Writing Style (jmgmt-writing-style)

When to trigger

• The introduction reviews literature before it states the puzzle and the contribution
• The abstract exceeds 250 words or the title exceeds 15 words (the portal caps)
• The manuscript is over the 50-page inclusive limit
• The prose buries the mechanism under jargon and hedging
• A reviewer says "the writing is dense" or "I had to hunt for the contribution"

The JOM introduction (theory-forward)

JOM intros earn attention fast. A reliable structure:

1. Hook to a real management problem or tension (one paragraph) — the phenomenon, not a literature recap.
2. The gap / problematized assumption — what the literature takes for granted that is questionable.
3. What this paper does — the question, the theory invoked, and the design in one or two sentences.
4. The contribution — 2–4 explicit sentences ("we contribute to X by showing Y, which changes Z"), consistent with the discussion.
5. A short roadmap only if the paper is complex.

Keep hypotheses out of the intro; they belong in the developed theory section. The reader should know why the paper matters by the end of page two.

Title and abstract (hard portal limits)

• Title ≤ 15 words (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准): name the relationship/mechanism and ideally the theory; avoid cute colons that hide the content.
• Abstract ≤ 250 words (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准): state the question, theory, design (sample/method), key result with direction, and the theoretical contribution. JOM does not mandate a labeled structured abstract for empirical papers, but the abstract should still move from question → method → finding → contribution. Write it last, after the contribution is fixed.

APA voice and house style

• APA (7th) throughout: author–date citations, reference list, headings, numerals, and bias-free language.
• Active voice and concrete subjects ("managers", "the model"), not nominalized abstractions.
• Define each construct once, then use the term consistently — no synonym-drift that re-opens jangle/jingle worries.
• Report magnitudes in prose ("a 0.18 SD increase," illustrative), not just "significant."

Enforcing the 50-page guillotine

The 50-page limit includes text, notes, references, tables, and figures. When over: tighten the literature review (it is usually the longest and most cuttable section), move secondary analyses and full measures to the online supplement, merge exhibits (see jmgmt-tables-figures), and delete any sentence that the model figure or a table already conveys. Do not solve a length problem by shrinking the contribution paragraph — cut review and method redundancy first.

Theory-section prose (the long middle)

The theory/hypothesis-development section is where JOM papers most often turn turgid. Keep each hypothesis subsection to a tight arc — name the mechanism, walk the logic in two or three sentences, state the hypothesis — and resist re-summarizing the whole literature before each one. Use the process verb from jmgmt-theory-development so the mechanism stays vivid (signals, depletes, legitimates), and end each subsection with the numbered hypothesis in italics so a reviewer can find all of them in one scan.

Writing for a review or meta-analysis

A Review-Issue piece is read for structure as much as content. Lead with the organizing framework, signpost it relentlessly (the same headings the framework defines), and make the forward agenda concrete — each open question tied to a construct or mechanism in the framework, not a generic "future research should explore…". The abstract of a review should still name the framework and the single most important agenda item, within the 250-word cap.

A quick voice test

Read the abstract and the first two pages aloud. If a non-specialist management colleague cannot, after that, state the puzzle and what the paper contributes, the front end is not yet doing its job — revise before polishing later sections.

Checklist

• Intro hooks a real problem, then gap → question → contribution (contribution explicit)
• Hypotheses are not in the intro
• Title ≤ 15 words and names the relationship/mechanism
• Abstract ≤ 250 words: question → method → finding (with direction) → contribution
• APA 7th citations, references, headings, and bias-free language throughout
• Constructs named consistently; no synonym drift
• Magnitudes stated in prose, not only significance
• Manuscript within the 50-page inclusive limit; overflow in the supplement

Anti-patterns

• Literature-review opening: pages of prior work before the reader knows the puzzle
• Contribution buried on page 6 instead of stated in the intro
• Over-long title/abstract that the portal will reject or truncate
• Jargon and hedging that hide the mechanism
• Synonym drift for the focal construct, reviving discriminant-validity doubts
• Solving length by cutting the contribution instead of the review/method redundancy
• Mixed citation styles (not clean APA 7th)

Output format

【Intro arc】hook → gap → question → contribution (explicit?) [Y/N]
【Title】≤15 words, names the relationship? [Y/N] — draft: "..."
【Abstract】≤250 words, Q→method→finding→contribution? [Y/N]
【APA 7th】citations/references/headings clean? [Y/N]
【Construct consistency】no synonym drift? [Y/N]
【Length】≤50 inclusive pages? if not, cut plan: ...
【Next step】jmgmt-submission