brycewang-stanford Literature Positioning (jmis-literature-positioning)
When to trigger
- The front end reads as a reference-discipline paper (pure economics, marketing, CS, OB) that merely uses an IS setting
- You cannot name the specific IS conversation you are joining and changing
- A reviewer says the contribution is incremental, or that the paper "ignores prior IS work"
- You are unsure whether the natural home is JMIS, MISQ, ISR, JAIS, or Management Science
Position to an IS conversation, not just a reference discipline
JMIS is an IS journal, so the literature you must engage first is the IS literature — IT business value, digital platforms, e-commerce, IS economics, security/privacy, decision support/analytics — even when your toolkit comes from economics or computer science. The test a JMIS reviewer applies: what did the IS field believe, and how does this paper move that belief? Borrowing a reference-discipline method is fine; positioning the contribution only in the reference discipline is a desk-reject signal because the IS audience cannot see the advance.
Build the positioning in three moves
- Name the stream and its current frontier. State the specific JMIS-relevant conversation (e.g., "the IT-value complementarities literature," "the platform-openness debate," "the privacy-disclosure economics stream") and what it currently holds.
- Locate the gap as a tension, not an absence. "No one has studied X" is weak. "Stream A predicts more openness raises participation, but B implies it invites free-riding; we resolve when each dominates" is a JMIS-grade gap.
- State the delta. One sentence: what the field believed, and what it should believe after your paper.
Engage the basket and cite the right precedents
JMIS reviewers expect you to know the IS basket. Engage prior JMIS, MISQ, ISR, and JAIS work on your phenomenon — not just econ/CS papers. Failing to cite the closest IS predecessors (especially prior JMIS papers on the same platform/value/security question) reads as not knowing the field. Where your evidence comes from a reference discipline, cite that frontier too, but subordinate it to the IS contribution.
Use sibling boundaries to sharpen, not just to defend
| If a reviewer says… | Reposition by… |
|---|---|
| "This belongs in MISQ as a design-science paper" | Foregrounding the managerial/economic value question, not the artifact build |
| "This is an economics paper with an IS label" | Showing the IT artifact is essential to the mechanism and the takeaway is for IS practice |
| "This is single-paradigm; try ISR" | Either embracing JMIS's clean management/economics framing or, if the edge is silo-bridging, considering ISR honestly |
| "This is just a better algorithm" | Reframing around managerial utility and IS decision-making, or rerouting to a CS venue |
Worked vignette: turning an absence into a tension (illustrative)
A privacy paper opens: "Little is known about how breach disclosure laws affect firms." That is an absence, and a JMIS reviewer will read it as under-positioned. Reframed as a tension: the security-economics literature argues mandatory disclosure disciplines firms into investing more in protection [signaling/deterrence], yet the disclosure literature implies it can trigger reputational over-reaction and under-reporting; we identify which force dominates and for whom. Now the gap is a live debate the IS field can place, the contribution is a resolution rather than a first look, and the closest IS predecessors (prior JMIS/MISQ security-economics papers) become the conversation you advance rather than a citation pile.
Referee pushback mapped to a repositioning move
- "This reads like an economics paper that happens to use IS data." → Move the IT artifact into the mechanism and make the takeaway an IS-management implication, not a generic economic one.
- "The contribution is incremental over [prior JMIS paper]." → State the delta against that exact paper in one sentence: what it could not show that you now can.
- "You ignore the design-science / behavioral side of this question." → Either bridge it explicitly (and weigh ISR) or argue why the management/economics framing is the right cut for JMIS.
Checklist
- The specific IS conversation (stream) is named, with its current frontier
- The gap is framed as a tension/contradiction, not a mere absence
- A one-sentence delta states what the IS field believed vs. will believe
- Closest IS predecessors (incl. prior JMIS) are cited, not just reference-discipline work
- Reference-discipline borrowing is subordinated to the IS contribution
- Fit vs. MISQ/ISR/JAIS/Management Science is argued where relevant
- The three-paragraph skeleton (phenomenon / tension / delta) can each be written
- The front end reads as written for JMIS's management-economics conversation, not retrofitted
Show you know the JMIS conversation specifically
JMIS reviewers notice when a paper engages the IS basket generically but skips the JMIS lineage on its own topic. If you write on platforms, e-commerce, IT value, or security/privacy economics, the journal has published streams on exactly those questions; engaging them signals you are joining JMIS's conversation, not just any IS conversation. This is also where the management/economics cut matters: position against the IT-value, platform-economics, or security-economics literatures (JMIS's home turf) rather than only against design-science or pure-behavioral streams, which read as a better fit for MISQ. The strongest front ends make the reader feel the paper was written for JMIS, not retrofitted to it.
Anti-patterns
- Positioning only in economics/marketing/CS with no IS stream named
- A literature review that summarizes papers instead of mapping a debate
- "Gap = nobody did this" with no theoretical tension
- Ignoring prior JMIS papers on the exact phenomenon (signals not knowing the field)
- Citing the IS basket as decoration while the real argument lives in the reference discipline
- Skipping prior JMIS papers on the topic while citing distant econ/CS work
- A positioning that any of the three paragraphs (phenomenon / tension / delta) cannot be written for
- Positioning against design-science/behavioral streams when the management-economics cut is the JMIS fit
A three-paragraph positioning skeleton
A JMIS introduction's positioning usually resolves into three paragraphs. (1) The phenomenon and stake — a concrete IT/management development and why managers, firms, or platforms care. (2) The IS conversation and its tension — the specific stream you join, what it currently holds, and the contradiction or unresolved question (theory vs. evidence, or stream A vs. stream B) that your paper targets. (3) The delta and approach — what the field believed, what it should believe after your paper, and the leverage (identification, model, or evaluation) that lets you claim it. Reference-discipline tools appear in paragraph three as the method, never as the contribution. If a paragraph cannot be written because the stream, the tension, or the delta is missing, that is the gap to close before drafting further.
Keep positioning honest about what is new
Resist the urge to inflate the gap. A reviewer who knows the literature will catch a "no one has studied this" claim that ignores a near-identical prior paper, and the credibility cost is high. State precisely what prior work established and where it stopped, then claim only the increment you actually deliver. Honest, well-bounded positioning that names the closest predecessor and the exact delta reads as command of the field; overstated novelty reads as not having done the reading.
Output format
【IS stream joined】name + current frontier belief
【Gap as tension】stream A vs. stream B (or theory vs. evidence)
【Delta】field believed X → should believe Y
【Closest IS predecessors】incl. prior JMIS work
【Sibling boundary handled】why JMIS not MISQ/ISR/MS
【Next step】jmis-methods