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Research Idea Life Cycle

Birth – focus is on the antecedents and/or outcomes of a new construct.

Growth – focus is on moving beyond main effects – mediating and

moderating processes.

Maturity – organizing and synthesizing research findings – meta

analysis.

Decline – redirections of scientific inquiry to more fundamental but

complex questions.

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The Surrey Business Schoolwww.surrey.ac.uk/sbs

The Concept of Contribution

To contribute is to ‘join with others in a common cause, give ideas, suggestions.’

Types of contribution contribute knowledge to a scientific discipline- theoretical

contribution.

apply that knowledge to the practice of that profession- practical contribution.

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The Surrey Business Schoolwww.surrey.ac.uk/sbs

Sources of Contribution

Substantive gap – lack of managerial understanding of

‘how’ to…

Theoretical gap – insufficient explanation or prediction of

some phenomenon – the ‘why’.

Empirical gap – lack of studies or inconsistent findings of

some phenomenon – the ‘where’ and ‘when’.

Contextual gap – generalizability.

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The Surrey Business Schoolwww.surrey.ac.uk/sbs

Which Journal?

All disciplines• Academy of Management Journal; Academy of Management Review; Administrative

Science Quarterly … Human Resources

• Personnel Psychology; Human Resource Management … Organizational Behavior

• Journal of Applied Psychology; Journal of Organizational Behavior; Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes …

Strategic Management• Strategic Management Journal

International Business• Journal of International Business Studies; Journal of World Business …

General Management• Journal of Management; Journal of Management Studies …

＊ follow the journal’s style guide＊ clear and succinct writing style