Transcript Asia Pacific Journal of Management

Maximizing Your Success at
Asia Pacific Journal of Management
ChungMing Lau
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Editor, Asia Pacific Journal of Management
Special Panel
“Globalizing Asia Pacific Journal of Management”
AAoM Tokyo Conference 2006
Asia Pacific Journal of Management
 Why do we accept or reject a manuscript?
 Sharing from my 4 years of editorial
experiences at APJM.
 Are we different from other journals?
 Yes, we have a special emphasis.
 No, our requirements are the same.
Asia Academy of Management
 The Asia Academy of Management is designed to
encourage management research, education and
knowledge dissemination that are of relevance to
management in Asia.
 The mission of the Asia Academy is to assume
global leadership in the advancement of
management theory, research and education of
relevance to Asia.
 We therefore publishes APJM as a way to promote
management research, among other activities.
Mission of
Asia Pacific Journal of Management
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Management publishes
original manuscripts on subjects related to general
and strategic management in the Asia Pacific region.
 In line with the increasingly global nature of
business and research, the Asia Pacific region is
defined broadly, to encompass not only pacific rim
countries, but also much of mainland Asia.
APJM Aims and Scope
 The areas of general and strategic management are
similarly viewed broadly to encompass most functional
fields of management and business.
 Rather than defining research by administrative or
functional boundaries, the APJM believes that the
research it publishes should be constrained only by
impact and relevance.
 In deciding relevance, the APJM focuses on the extent
to which each manuscript addresses matters that pertain
to the most fundamental of business questions: "What
determines firm success?"
So,
 Asia is the focus – we publishes articles only when it
is related to Asian management issues, i.e. those
research questions unique to or popular in Asia, or
based on Asian samples.
 The contribution of an article is defined not only by its
relevance, but also its impact on Asian management
research, i.e. it informs us something more about
current understanding of certain issues, theoretically
and empirically.
 That is why we are no different from other major
journals.
What does Academy of Management
Journal (AMJ) require?
 Mission of AMJ: to publish empirical research
that tests, extends, or builds management
theory and contributes to management
practice. (Rynes et al. 2005 AMJ)
 In our case – it’s the same, except that we
require an ‘Asian’ perspective or ‘context’ –
both theoretically and empirically. We rejected
good papers that do not have any relevance
to Asia.
So, “most interesting” papers are:
(Bartunek et al., 2006 AMJ)
 Major reasons given by Editorial board members:
 Counterintuitive – challenges established theory;
goes against folk wisdom
 New Theory/finding – creates new theory,
synthesizes previous theories, integrate multiple
perspectives, important findings
 Quality – well-crafted theory, good
technical/method job, good fit of data & theory,
great sample
 Good writing – well framed: builds momentum
 AMJ has three pillars by which a
manuscript is assessed:
 Theoretical contribution
 Empirical contribution
 Contribution to practice
Fail to meet empirical contribution
 AMJ
 Use of operation measures that are not properly
validated, or do not capture the constructs
developed in the theory section.
 Inadequate research designs for testing the
research question.
 Importance or incremental contribution of the
research question is small.
 This is common to all ‘good’ studies. We don’t
accept invalid or unreliable data and findings.
Criterion of strong theoretical
contribution
 Meaningful new insights or implications for theory
 Falsification of conventional understanding
 First empirical testing of a theory
 Theory building through inductive or qualitative
research
 Constructive replication that clarifies the
boundaries or range of a theory
 Meta-analysis with theoretical implications
 Specification of underlying
theoretical mechanism or
logic that explains the
relationships among a set of
variables
 APJM is also asking for these
contributions.
Theory first
 The most important thing is to have a good theory first – a
good story about what you are going to report. The story
must be an interesting one.
 Examples of poor theory development:
 I think X is related to Y and they are not previously
studied together, hence this study is the first in Asia
to …
 Phenomenon X could be explained by RBV, so,
according to RBV, P is caused by Q …
 The issue of X has been studied by A, B, and C but the
findings are inconclusive, therefore, we studied X in
Asia …
 Studying old relationships in a new setting without
sufficient ‘new’ explanations doesn’t sell (Singh,
Ang, & Leong, 2003; Tsang & Kwan 1999).
 ‘Integrative’ does not mean adding different
perspectives up.
 “Extension” is the key word: Focus on giving ‘why’
and ‘how’ because of the new “context” “contextualization” or inform the familiar with
novel (Whetten, 2002)
Sound method
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Asian sample itself does not sell either.
Usual requirements:
Sample: size & representativeness
Study Design: rigor
Measures: validity
Analytical method: appropriateness
Comparative data: Do not describe the
data only
If given a chance to revise & resubmit
 Don’t take it lightly … they mean
something!!
 Point-by-point feedback – Answer the
questions.
 Do what the reviewers want as far as
possible.
 Do not be too defensive.
Steps in Handling reviewers’ comments
(Agarwal et al. 2006 AMJ)
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Read the reviews
Emote – manage feelings & emotions
Arrange comments
Parse responsibility
Revisit the manuscript
Evaluate each comment
Write responses
Argue among authors – play devil’s advocate
Rewrite manuscript
Direct reviewer attentions to responses
Submit revised manuscript & responses
Asian management research
 We have a contribution in
‘contextualizing’ knowledge, and
developing ‘new’ knowledge.
 We should have more confidence in
Asian indigenous research that it
contributes to global management
knowledge (Meyer, 2006; Tsui, 2004).
 We should do it with rigor and
relevance (White, 2002)
 GOOD LUCK!!