Manuscript Guidelines for Empirical Papers | Engaged Management ReView

Overview

Empirical papers communicate significant empirical findings of practical and theoretical importance with a demonstrated influence on management practice. The genre is grounded on reporting findings of empirical inquiry to a problem of practice and the inquiry can be founded on qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. The paper must be position the research within the literature, describe shortly but accurately methods used, provide in condensed form empirical and theoretical findings, and discuss clearly the lessons for practice.

Structure

EMR is a journal for practitioner-scholar knowledge. The structure of the empirical paper has two unique features that distinguish it from traditional scholarly journals as well as practitioner journals. First, it has a distinct format with specific sections and sub-sections. Second, within each section and/or sub-section, as applicable, the author must use the designated voice. A Power Point file with slides that provide more specific guidance about the two unique features of an empirical paper (its format and its two voices) can be found here.

Each section requires the author(s) to speak in either a scholarly voice or a practitioner voice. The scholarly voice uses controlled and technically precise language, whose priority is on knowledge development and methodology. The practitioner voice uses language found in everyday contexts within the problem of practice, whose priority is on the solution to a real-world management problem, and is intuitively understandable and immediately reusable by the manager for his/her context(s).

Each submission should follow a defined format with the following section headings:

Use Times Roman 12-point type and the 8.5 x 11 inch page setting. The document should be double spaced throughout; place page numbers in the upper-right corner; and leave top and side margins of at least one inch.

The length of the submission should not exceed a maximum of 5,000 words. The word limit does not include references, figures, charts, or items placed in appendices. As noted below in the Format section, use of citations should be kept to a maximum of twenty references that are key points to the literature. For citation and reference style, use the Academy of Management Journal style, which can be found here.

The editors reserve the right to request the full research report from author on which the submission is based. If requested, the EMR editors will only use the full research report to help evaluate the EMR submission. Upon completion of its review, the EMR will return the full research report to the author(s) and remove the full research report from any EMR repository. The editors and reviewers have also right to ask for data sets on which the analysis is based. This can be in the form of co-variance matrices (for SEM based methods) or demonstration of the presence of data based in the case of qualitative methods.

Authors of accepted articles are asked to submit a biographical sketch of about 100 words. The sketch should identify relevant professional occupations and, if possible, authors academic affiliation and degree (in progress or earned). Authors should identify their key contributions to the management practice and / or academic achievements. Contact information including affiliations, postal address and email address should be made available. During the review please keep the EMR managing editor (engaged-management-review@case.edu) informed of your changed address or long absence. A high-resolution photograph not exceeding 250 KB should also be provided.

Process

Authors should review the EMR Mission Statement and Purpose prior to preparing their submission. Authors of empirical papers should ensure they comply with the unique format requirements stated above. Articles are submitted online. Submit here.

Accepted papers will be copy-edited by a professional copy editor. Authors are expected to review edits in page proofs. EMR will contact authors after the managing editor assigns the manuscript to an issue.

Format

Ensure key technical terms are defined. A technical term is a word or phrase that is not in general use, that is, not normally be in the dictionary with a meaning that anyone other than you would normally ascribe to it. Put quotation marks around the first appearance in your submission of each technical term and provide a definition in the Glossary.

Avoid using abbreviations for the names of concepts. Use ordinary words for variable names, not code names or other abbreviations. Be consistent with naming conventions for constructs in text, tables and figures.

Names of organizations and research instruments may be abbreviated, but give the full name the first time you mention one of these.

Use text to describe mathematical concepts. In others words, use “we surveyed 200 engineers,” rather than “we surveyed n=200 engineers.” However, do use commonly accepted mathematical symbols such as β for regression weights and numbers to report results. Numbers are presented at most with two decimals. Put spaces on either side of equals signs, minus signs, etc.

Avoid language that might be interpreted as denigrating or biased.

Write in the active voice (“They did it.”) instead of the passive voice (“It was done.”) to make it easier to for readers to see who did what. Use the first person (“I” or “we”) to describe what you, or you and your coauthors did.

Tables and Figures can be used but they should be done sparingly and only when necessary to convey an important point central to the submission.

Citations should be kept to a maximum of twenty (20) using the format provided by the website.