Topic Selection & JBV Fit (jbv-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• You have an idea or a dataset but are unsure it belongs in JBV rather than a general management or strategy outlet
• A co-author asks "is this really an entrepreneurship paper?"
• You want to pick which disciplinary lens (economics, psychology, sociology) drives the question
• A desk reject said the work is "off-topic" or "entrepreneurship is incidental"

The JBV fit test

JBV publishes research on the entrepreneurial phenomenon in its myriad of forms — the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences of entrepreneurship. Before anything else, pass this gate:

• Centrality: Is the creation of new ventures or new economic activity (or entrepreneurial cognition, behavior, financing, teams, social/sustainable/international entrepreneurship, or ecosystems) the heart of the contribution? If entrepreneurship is merely the empirical setting for a general theory of organizations, JBV is the wrong venue — that distinction is the single most common desk-reject reason at this FT50 flagship.
• Phenomenon, not method: The question must matter for understanding entrepreneurship, not exist to showcase a dataset or technique.
• Disciplinary lens: JBV is grounded in economics, psychology, and sociology and welcomes anthropology, geography, history, and multiple functional areas (finance, management, marketing, strategy). Name the primary lens — it shapes the mechanism and likely area-editor domain.

Sharpening the question