR 1996) gradually showed other specific methods of firm
growth (more sales and marketing intensity, acquisitions, share buybacks
to boost share price and reduce cost of capital, government backed
financing and loans, and other institutional factors etc).
Literature review example: Factors
leading to firm growth
While this IO and strategy research was going on, work from
economics (Robert Solow, 1956, 1957; Schumpeter, 1942)
suggested the importance of innovation and technology to firm
growth.
This led to a line of research on innovation, and improving
innovation, and later linking innovation to firm growth.
Another line of research on excellence in HR (High Performance
HR Systems – HPHRS) also identified firm growth or firm
performance and its connection to HR.
Any questions as yet?
Hypothesis Section
See good empirical papers in APJM, SMJ, AMJ, etc. to see how
hypotheses are justified (1-2 paragraphs before each hypothesis) and
then worded.
Do not just list hypotheses (i.e. H1, H2, H3 etc)
Do not put hypotheses in the abstract
Do not put hypotheses in the Methods section.
Do not put hypotheses (for the first time) in the results section
Generally do not hypothesize null (no effect) findings by saying “there is
no difference between these groups, etc”). But see Peng, 2004 SMJ –
“Outside directors and firm performance during institutional
transitions” – for a good discussion in the Methodology section on
hypothesizing a null. It is seldom done, but it is possible, using power
analysis (see Cohen et al. on this also, as cited by Peng). But you need
a very specific research question rather than a very general ‘difference
between groups’ study.
Results Section
Restate your hypotheses in the Results section (not
word for word, but remind readers of them), and then
give your results – one by one. Do not just list out a table
that says “supported” or “not supported.” This
must be written in the paper, with some brief explanation
if the results turned out differently.
NO new ideas and few or no cites in Results. Just your
findings with very brief comment or clarification about
them.
Robustness tests
• Many of the best journals now ask for robustness tests.
Sometimes this may come at the end of the Results
section.
• A robustness test may be something like running the
regression again with a different (but related)
dependent variable, to see if the results are about the
same.
• For example, one paper on turnaround, I had to
replace the dependent variable of firm decline with Z
scores (bankruptcy risk) and run the regressions again
to check the results.
• Watch for different types of robustness tests in future
articles. Sometimes will be in an appendix also.
Discussion section
Start the Discussion section w/the Contributions subsection:
1) Theory
2) Empirical or case results
3) Practice
4) Other (research methods, government policy, etc)
5) Additional discussion / explanation if needed.
6) Limitations
7) Future research
Conclusion
Have a 1-2 paragraph Conclusion (Do not end with
Limitations)
Conclusion should be pretty good such that people who did
not read your paper can learn the basics of the paper by
reading both the introduction and the conclusion
(introduction for the set-up of the paper and its
organization, and conclusion to state results clearly).
Tie everything together with an informative summary:
“Learning does lead to higher performance—albeit not
necessarily in a linear fashion” (Luo & Peng 1999 JIBS).
Note, all the results are not there, but they are nicely
summarized in this JIBS paper.
A Summary Checklist Reminder
1) You need a research question. The title seems to suggest one,
but then the paper rambles around for pages and pages without
committing to a research question. Try not to "study"; "research
about"; or "examine" topics. Ask and partially answer a
research question in the introduction of the paper.
2) Provide a mini-literature review in the Introduction section,
which will be expanded upon in the fuller literature review. This
serves to "motivate" and 'locate' the paper for readers
immediately, so they don't have to guess about its position (see
www.utd.edu/~mikepeng -- his paper in SMJ2009 for a very
good model of this).
3) Provide a 1-2 paragraph 'contributions' paragraph at or near the
end of the introduction. Again see Meyer et al. 2009 in SMJ
2009 for a very good model of this.
4) Get to the literature review quickly, after about 3 pages of
introduction. Some papers get to the literature review around
page 7 - much too late. The literature review is very important –
see Ahlstrom, 2011 – APJM issue 4 for some comments and
helpful resources (articles and books) on contributions,
literature review, etc.
A Summary Checklist – 2
5) The hypotheses section should follow the lit review. Again
see how Peng does it. Mike is our former editor and his
work is exemplary. Now your hypotheses are coming too
late in the paper and they are just listed. Never list
hypotheses - you need 1-2 paragraph justifications for each
hypothesis. Cut your hypos to about five. Do not use much
more than that.
6) You need a separate Results section that just gives the
results. Also you may need a robustness test. Watch out for
these in the newer empirical papers in SMJ, AMJ, JoM, etc.
7) Discussion section should start with contributions - 1
paragraph per contribution (theory, empirical evidence,
practice, other if necessary).
8) Limitations and future research should follow.
9) Conclude with 1-2 paragraphs, for readers that just read
your introduction and conclusion only. They should be able
to figure out what the paper is about without flipping back
and forth.
The details are very important -- please,
don’t make sloppy mistakes !
– Such as “in china research” (incorrect grammar and lack of capitalization for
China)
-- Definitely do not misspell words in your title (e.g. Chinnese) or in the references (e.g.
David Ahlstorm or Asian Paciific Journal of Management).
– Missing or very incomplete or inaccurate references (wrong pages, citing pages not
in the citation’s page range, etc). Someone sent “XXX, 2010” as a key citation.
– No Single spaced papers and include page numbers
-- Avoid using bullet points in a formal paper. Also avoid (1)…(2)…(3), write
“First…second…third”.
-- Do not get major facts wrong such as a key date,. a key author’s name, the starting
point of a major research stream, a major event. E.g – Edward Snow and JK Fairbanks
in a China paper (should be Edgar Snow and John K Fairbank)
-- For APJM (and most management journals – but check this), do not use 1.1, 1.2, 2,
2.1 with the headers. It shows the editor that you have not read APJM, or didn’t
bother to pay much attention to the aims and scope.
Lists in your paper vs. having a theory
structure
-- Avoid long lists that have no apparent
organization. Anyone can make lists (e.g. macro
vs. micro; conceptual vs. empirical, HR success
factors, etc).
The list should have some purpose to its
organization (some theory or logical framework).
Otherwise, my list is as good as your list.
This is why theoretic structure is important.
Otherwise papers will all just have long lists of
variables. Frame and limit your paper (comes
back to a good literature review)
Example – Social Influence and
theoretic structure
There are several principles of influence (6
main ones, and several others less
researched).
Many of these principles can be classified
into groups (e.g. scarcity, consistency /
commitment, social proof) all use decision
shortcuts that are well-understood from
decision making.
A paper that studied social influence would
keep in mind this type of structure in
studying influence, if multiple principles
were to be studied.
The review process & increasing odds of
success - Everybody gets rejections all the time
– @ 90-95% rejection rates for the best journals. Even the B and B+
journals only accept 15-25% submissions.
– Former editor of APJM, Mike Peng is about three times better than
average in his acceptance rate, which means his A-journal submissions are still
being rejected 70% of the time!
– It is a numbers game, and even very good papers sometimes get
submitted to multiple journals (not at the same time, of course). If you don’t
receive rejections, you are probably not doing enough research.
Most well-known authors like George Akerlof sent their eventual award-winning
papers to multiple journals (e.g. Akerlof’s “Lemons” article). Rejections are very
common in this field.
– Gone with the Wind ( 亂世佳人 ). It took them more than a year to cast
the role of Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind – perhaps the most coveted
female role in film history. Many fine actresses were tried and rejected. Don’t
get discouraged. Established actors are going to auditions all the time –
sometimes 25 times before getting a new part. Writing papers is sometimes like
going to auditions.
Realize reviewers and editors are
rational (and quite human)
Our intellectual market for ideas is not perfect, but is rational,
reasonable, and among the best in the world.
Be patient and keep trying -- research on the philosophy of science
shows that good and empirically correct ideas usually do eventually
win (though it may take a long time):
– e.g. limes / Vitamin C for Scurvy –
坏血病 ;
--Innovation and new business creation contributes to economic
growth – took many years for this idea to be shown (i.e. the Solow
residual -- part of growth not explicable by measurable changes in
the amount of capital, K, and the number of workers, L, usually
attributed to innovation and technology improvements.)
--IQ and Consciousness are the two most important predictors of job
performance.
--Generals and schedules did not start WWI (Ahlstrom, Lamond & Ding,
2009).
--Institutions matter a lot (even economists accept this today, though it
took a while for D. North, Mancur Olson and others to get
recognized for this work.
Some final thoughts: The reviewer process Reviewer’s perspective-1
I have served on the editorial boards of JIBS, APJM, and Journal of
Small Business Management, and guest edited multiple issues of
Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice and APJM Special Issues as well
as reviewed for many years and also being an editor at various levels
for more than 10 years.
Is the story interesting?
– Avoid very low value-added topics or just giving the readers a “tour”
of well-established literature and hypotheses.
Is the theory sound?
– Topic- or data-driven versus theory-driven research
– Building on previous theory?
– Overlooking major aspects of previous work?
– Citing authors correctly?
The reviewer perspective-2
Is the research design (approach + data) and formal
methods reasonable? See John Creswell’s work on
research design for some ideas on this.
– Does it match your research objectives?
– Does operationalization reasonably reflect the conceptual essence
of your constructs?
– Don’t try to “sound academic.” Just
tell the story. Get help later with the format and style if possible, but most
important is to tell the research story
Is the writing good or at least clear?
– Logical flow of macro-structure
– Consistent words throughout the paper (e.g., don’t mix up
“organization culture” and “climate”, or developing markets, emerging
economies, and transition economies – they are not the same. )
Good author tactics
Anticipate the reviewers’ concerns
Anticipate who your reviewers might be
– Very hard; can never be proven
– Your references provide a clue (for editors)
Meet journal styles (asset-specificity investment)
Tight editing (Have you tried research notes?)
Be professional and cool
– “Our results are interesting (surprising in some cases) ...”
Offer to review for the journal also. . . Social capital matters
Dealing with reviewers
Thoroughly address every point raised – Including disagreements, do not hide them!
Remember, the reviewer is usually trying to help you to get your paper done, and done well. Work
with the reviewer and listen to their points.
What reviewers appreciate: Point-by-point responses
Reviewer #1 – list out what the reviewer said, point by point (put in your own numbers for each of
the reviewers’ points
Our response is …
Reviewer #2 -- also list out each point (adding your own numbers)
Our response is …
What reviewers dislike:
#1: Done!
#2: Done!
You need to tell them what you did, do not just say “done.”
Some Additional Points (time
permitting) – thinking up a topic
As noted before with the ‘literature review’ – know the
literature!!
Understanding the current state of the research program
(research stream / current literature) is very important when
you start to write a paper on a topic that is new to you;
especially when writing the literature review.
For example does the field need an exploratory paper on your
topic? Why? Is the field getting it ‘very wrong’ (e.g. why
major firms seem to often fail at or near the peak of their
success – the explanation was “lazy, crazy, greedy {for $ or
power} stupid {especially ignoring tech. change}”).
Christensen found all these explanations inadequate and went
back to some exploratory work and then research on one
industry (disk drives) and case work on the steel industry.
Exploratory study on Guanxi?? I’ve rejected quite a lot of these.
Thinking up a Topic – a few more points
Does the field need a paper clarifying (adding to) an existing model? Why? Should
the causal arrows run in a different direction? Was an interaction effect overlooked? Is
there a key mediating variable that needs to be in the model? What is your theory
contribution?
Is the field “stuck” on building bigger and better models (i.e. lots of arrows and
paths, mediators, moderators), but causation not clarified (sometimes a mediator can
clarify a mechanism, but you also need to do that with your research and justification
of the paper and the specific hypotheses)?
Or are there no normative recommendations in this research program (stream of
articles) – the model just describes what is going on with organizations, groups, or
individuals, and cannot produce normative recommendations to organizations and
managers. This may be an opportunity to link that work with some performance
measures (financial, innovation, OB-HR type measure, etc).
Then you can easily justify a new paper providing clearer mechanisms (mediator),
causeation, and normative (prescriptive) results.
Entering an Established Research Program
and Theory Improvement
Has the current research been able to make accurate predictions in new studies in the same area? This
suggests good internal validity (and good construct validity), though there are other tests for validity.
But note: though accurate predictions are good, but not yet enough. The ancient astronomers could
make good predictions about the movement of the sun and stars. But they could not explain why those
movements occurred (Kaplan, 1964). That is, they did not know the (broad) mechanism by which the stars’
position relative to the earth moved (i.e. the movement of the earth, and Newtonian motion).
Theory is improved when the mechanisms (potential mediators) behind the predictions (hypotheses) are
discovered, and later, some conditions (moderators) are discovered and tested. In the case of astronomy, this
would be theory of gravitation and stellar / planetary motion.
Theory is also improved when you can establish external validity (i.e. your theory works in much different
situations, such as expectancy theory working for factory workers and for high-level professions.
This establishing of mechanisms is helpful in directing studies to build external validity of the model.
Understanding the mechanisms takes the model to ‘far away’ settings where those mechanisms should
still work. Thus gravity theory can work not only for planets, but even for the bending of light (further
establishing external validity of gravitation theory, via General Relativity).
Theory is also improved when normative (prescriptive) tests can be made from the predications and
explanations of the theory? Usually this also introduces suitable conditions and making external validity tests
of the theory. E.g. in Good to Great (Collins, 2001), noncharismatic leaders were better at turnarounds. How
do they, and charismatic leaders do under other, non-turnaround conditions? And from that, we can give
prescriptive advice about charisma and non-charisma (humble), and maybe even on the value of leadership
itself.
Building a Case for Causality
Donald Campbell and Julian
Stanley, Experimental and
Quasi-Experimental Designs
for Research (1963)
Evidence about your topic…
Starts with a good research question and thorough literature review. The
literature review starts to “answer” your research question, but cannot
answer it fully (e.g. “institutional change normally comes from inside,
according to many papers on the subject. But what causes it to be encouraged
from the outside?” – you can see how that literature review would work, but
then in what direction your study would proceed with its hypotheses, or theorybuilding)
Consensus in the literature is nice, but not evidence on its own (i.e. the story
told by the stream of papers is important to describe). Just saying “The
overwhelming majority of papers in peer-reviewed journals support this
position” is not really evidence on its own. Your literature review should tell a
story (institutional change has traditionally come from the inside {endogenous
change}, but what leads to institutional change from outside {exogenous
change).
Where would this insistence about “scientific consensus have left Nicolaus
Copernicus or Albert Einstein? What was the “scientific consensus” in those
days? Remember that science historian Thomas Kuhn discussed how
paradigms formed and how they are overturned. It is not by “consensus”
(though consensus is a powerful influencer, by itself, it is not a substitute for
careful theorizing of variables and mechanisms, improvement of theory through
moderators and external validity, and predicting and explaining phenomena,
and finally making prescriptions that “field practitioners” can actually use.
Other Useful Methods and Research
Design Sources
See: www.strategyresearch.net/
-- Current and Future editorial papers and
commentary articles in Asia Pacific Journal of
Management (and the References)
--
Some more ideas on what APJM wants
• It is good to contribute further indigenous
research and the testing and extension of
theory in the important context of ethnic
Chinese firms.
• Yet much more research is needed to build a
better understanding of this important and
growing industrial sector of the world’s
economy.
Where can all this go? Research on ethnic Chinese
business (or other developing economy firms)
should seek to address at least three main
concerns, which can also inform research in West.
•
The first concerns the better classification and specification of the
context of ethnic Chinese business -- cultural understandings and
institutional arrangements and resulting indigenous constructs such
as supplication as an influence technique (putting yourself in a onedown position to encourage help).
• Second, well-established constructs developed and tested primarily
in an Anglo-American-based setting can be investigated in a Chinese
environment to see how the constructs hold up in a significantly
different setting and how they may require some different
implementation approaches – such as with motivation or goal
setting. I.e. – the Chinese institutional or cultural condition
(moderator)
• Third, additional study in the Chinese commercial context would also
be also crucial to the identification and elaboration of context-free
constructs and managerial techniques that can function everywhere
-- e.g. social influence in China.
See the Special Issue on Managing in ethnic Chinese communities in
Asia Pacific Journal of Management, V27(3) – 2010.
Thus, potential areas for research on China
and other Asia developing economies
 Exploratory studies, particularly classification
schemes. This means good qualitative work.
 Need for stylized (Hambrickian) studies – identifying
and classifying new concepts before counting them
up. And where does guanxi fit?
 Clarifying causal models. Building theory justifications
and then identifying anomalies and boundary
conditions (moderators).
 Culture as a causal variable? Or moderator?
 Mediators
 Perspectives
 Review papers
 Commentaries
Some other useful references
Designing Research for Publication. Anne Sigismund Huff, 2008.
Writing for Scholarly Publication. Anne Sigismund Huff, 1998.
The Craft of Research. Booth, Colomb, and Williams, 1995. University of Chicago Press
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anne Lamott, 1995. First Anchor Books
Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article. Howard
S. Becker, 1986. University of Chicago Press.
Publishing in the Organizational Sciences. Cummings and Frost, 1985 and 1995 (two
different volumes). Sage Publications.
Engaged Scholarship. Andrew Van de Ven. Oxford University Press, 2007.
John Creswell – various books on research design and mixed methods.
Ahlstrom, David. 2010, 2011, APJM. Especially see issues 1, 2 and 4 in 2010 and issues 2, 3
and 4 in 2011.
The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical
Papers by Imre Lakatos
And see www.mikepeng.com for free downloads of helpful papers, especially from SMJ
ASIA PACIFIC
JOURNAL OF
MANAGEMENT
Official Journal of
the Asia Academy of
Management
David Ahlstrom
Editor-in-Chief
The Chinese University of
Hong Kong
Any questions?