brycewang-stanford Literature Positioning (smj-literature-positioning)
When to trigger
- Your literature review is a chronological list of "X found… Y found…"
- The introduction never names whose conversation you are joining
- You cite broadly but not the specific SMJ / strategy stream you extend
- Reviewers might say "I don't see what's new here" or "this ignores recent work in this area"
The conversation principle
SMJ papers do not survey a field — they enter a specific scholarly conversation and move it forward. Your job is to identify the live debate (e.g., the boundary conditions of dynamic capabilities; whether alliance experience helps or hurts; the performance effects of board independence) and show precisely where it is stuck or unresolved.
Positioning structure (funnel)
- The conversation. Name the stream and its central question in 2–3 sentences. Cite the anchor pieces, including recent SMJ work.
- The state of play. What does the stream currently believe, and where does it disagree or stop? Group prior work by position/finding, not by year.
- The gap that matters. Not "no one has studied X in country Y," but a theoretical gap: an unexamined mechanism, an unresolved tension, a contingency the stream assumes away.
- Your move. One sentence: how this paper resolves or advances the gap.
Gap quality ladder (low → high)
| Gap type | SMJ reception |
|---|---|
| Empirical-context gap ("not studied in setting Z") | Weak — reads as incremental |
| Measurement / replication gap | Weak unless the prior measure was wrong in a consequential way |
| Inconsistent-findings gap (reconcile A vs. B) | Solid if you explain why they differ |
| Unexamined-mechanism gap | Strong — opens the black box |
| Unresolved-tension / counter-prediction gap | Strongest — reframes the debate |
Aim for the bottom two rows.
Engaging the SMJ corpus
- Cite the specific SMJ stream you extend; reviewers are often authors in it. Ignoring obvious recent SMJ work is a credibility hit.
- Distinguish your contribution from the 2–3 closest papers explicitly ("Unlike [paper], which holds the mechanism fixed, we…").
- Use balanced citation: foundational SMJ anchors (e.g., Wernerfelt, 1984, on the resource-based view; Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997, on dynamic capabilities) plus current-decade pieces. A reference list with no recent work signals a stale framing.
- If your closest antecedents sit in an SMS sibling (SEJ for entrepreneurship, GSJ for global strategy), acknowledge them and clarify why your firm-level strategy framing belongs in SMJ — this preempts a fit-based desk reject.
- Use APA author-date citation throughout, and keep self-citations neutral for double-blind review; do not weaponize self-citation.
Checklist
- The intro names the conversation and its central question within the first two pages
- Prior work is organized by position/finding, not chronology
- The gap is theoretical (mechanism / tension / contingency), not just contextual
- The 2–3 closest papers are named and explicitly differentiated
- Recent SMJ / strategy work in the stream is cited; nothing obvious is missing
- One crisp "our move" sentence states the advance
Anti-patterns
- "Literature review" that is an annotated bibliography
- Context-only gap ("first study of this in [industry/country]") as the main justification
- Strawmanning prior work to manufacture a gap
- Missing the obvious recent SMJ paper a reviewer will know
- Positioning so broad ("strategy literature has not fully understood performance") that no specific contribution lands
Output format
【Conversation】stream + central question
【State of play】what the field believes / where it disagrees
【Gap type】context | measurement | inconsistency | mechanism | tension (aim for mechanism/tension)
【Closest papers + differentiation】[paper → how we differ] ×2–3
【Our move (one sentence)】...
【Missing-citation risk】checked / to verify
【Next step】smj-methods
Templates & resources
../../resources/official-source-map.md— SMJ scope, SMS journal family (SMJ/SEJ/GSJ), and verified landmark papers for anchoring