Topic Selection for an Annals Review (amann-topic-selection)

When to trigger

You have a candidate literature and need to know whether it is "Annals-shaped"
A topic feels either too narrow (a single-construct review) or too sprawling (a whole discipline)
You are deciding between Annals and a sibling outlet — AMR, AMJ, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, or an Annual Review
The domain is young/fast-moving and you suspect it is not yet mature enough to review for Annals

A literature belongs in Annals when it passes all five. Fail one and route accordingly.

Maturity. There is a body of research — multiple research streams, accumulated findings, recognizable debates — not a handful of recent studies. A domain still being born produces a premature review that dates within a year. (Fails → too young; wait, or place a focused piece elsewhere.)
Importance / breadth of interest. The questions matter to management and organization scholars broadly, and to allied audiences (organizational psychology, sociology of organizations), not only to a dozen specialists. Annals reaches across the field. (Fails → too niche; a field journal's review section fits better.)
Fragmentation / need for integration. The literature is scattered, siloed, contradictory, or conceptually muddled — rival constructs, parallel streams that never speak to each other, conflicting evidence. The review's value is the integration, not the inventory. (Fails → already well-synthesized; nothing to add.)
Integrability. You can see a plausible new organizing logic that would make the fragments cohere — a framework, a typology, a process model, a reconciliation. If you cannot imagine the spine, you have a topic, not an Annals review. (Fails → keep reading, or it is not yet an Annals piece.)
Tractable scope. One author/team can read and weigh the whole relevant literature in a single ~50-page review (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准). Annals reviews are long but bounded. (Fails → carve a coherent sub-domain.)