OB in AMJ: What Is Hot and What Is Not?

Over the course of my three years as associate editor at AMJ (July 2007–July 2010), I was asked many questions about my experiences in this role. Almost as frequent as questions about the workload were inquiries about the types of papers that AMJ seeks to publish. As this question typically came from my organizational behavior (OB) colleagues, it essentially meant, “Are there particular types of papers at the micro level of analysis that AMJ prefers?” The answer to this query was a relatively easy one. As highlighted in its mission statement, AMJ seeks to publish research that (1) addresses interesting and important questions, (2) makes strong theoretical and empirical contributions, and (3) highlights the significance of those contributions to the field of management. Beyond that (and contrary to at least some popular beliefs), the editorial team has not had any particular preferences with respect to topic area or mode of inquiry. There is no agenda to publish more of one type of work than another, nor is there any intent to serve as gatekeepers blocking any particular research domain, theoretical paradigm, or methodology. In sum, I found this to be a relatively easy question to answer. The second question, however, was more difficult to answer. It went something like this: “What types of papers are you seeing as associate editor?” In other words, I was frequently asked whether there seemed to be particular themes or “hot topics” among the microlevel submissions to the Journal. This question, as I interpreted it, stemmed from a more general curiosity about where the field of OB is right now, at least as reflected in papers that scholars are submitting to AMJ. This struck me as an interesting and important question. It was also one that I found myself unable to answer with any certainty. I handled a large number of papers over the course of my three-year term, as did the other associate editors. In fact, the Journal received hundreds of papers a year. Each of the associate editors, of course, has some impressions about popular topics and paradigms, but it is not clear how well these match the reality. So the question got me wondering, and it raised a host of related questions: Have particular OB topics tended to be more prevalent than others in the pool of submissions? Are there topics that have not been well represented? Do certain types of OB papers make it through the review process more successfully than others? Are there certain types of OB submissions that AMJ should try to encourage more of going forward? The question also caused me to wonder about the types of microlevel papers that AMJ has published in recent years. Have certain topics been more strongly represented than others? If so, can any conclusions be drawn from publication patterns about the evolving nature of the field of OB? The longer I pondered these issues, the more unanswered questions I had, and the more interested I became in trying to answer them. Thus, as any dedicated empiricist would do, I set off on a quest to see what, if any, patterns or trends I could find. I did this in two parts. The first part focused on articles recently published in AMJ. For this exploration, I focused on the ten-year span from February 2000 through December 2009. The second part of my investigation focused on manuscripts submitted for consideration between July 2007 and July 2009.