2 peer reviews - paper

Overview

An MBR EFA article is expected to:

· Identify a research question of practical importance to managers

· Present the results of an experiment, survey or other study that provides insights into that question

· Explain why the results do not simply confirm what a manager would normally expect

· Where possible, place the results in the context of existing theory or propose an alternative theory

· Identify the implications of the findings in terms of broader research questions

Such an article would normally be around 5 to 15 pages.

Acceptance of an MBR EFA submission will take into consideration:

· The significance of the question being asked.

· The degree to which the findings being examined are likely to be either novel or confusing to practicing managers.

· The degree to which the analysis or theory being presented offers a convincing explanation for the findings.

· Presentation of findings in a manner likely to engage readers.

Instructions

· Save this document under the name to be used with the EFA submission

· Delete the “Instructions” page

· On the first page, replace the generic information with your specific information:

· Leave the “Empirical Findings Article” heading

· Title: Use the Title style, centered.

· (Author information will be submitted in the review system)

· Styles should be used for all headings

· Main headings should use Heading 1 style

· Sub headings should use Heading 2 style

· Heading 3, Etc.

· Graphics should be embedded as .jpg, .gif or .png images. Do not use Office drawings.

· References should be listed at the end, in APA format

· Fill in the information specified in the Reviewer Appendix at the end of the template. This information will not be included in the published version of the article, but will be used during the review process.

Empirical Findings Article Cover Page

Empirical Findings: The Title Goes Here

Tagline

In this section, place a 25-50 word paragraph that captures the importance of the research question and the findings to be presented. This will not appear in the article itself, but will be used in the contents. Since the question itself is the title, it should not be repeated in the tagline.

Keywords

Put 5-10 keywords that will be used to index the article and make it easier to find when a search is done.

Executive Summary

A 150-250 word summary that summarizes the importance of the research question and the degree to which the findings being presented appear to offer value to managers in their decision-making. This will appear at the beginning of the article.

Empirical Findings Article

Empirical Findings: The Title Goes Here

Introduction

An EFA article will normally begin with a brief description of the context of the business problem that motivated the investigation being described. Where these findings are analyzed in the context of a particular theory, that theory should also be described—hopefully in half a page of less. This section should avoid being a repetition of the executive summary.

Review of Research

A narrative that describes the historical context through which the business problem being explored has been researched in the past. This section should avoid the stilted conventions of an academic literature review, nor is it expected to be comprehensive. Note: Where a substantial body of literature relating to the research question exists, authors are encouraged to submit a Research Summary for Practice (RSP) manuscript to MBR in parallel, which can be referenced in the EFA. Ideally, this section will be under a page, although longer narratives may be accepted provided that they are written in a manner that engages the reader. Upon completing this section, the reader should have an understanding as to how the particular business problem has been studied and why it warrants further examination.

The Protocol

This section describes the protocol through which the data being analyzed was gathered. Because a more detailed protocol must be included in the Reviewer Appendix, the author(s) should strive for clarity and brevity consistent with convincing the reader that the study was conducted in a rigorous manner. Issues to be addressed would normally include:

· How any instruments developed for the survey were designed

· Where the data was gathered from (e.g., if a survey was used, the nature of the respondents)

· The time frame during which the data was collected

· The types of analysis performed (presented in a non-technical manner)

This section should, ideally, be under a page. Where charts or tables are employed to make the presentation clearer (e.g., to provide a breakdown of respondent demographics), a longer presentation may be acceptable. Upon completing this section, the reader should be convinced that the findings to be presented in the next section were developed in a rigorous manner.

Findings

This section walks the reader through the findings of the investigation. Use of charts and tables to improve clarity is encouraged. For each finding, care should be taken to identify:

1. How it relates to the business problem being considered

2. Whether or not it is likely to be consistent with expectations. (As a general rule, at least some findings should not be consistent with a manager’s expectations, since learning something new is the principal value of a study such as this).

Upon completing this section, the reader should be able to describe how findings presented both confirm and conflict with his or her expectations.

Discussion

In this section, the results of the EFA are synthesized by the author(s) and, ideally, framed in terms of the broader academic research literature. In this section, it is appropriate to explore the findings in the context of existing theory. Where existing theory conflicts with or fails to provide adequate explanation of what was observed, it is possible (but not required) to propose an outline of alternative theory. This alternative could then be expanded more fully in a subsequent MBR Novel Idea submission. As a general rule, however, the EFA should allow the reader room to develop his or her own interpretation, rather than pushing towards a particular interpretation.

Conclusions

The summary of the key takeaways from the EFA. Normally, these should be under a page and should be sufficiently self-contained that a reader can jump to them and still understand them.

References

APA format should be used for all references.

Reviewer Appendix

The reviewer appendix is not published with the article, but it is a critical component of the review process. It is required to allow the manuscript’s reviewers to assess whether the EFA was conducted according to standards of rigor consistent with publishable research. The author(s) should fill out each of sections that follows.

The EFA Question

Explain the process through which EFA question was selected. If the topic of the EFA was motivated by a business question or a research interest, describe the research conducted by the author(s) prior to formulating the question.

Research Design

Explain the design of the research and justify why it appears to address EFA question. This section should be similar to what would be included in an academic research paper and would include justifications for:

· Selection of methodology

· Data sources

· Sampling procedure and its rationale, if applicable

· Identification and acquisition of public data sources

· Instrument design and validation (if applicable)

· Experimental design (if applicable)

· Qualitative data gathering design (e.g., focus groups, interviews)

· Data analysis

The focus of this section should be on how the research was designed. The actual conduct of the research, and how it varied from design should be discussed in the Research Conduct section.

Note: Authors seeking further publication are encouraged to expend substantial effort on this section. Since it would not be published with the article, it could be used verbatim in a submission to an academic journal relating to the same finding, where it would be a more appropriate fit.

Research Performance

In this section, the actual performance of the research should be presented. The emphasis of this section should be on identifying the compromises that needed to be made during the course of the investigation and on providing supporting analysis that would be inappropriate for the audience in the body of the article. Key element of this section include:

· A step by step timeline of how the research was conducted; tabular form preferred.

· A description of variations between the research design and the actual conduct the research. In each case, the motivation for the deviation and a justification should be provided; narrative form preferred.

· Supporting analysis that would be beyond the scope of the paper, such as correlation matrices, non-trivial statistical analysis, comparison of respondent with non-respondent characteristics (for statistical surveys), evidence of survey validation, and so forth.

This section will provide reviewers with the opportunity to get a clearer view of the rigor through which the research was conducted. It may also allow them to provide authors feedback on how issues might be addressed should an academic version of the submission be developed.

The Discussion and Conclusions

Describe the process through which the discussion and conclusions were developed.

Permissions

The author(s) of a manuscript is responsible for acquiring necessary permissions prior to publication. For interviews, these permissions are likely to involve permission to use any external materials (such as graphics or extensive quoted content) that are included in the discussion.

Particular care should be taken when copying images. Even when it is claimed that they are available to copy, it is not always the case that the site displaying them has the right to make that claim. When copying a graphic, if there is any doubt you can recreate the graphic (using your own styling) in PowerPoint or some other tool, then cite the source as “Adapted from {source citations}”.