Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (entrepreneurship-theory-and-practice)
Journal positioning
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP), published by SAGE, is one of the two flagship entrepreneurship journals and is distinguished by its strong theory-development orientation across the full breadth of entrepreneurship research. Where its sibling JBV centers tightly on the venturing process, ETP welcomes conceptual and empirical work across diverse methods — quantitative, qualitative, and conceptual — united by a substantive contribution to entrepreneurship theory. The audience is entrepreneurship scholars, so a paper must advance how the field theorizes entrepreneurial phenomena, not merely describe them.
This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the SAGE / ETP site and the submission system.
When to trigger
- The author names ETP (or the entrepreneurship flagship tier) as the venue.
- A theory-forward entrepreneurship paper — conceptual, qualitative, or quantitative — needs a home that prizes theoretical contribution.
- An entrepreneurship study needs re-framing so the theoretical advance, not the description, leads.
- The author needs ETP's desk-reject risks and a credible
journal-of-business-venturing / academy-of-management-journal / strategic-management-journal alternative list.
Scope & topic fit
- The full breadth of entrepreneurship: opportunity, venture creation, entrepreneurial cognition and behavior, founding teams, growth, and exit.
- Family business, social and sustainable entrepreneurship, corporate venturing, entrepreneurial finance, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
- Context and heterogeneity in entrepreneurship — gender, institutions, culture, and emerging economies — theorized rather than described.
- Conceptual and empirical work across methods, judged by theoretical contribution.
Method & evidence bar
- Theory development is central: the paper must make a clear conceptual contribution to entrepreneurship — new theory, elaboration, or a meaningful test.
- Methodological pluralism with rigor — quantitative work needs sound design, identification or careful inference, and treatment of selection/survivorship in venture data; qualitative work needs transparent analysis and a strong data-to-theory path.
- Conceptual papers must be genuinely novel and rigorously argued, not literature summaries.
- Engagement with the relevant entrepreneurship-theory conversation is expected.
Structure & house style
- The front end develops an entrepreneurship-theory problem and positions it in an ongoing scholarly debate.
- A strong ETP paper foregrounds the theoretical contribution in the discussion and bounds its conditions.
- Qualitative papers present transparent analytic narratives; quantitative papers subordinate technique to the theoretical argument; conceptual papers carry novel logic.
- House style rewards scholarly, theory-literate writing; ETP runs special issues that develop the field — re-check current calls.
Official-submission checklist
- Before giving submission-ready advice, read
../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
- Search the live site for "Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice submission guidelines / SAGE author guidelines" and follow the current version.
- Re-check word/length limits, abstract format, anonymization for double-blind review, reference style, and article-type rules (empirical, conceptual).
- Re-check current open-science, data-availability, and AI-use disclosure policies, and any open special-issue calls.
- If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.
Pre-submission self-check
Common desk-reject triggers
- A descriptive entrepreneurship study with no theoretical contribution.
- A conceptual paper that summarizes literature without a genuine theoretical advance.
- Venture data analyzed without addressing selection/survivorship; survey work with unaddressed common-method bias.
- A general strategy/OB paper set among entrepreneurs with no entrepreneurship-theory advance.
Re-routing decision
- A paper centered tightly on the venturing process / opportunity with strong empirics →
journal-of-business-venturing.
- Entrepreneurship with a firm-strategy/performance core →
strategic-management-journal; theory-driven management empirics → academy-of-management-journal.
- Pure management theory beyond entrepreneurship →
academy-of-management-review; entrepreneurship-stream review → academy-of-management-annals.
- Org theory of new organizations →
organization-science; broad management empirics → journal-of-management-en; European theory-method → journal-of-management-studies or organization-studies; international entrepreneurship → journal-of-international-business-studies; innovation-driven venturing → research-policy.
Output format
[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <is the entrepreneurship-theory contribution + rigor at ETP's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <submission system / length / references / article type / special-issue calls>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → English-SocialScience-Journal-Skills/skills/entrepreneurship-theory-and-practice/SKILL.md
1---2name: entrepreneurship-theory-and-practice3description: Use when targeting Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP) or deciding whether a theory-driven entrepreneurship manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, framing, method-and-evidence bar, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics.4---5
6
7# Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (entrepreneurship-theory-and-practice)
8
9## Journal positioning
10
11Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP), published by SAGE, is one of the two flagship entrepreneurship journals and is distinguished by its strong theory-development orientation across the full breadth of entrepreneurship research. Where its sibling JBV centers tightly on the venturing process, ETP welcomes conceptual and empirical work across diverse methods — quantitative, qualitative, and conceptual — united by a substantive contribution to entrepreneurship theory. The audience is entrepreneurship scholars, so a paper must advance how the field theorizes entrepreneurial phenomena, not merely describe them.
12
13This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the SAGE / ETP site and the submission system.
14
15## When to trigger
16
17- The author names ETP (or the entrepreneurship flagship tier) as the venue.
18- A theory-forward entrepreneurship paper — conceptual, qualitative, or quantitative — needs a home that prizes theoretical contribution.
19- An entrepreneurship study needs re-framing so the theoretical advance, not the description, leads.
20- The author needs ETP's desk-reject risks and a credible `journal-of-business-venturing` / `academy-of-management-journal` / `strategic-management-journal` alternative list.
21
22## Scope & topic fit
23
24- The full breadth of entrepreneurship: opportunity, venture creation, entrepreneurial cognition and behavior, founding teams, growth, and exit.
25- Family business, social and sustainable entrepreneurship, corporate venturing, entrepreneurial finance, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
26- Context and heterogeneity in entrepreneurship — gender, institutions, culture, and emerging economies — theorized rather than described.
27- Conceptual and empirical work across methods, judged by theoretical contribution.
28
29## Method & evidence bar
30
31- Theory development is central: the paper must make a clear conceptual contribution to entrepreneurship — new theory, elaboration, or a meaningful test.
32- Methodological pluralism with rigor — quantitative work needs sound design, identification or careful inference, and treatment of selection/survivorship in venture data; qualitative work needs transparent analysis and a strong data-to-theory path.
33- Conceptual papers must be genuinely novel and rigorously argued, not literature summaries.
34- Engagement with the relevant entrepreneurship-theory conversation is expected.
35
36## Structure & house style
37
38- The front end develops an entrepreneurship-theory problem and positions it in an ongoing scholarly debate.
39- A strong ETP paper foregrounds the theoretical contribution in the discussion and bounds its conditions.
40- Qualitative papers present transparent analytic narratives; quantitative papers subordinate technique to the theoretical argument; conceptual papers carry novel logic.
41- House style rewards scholarly, theory-literate writing; ETP runs special issues that develop the field — re-check current calls.
42
43## Official-submission checklist
44
45- Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
46- Search the live site for "Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice submission guidelines / SAGE author guidelines" and follow the current version.
47- Re-check word/length limits, abstract format, anonymization for double-blind review, reference style, and article-type rules (empirical, conceptual).
48- Re-check current open-science, data-availability, and AI-use disclosure policies, and any open special-issue calls.
49- If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.
50
51## Pre-submission self-check
52
53- [ ] One sentence stating the contribution to entrepreneurship theory.
54- [ ] The method (conceptual, qualitative, or quantitative) is rigorous and fit to the contribution.
55- [ ] Venture-data hazards (selection, survivorship) and common-method concerns are addressed where relevant.
56- [ ] Conceptual papers are novel and rigorously argued, not reviews; context is theorized, not just described.
57- [ ] Article type, framing, references, and anonymization match the current ETP guide.
58
59## Common desk-reject triggers
60
61- A descriptive entrepreneurship study with no theoretical contribution.
62- A conceptual paper that summarizes literature without a genuine theoretical advance.
63- Venture data analyzed without addressing selection/survivorship; survey work with unaddressed common-method bias.
64- A general strategy/OB paper set among entrepreneurs with no entrepreneurship-theory advance.
65
66## Re-routing decision
67
68- A paper centered tightly on the venturing process / opportunity with strong empirics → `journal-of-business-venturing`.
69- Entrepreneurship with a firm-strategy/performance core → `strategic-management-journal`; theory-driven management empirics → `academy-of-management-journal`.
70- Pure management theory beyond entrepreneurship → `academy-of-management-review`; entrepreneurship-stream review → `academy-of-management-annals`.
71- Org theory of new organizations → `organization-science`; broad management empirics → `journal-of-management-en`; European theory-method → `journal-of-management-studies` or `organization-studies`; international entrepreneurship → `journal-of-international-business-studies`; innovation-driven venturing → `research-policy`.
72
73## Output format
74
75```text
76[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
77[Target] Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
78[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
79[Method/evidence] <is the entrepreneurship-theory contribution + rigor at ETP's bar?>
80[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
81[Official items to re-check] <submission system / length / references / article type / special-issue calls>
82[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>
83```
84
85---
86
87**Source:** [`brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills`](https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) → `English-SocialScience-Journal-Skills/skills/entrepreneurship-theory-and-practice/SKILL.md`
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