Literature Positioning (smj-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• Your literature review is a chronological list of "X found… Y found…"
• The introduction never names whose conversation you are joining
• You cite broadly but not the specific SMJ / strategy stream you extend
• Reviewers might say "I don't see what's new here" or "this ignores recent work in this area"

The conversation principle

SMJ papers do not survey a field — they enter a specific scholarly conversation and move it forward. Your job is to identify the live debate (e.g., the boundary conditions of dynamic capabilities; whether alliance experience helps or hurts; the performance effects of board independence) and show precisely where it is stuck or unresolved.

Positioning structure (funnel)

1. The conversation. Name the stream and its central question in 2–3 sentences. Cite the anchor pieces, including recent SMJ work.
2. The state of play. What does the stream currently believe, and where does it disagree or stop? Group prior work by position/finding, not by year.
3. The gap that matters. Not "no one has studied X in country Y," but a theoretical gap: an unexamined mechanism, an unresolved tension, a contingency the stream assumes away.
4. Your move. One sentence: how this paper resolves or advances the gap.

Gap quality ladder (low → high)

Aim for the bottom two rows.

Engaging the SMJ corpus

• Cite the specific SMJ stream you extend; reviewers are often authors in it. Ignoring obvious recent SMJ work is a credibility hit.
• Distinguish your contribution from the 2–3 closest papers explicitly ("Unlike [paper], which holds the mechanism fixed, we…").
• Use balanced citation: foundational SMJ anchors (e.g., Wernerfelt, 1984, on the resource-based view; Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997, on dynamic capabilities) plus current-decade pieces. A reference list with no recent work signals a stale framing.
• If your closest antecedents sit in an SMS sibling (SEJ for entrepreneurship, GSJ for global strategy), acknowledge them and clarify why your firm-level strategy framing belongs in SMJ — this preempts a fit-based desk reject.
• Use APA author-date citation throughout, and keep self-citations neutral for double-blind review; do not weaponize self-citation.

Checklist

• The intro names the conversation and its central question within the first two pages
• Prior work is organized by position/finding, not chronology
• The gap is theoretical (mechanism / tension / contingency), not just contextual
• The 2–3 closest papers are named and explicitly differentiated
• Recent SMJ / strategy work in the stream is cited; nothing obvious is missing
• One crisp "our move" sentence states the advance

Anti-patterns

• "Literature review" that is an annotated bibliography
• Context-only gap ("first study of this in [industry/country]") as the main justification
• Strawmanning prior work to manufacture a gap
• Missing the obvious recent SMJ paper a reviewer will know
• Positioning so broad ("strategy literature has not fully understood performance") that no specific contribution lands

Output format

【Conversation】stream + central question
【State of play】what the field believes / where it disagrees
【Gap type】context | measurement | inconsistency | mechanism | tension  (aim for mechanism/tension)
【Closest papers + differentiation】[paper → how we differ] ×2–3
【Our move (one sentence)】...
【Missing-citation risk】checked / to verify
【Next step】smj-methods

Templates & resources

• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — SMJ scope, SMS journal family (SMJ/SEJ/GSJ), and verified landmark papers for anchoring