Literature Positioning (jms-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• The literature review is a "camel train" — a chronological parade of citations with no argument
• A reviewer says "I don't see what this adds" or "this conversation has moved on"
• The paper cites broadly but never names the specific conversation it advances
• Reviewers from two sub-fields disagree about which literature the paper belongs to
• The framing oversells ("we are the first") or undersells (buries the contribution in a sub-clause)

The JMS positioning bar

At JMS, positioning is not a literature survey — it is an argument about where the conversation is stuck and how your paper unsticks it. Because JMS is pluralist and internationally oriented, you must position against the theoretical conversation (e.g., institutional logics, dynamic capabilities, entrepreneurial ecosystems, paradox theory), not merely the empirical topic. The strongest JMS contributions do one of a few recognisable moves; name yours explicitly.

Contribution archetypes — name your move