Strategic Management Journal (strategic-management-journal)

Journal positioning

SMJ is the flagship journal of the Strategic Management Society (SMS) and the premier outlet for strategy research — how firms gain and sustain competitive advantage and why some firms outperform others. It draws on the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities, and transaction-cost and agency economics, as well as organizational sociology, but the question is always strategic: firm-level (or business/corporate-level) choices and their performance consequences. SMJ rewards a clear contribution to strategy theory backed by rigorous empirics. The audience is strategy scholars, so a paper must be strategy-central, not an OB or general-management study dressed up with a performance variable.

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 SMS / SMJ / Wiley site and the submission system.

When to trigger

• The author names SMJ (or the SMS journals / FT50 strategy elite) as the venue.
• A paper studies competitive advantage, firm performance, corporate or business strategy, diversification, alliances, M&A, governance, or capabilities.
• A management paper with firm-level outcomes needs re-framing around a strategy-theory contribution.
• The author needs SMJ's desk-reject risks and a credible academy-of-management-journal / organization-science / journal-of-management-en alternative list.

Scope & topic fit