Submitting to
Academy of Management Discoveries

Submit your manuscript

Before submitting to AMD, first visit the home page of the Academy of Management Discoveries website to understand the philosophy behind AMD, as well as the papers that AMD is inclined to publish. 

Types of AMD Submissions

Here are the four types of submissions that AMD publishes:

Traditional Papers
Traditional papers (with rare exception) are between 15 and 40 pages in length, not including references, tables, figures, or appendices. 

Discoveries-through-Prose
Discoveries-through-Prose papers are creative, engaging narratives that are crafted in nontraditional ways.  Please read the guidelines for more information about submitting a Discoveries-through-Prose manuscript.

Registered Reports
With this type of submission, authors submit the introduction, methods, measurement info, and analysis plan of a completed or planned study. This is helpful for situations in which the exploratory results (whether present or not) may have important theoretical or practical implications. Registered reports should be no more than 25 pages in length, not including references, tables, figures, or appendices.

Guideposts
Guideposts are short (up to 1,000 word) papers solicited from a small set of the most distinguished, senior scholars in our field. Consistent with the primary mission of AMD—the aim of Guideposts is to leverage the knowledge, experience and intuition of renowned scholars in order to identify those phenomena or patterns of relations requiring the kind of empirically driven studies that AMD seeks to publish.

Commentaries
AMD publishes Commentaries for the purpose of fostering dialogue and advancing scholarship within our scientific community. Commentaries can celebrate, extend, critique, or provide alternative interpretations of the findings of a published AMD article.

More specifically, AMD Commentaries should accomplish one or more of the following: (1) add a new insight (or insights) that further explains why the authors of the original paper found what they found; (2) put greater focus on a finding or set of dynamics that the authors perhaps underplayed; (3) introduce a new anecdote/story (or two or three) that support the authors' findings; (4) highlight in a more profound way the importance of the authors' findings; and/or (5) introduce a new line of future research that the authors did not see/discuss. Commentaries can also offer critical comments about the work, in terms of explanations offered for findings or by raising other methodological concerns.

Commentaries should be about 2-3 pages in length. The original article title and authors should be included in the Commentary title.

Traditional Paper Structure

Because AMD seeks empirical studies of poorly understood yet important phenomena, we expect they will be directed by specific research questions and conjectures rather than testing refined hypotheses. This implies several distinct goals for the different sections of your manuscript.

Introductory paragraphs: The introduction should clearly ground the phenomenon and the research question. While this can be done many ways, we encourage this grounding to clearly describe a particular case or instance of the phenomenon, and the context or settings in which it exists. This grounding should also include a statement of the specific research question that guides the study of the phenomenon, why it is important, and how it is addressed in the paper.

Findings. The findings will be focused on your empirical exploration, culminating in one or more discoveries. For example, a discovery may highlight new boundary conditions for some theory. A discovery may question accepted understandings of the mechanisms underlying a relationship, or completely overturn basic assumptions underlying a particular theory. A discovery may demonstrate some relationship that is simply inconsistent with a variety of relevant theories and provide a plausible explanation as to when and why this is the case.

Discussion. The aim of most AMD papers is to use empirical findings to provide plausible, data-driven descriptions of and explanations for phenomena, relations, and anomalies for which extant theory falls short. In contrast to other empirical journals, which require extensive theorizing in the manuscript’s front end, in AMD papers most of the theory-relevant material is presented post-hoc and found in the paper’s discussion. This is why AMD is described in terms of being context-forward rather than theory-forward. In this way, the discussion provides a framework to guide further theory generation and a basis upon which to ground propositions and even testable hypotheses.

The AMD Review Process

• You will be assigned an Associate Editor and at least two reviewers will review your manuscript. You are encouraged to recommend one or two Associate Editors in your cover letter.
• The Associate Editor has sole discretion over whether your paper is invited for a revision and/or ultimately accepted.
• AMD strives to reflect the voice of the authors, not that of the reviewers or editors.
• AMD editors strive to make a publication decision after one round of the double-blind review process.

Criteria for Publication

At AMD each reviewer is asked to use the same template to evaluate your manuscript. This template is based on the mission of AMD and the unique characteristics of AMD. Please read through this template carefully before you submit your manuscript. 

 In addition to these criteria, manuscripts are judged on writing style, structure, and length. Poor presentation is sufficient reason for the rejection of a manuscript. All articles published in AMD  must be accessible to the Academy's wide-ranging readership. Manuscripts should be written as simply and concisely as possible without sacrificing meaningfulness or clarity of exposition.

Submission Requirements

Authors should prepare their manuscripts in accordance with AOM's Style Guide. In the Abstract (of no more than 200 words) authors should briefly describe the discovery presented in their paper and its potential implications for advancing management knowledge and practice. Manuscripts should be double-spaced, use one-inch margins and 12-point Times New Roman font (not “Times” or other font choice).

Manuscripts that do not follow this style guide will be returned to their authors without review.

To submit a manuscript, first make sure you have a Word file from which the title page and all author-identifying references have been removed. Then go to the  ScholarOne Manuscripts website  and follow the directions. If you need assistance uploading your paper, please contact the ScholarOne helpline on weekdays between 3:00 a.m.-8:30 p.m. EST at 1-434-817-2040, ext. 334 (United States), or 001-434-817-2042, ext. 334 (international).

When authors submit their manuscripts to AMD for publication consideration, they agree to abide by the journal's publication requirements. Violation of any of the following requirements listed below will be treated as a violation of the  Academy of Management's Code of Ethical Conduct and will result in appropriate penalties.

Authors must state affirmatively that a manuscript submitted for review and possible publication in  Academy of Management Discoveries:

• Is prepared and formatted according to the journal's Style Guide for Authors.
• Has NOT been submitted previously to AMD for review.
• Is NOT under review for publication elsewhere.
• Will NOT be submitted to another publication entity until AMD makes a final publication decision.
• Does NOT use data that are reported in any other manuscript, published or not, except as explained in the cover letter to the Editor.

Submission of manuscripts previously published in Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings or previously presented at a conference or currently under consideration for presentation at a conference is acceptable. Submission of a manuscript to AMD also carries an implicit quid pro quo: willingness to review for AMD. The cornerstone of the editorial process at AMD is the willingness of colleagues to provide each other feedback through peer review. Authors who submit manuscripts to AMD for review are expected to reciprocate by reviewing for AMD if called on to do so.

Reject and Workshop Invitation

If you have the start of a strong idea for an AMD paper, but the editor or associate editor deems the paper unlikely to be successful, you may be given a reject decision along with an invitation to revise your manuscript and submit to the next virtual AMD paper-development workshop .  If you receive this invitation we will reserve one of the limited spots in the next virtual workshop for you (up to a certain date), and you would not have to respond to the open call for workshop participants. This invitation would apply only if you are working on the same project. The benefit of the workshop is that you will receive dedicated time to work one-on-one with one or more members of the editorial team (editor, associate editor, editorial review board member), as well as hearing feedback given to other workshop attendees. Assuming substantial changes are made prior to and as a result of the workshop, you would then be able to resubmit your manuscript as a new submission to AMD should you be interested in doing so. As with any participant, attending the AMD workshop would not guarantee that the paper would be accepted to AMD.   

Once Accepted

AMD is an electronic journal designed to leverage online technologies to achieve rapid and broad dissemination of important research, engage authors and readers in meaningful conversations, and promote meaningful applications. Authors of accepted articles will be invited to post short videos that illustrate their discoveries and its significance. Authors also will be encouraged to participate in online conversations about their work using the journal's online social media tools.

Guideposts

Guideposts are short (up to 1,000 word) papers solicited from a small set of the most distinguished, senior scholars in our field. Consistent with the primary mission of AMD—to disseminate new, empirically driven insights regarding phenomena or patterns of relations that current concepts fail to take account of, and extant theories fail to adequately explain—the aim of Guideposts is to leverage the knowledge, experience and intuition of renowned scholars in order to identify those phenomena or patterns of relations requiring the kind of empirically driven studies that AMD seeks to publish. With Guideposts, AMD seeks to provide all management scholars with the opportunity to learn from our field’s visionaries and thought leaders, and to get first-hand suggestions regarding the most glaring gaps and disturbing anomalies or inconsistencies remaining to be bridged or resolved in a given research domain.

 Guideposts content will

•  surface or propose new ways or new approaches for exploring emergent and/or poorly understood phenomena with potentially significant implications
• identify unanswered or emergent questions, as well as nomological networks worthy of future empirical exploration.
• highlight anomalies and research inconsistencies demanding a resolution.

Registered Reports at AMD

In cases in which results, whether present or not, may have important theoretical or practical implications, scholars are encouraged to submit a Registered Report. In this type of submission, authors submit the introduction, methods, measurement info, and analysis plan (but not the results) of a completed or planned study. This abbreviated paper is then evaluated on the basis of the importance of the topic, the merit of the selected analytic approach, methodological rigor and quality, and potential for impacting down-the-road theorizing and/or practice/policy. As results are not included in the registered report, what was or is likely to be found has no bearing on the outcome of the evaluation. This is in line with AMD’s willingness to publish papers reporting negligible or non-effects (see Miller & Bamberger, 2016).

Using this results-blind approach, our aim is to have authors submit interesting, important, empirically grounded studies meeting AMD’s standards for methodological rigor, but without concern for the direction or statistical significance of the findings. With the focus on the research question, potential implications, and rigor, the study is evaluated regardless of whether the findings are supportive (or not) of some a priori hunch, replicate or question prior findings, or demonstrate evidence (or not) of some treatment effect. Such reports can be especially useful when conducting audit studies, which are typically used to capture and assess discrimination (see for example Ameri, Rogers, Schur, & Kruse, 2020).

Using this approach, authors will receive a decision from the action editor indicating whether and how their study will be subsequently handled. Action editors may conditionally accept the registered report, they may send the registered report out for peer review, they may ask for a revision of the registered report, or they may reject the registered report, but allow for the project to be submitted following regular paper submission procedures. Registered reports deemed incompatible with the mission of AMD may also be desk rejected or rejected after review. Such reports cannot be submitted following the regular paper submission track. Any registered report that reaches “conditional accept” stage will be ultimately evaluated on whether the authors actually conduct the study and present the findings as outlined in the registered report. 

Authors are advised to consult with the Editor-in-Chief if they have questions about the submission process. Correspondence with the Editor prior to submission can help determine an approach that makes sense for the project in question.

For more information on Registered Reports including an excellent description, please click here.

Replications at AMD

At AMD we welcome replications of phenomenon-based research where the theory is incomplete or unclear. Replications should reveal one or more discoveries: empirical findings that challenge existing assumptions while opening new theoretical paths or that otherwise promote future, “down-the-road,” theorizing. AMD’s mission statement places a premium on state-of-the-art methodological rigor, with the primacy of rigor being generalizable to replication research as well (Miller & Bamberger, 2016: 315). Replications can be submitted as Traditional Papers or Registered Reports.

For an extended discussion on replication research at AMD, see Miller and Bamberger (2016). 

For an exemplar replication published in AMD, see Ertug & Maoret (2020).

Ertug, G., & Maoret, M. (2020). Do coaches in the National Basketball Association actually display racial bias? A replication and extension. Academy of Management Discoveries, 6(2), 206-234.

Miller, C. C., & Bamberger, P. (2016). Exploring emergent and poorly understood phenomena in the strangest of places: The footprint of discovery in replications, meta-analyses, and null findings. Academy of Management Discoveries, 2(2): 313-319.

Publishing in AMD

The following video offers tips for publishing academic work in Academy of Management Discoveries.

Enjoy more videos in this series with this YouTube playlist.