Literature Positioning (orgstud-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• The theory exists (from orgstud-theory-development) but the paper does not say whose conversation it advances or what it changes
• The literature review is a catalogue ("X did A, Y did B, Z did C") with no argument
• A reviewer says "this is well-known," "you're not engaging the right literature," or "what's new relative to [canonical OS work]?"
• The framing claims to advance institutional/process/practice theory but cites it only in passing

Positioning is an argument, not a survey

At OS, the literature section is where you earn the right to make a theoretical claim. It is not a neutral map of prior work; it is a constructed account of a specific conversation that sets up exactly the gap your theory fills. OS reviewers — often the very scholars who built these conversations — judge whether you have (1) identified the right interlocutors, (2) read them accurately and generously, and (3) located a gap that is real, non-trivial, and closable with your evidence.

The standard OS move: synthesize the conversation into a tension or unresolved problem, then show that existing accounts cannot resolve it, then position your mechanism as the resolution. This is the inverse of a "gap-spotting" list. A gap stated as "no one has studied X in setting Y" is weak at OS; a gap stated as "the field assumes A, but phenomenon B shows A cannot hold, so we need a new account of C" is strong.

Locate the conversation precisely

OS conversations are bounded and have canonical anchors. Name yours:

• Neo-institutional theory — logics, work, change, maintenance, complexity (e.g., the legitimacy/isomorphism lineage, institutional work, logics multiplicity)
• Process & practice theory — organizing as becoming; strategy-as-practice; routines dynamics; the Langley/Tsoukas process tradition
• Sensemaking — the Weickian lineage; sensegiving; equivocality and enactment
• Critical & power — Foucauldian discipline, critical management studies, ideology, control
• Discourse / narrative / categories — meaning, classification, and communicative constitution

State which one (or which bridge between two) you advance, with its key works. Vague positioning ("the organizations literature") reads as not knowing the field.

Differentiate from sibling outlets in the framing

The same phenomenon is studied differently across venues; your framing must signal OS, not a sibling. Against ASQ, foreground process/critical/European theorizing over the US variance template. Against Organization Science, foreground interpretive/sociological theory over modeling and multi-paradigm breadth. Against JMS, foreground a sharper single theoretical conversation over pluralist breadth. Against AMR, show your empirical material does theoretical work (AMR is theory-only). The reviewer should never think "this belongs at a different journal."

Checklist

• The section is an argument that builds to a tension/problem, not a catalogue of prior studies
• The specific OS conversation is named with its canonical anchors
• The gap is stated as an unresolved tension/assumption-failure, not "no one has studied X"
• Interlocutors are read accurately and generously (no straw-manning the field)
• The framing signals OS, not ASQ / Org Science / JMS / AMR
• The positioned gap is exactly what the theory + evidence can close
• Citations are real; no invented exemplars (verify in the archive/DOI)

Anti-patterns

• "Gap-spotting" by setting/population ("understudied in healthcare") instead of by theoretical tension
• A literature catalogue with no synthesizing argument
• Claiming to advance a tradition while engaging it only superficially
• Straw-manning prior work so your contribution looks bigger than it is
• Positioning so broad ("the management literature") that no OS conversation is identifiable
• Framing that would read equally well at a US empirical journal — losing the OS signature

Worked vignette: from gap-spotting to tension (illustrative)

A study of how a hospital merged two clinical units first framed its gap as "post-merger integration is understudied in healthcare." An OS reviewer would read that as an empirical gap, not a theoretical one. The repositioned framing instead synthesized the institutional-logics conversation into a tension: the literature assumes competing logics are either segregated or blended, yet the case shows actors holding both as a deliberate, ongoing accomplishment that neither segregation nor blending describes. Now the gap is an assumption-failure in a named conversation, and the paper's process model of "sustained holding" is positioned as its resolution. Same data, very different OS prospects.

Output format

【Conversation】the specific OS literature + canonical anchors
【Synthesized tension】the unresolved problem/assumption the field cannot currently resolve
【Gap】stated as tension/assumption-failure (not "understudied")
【Your move】how the theory resolves the tension
【Sibling differentiation】why OS not ASQ / Org Science / JMS / AMR
【Next skill】orgstud-methods