Literature Positioning (jim-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• The front end lists citations but does not name the conversation being advanced
• A reviewer could plausibly write "this is Cavusgil and Zou with newer data"
• The related-work section reads as an undergraduate survey of international marketing
• Coauthors disagree about which literature the paper primarily speaks to

Name the conversation, then the vacancy

A JIM front end must do two things in order: identify the specific stream within international marketing the paper joins, and show the vacancy in that stream the paper fills. Streams have recognizable anchors — use them:

• Export marketing & performance: the strategy–performance tradition since Cavusgil and Zou (1994, JM) and the performance-measurement discipline of Katsikeas, Leonidou, and Morgan (2000, JAMS); capability extensions in Morgan, Katsikeas, and Vorhies (2012, JAMS).
• Global marketing strategy: the standardization–adaptation debate consolidated by Zou and Cavusgil's (2002, JM) GMS framework.
• Global branding & country image: perceived brand globalness (Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden 2003, JIBS), global–local brand tension (Özsomer 2012, JIM), local vs. nonlocal origin (Batra et al. 2000, JCP).
• Cross-cultural consumer behavior: values-based segmentation, ethnocentrism/animosity, and the methodological spine of Steenkamp and Baumgartner (1998, JCR) on measurement invariance.
• International entrepreneurship: born globals (Knight and Cavusgil 2004, JIBS).
• Emerging markets: the rethink agenda opened by Sheth (2011, JM).

The vacancy must be a live gap: something the stream's recent papers explicitly flag, disagree about, or systematically fail to test — not merely "no one has studied Z in country Y."

Build the positioning table early

Draft the comparison table before writing the front end; it disciplines every claim.

If your row differs only in the "Countries" column, the paper is a context extension — stop and return to jim-theory-development.

Three positioning moves that work at JIM

1. Resolve a cross-national inconsistency. Show that published effects disagree across studies run in different countries, and offer the theorized moderator that reconciles them.
2. Upgrade an assumed-universal mechanism. Take a mechanism the domestic literature treats as universal, show theoretically why it should be culture- or institution-bound, and test the boundary.
3. Theorize a new cross-border phenomenon. Digital-era phenomena (cross-border platforms, global influencer endorsement, AI-mediated localization) that the canon predates — anchor them to the closest classic stream rather than claiming a literature-free novelty.

Placement discipline in the manuscript

JIM papers carry positioning in the introduction (the conversation, the vacancy, the answer — within the first two pages) and a compact theoretical background section; there is no separate "literature review" chapter. Every cited work must earn its place by shaping a hypothesis or a design choice. With a 50-page all-inclusive cap, a bloated front end is paid for with amputated robustness sections later.

Checklist

• One primary stream named, with its anchor citations verified against the actual sources
• The vacancy is live: flagged, contested, or untested in recent work — not just unstudied
• Positioning table drafted; "this paper" row differs on ≥2 columns including theory
• At least 2–3 recent JIM papers engaged substantively, not ceremonially
• Country-coverage and invariance columns expose what prior work lacked
• Front-end positioning fits inside two pages of the introduction
• Every exemplar citation checked against the real paper (venue, year, claim)

Anti-patterns

• "To the best of our knowledge, no study has examined X in country Y" — the vacancy JIM does not accept
• Positioning against the domestic marketing literature only, as if international work did not exist
• A wall of citations with no stated disagreement, silence, or inconsistency to resolve
• Misattributing canon papers (wrong venue or wrong claim) — reviewers in this field know these papers cold
• Claiming novelty over a stream while omitting the JIM papers already inside it
• Differentiating purely on sample geography

Output format

【Stream】named conversation + 2–3 anchor citations (venue-checked)
【Vacancy】the live gap: inconsistency / untested boundary / new phenomenon
【Positioning move】reconcile / upgrade universal mechanism / theorize new phenomenon
【Table status】this-paper row differs on: [columns]
【JIM engagement】recent JIM papers substantively engaged: [list]
【Next skill】jim-methods