---
name: jbv-topic-selection
description: Use when shaping or stress-testing a research question for the Journal of Business Venturing (JBV) — confirming the entrepreneurial phenomenon is central, picking a multidisciplinary lens, and checking fit before investing in theory or data. Defines the question; it does not build the mechanism (jbv-theory-development) or frame the contribution (jbv-contribution-framing).
---

# Topic Selection & JBV Fit (jbv-topic-selection)

## When to trigger

- You have an idea or a dataset but are unsure it belongs in JBV rather than a general management or strategy outlet
- A co-author asks "is this really an entrepreneurship paper?"
- You want to pick which disciplinary lens (economics, psychology, sociology) drives the question
- A desk reject said the work is "off-topic" or "entrepreneurship is incidental"

## The JBV fit test

JBV publishes research on the **entrepreneurial phenomenon in its myriad of forms** — the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences of entrepreneurship. Before anything else, pass this gate:

- **Centrality**: Is the creation of new ventures or new economic activity (or entrepreneurial cognition, behavior, financing, teams, social/sustainable/international entrepreneurship, or ecosystems) the heart of the contribution? If entrepreneurship is merely the empirical setting for a general theory of organizations, JBV is the wrong venue — that distinction is the single most common desk-reject reason at this FT50 flagship.
- **Phenomenon, not method**: The question must matter for understanding entrepreneurship, not exist to showcase a dataset or technique.
- **Disciplinary lens**: JBV is grounded in economics, psychology, and sociology and welcomes anthropology, geography, history, and multiple functional areas (finance, management, marketing, strategy). Name the primary lens — it shapes the mechanism and which **field editor** handles your paper.

## Sharpening the question

- State the question as a tension or puzzle in the entrepreneurial phenomenon, not as "no one has studied X in startups" (gap-spotting reads as weak here).
- Identify the unit and stage of the entrepreneurial process: nascent/pre-founding, founding, early growth, exit/failure. JBV studies span the whole life course.
- Decide whether you are offering "theories, narratives, and interpretations" or testing hypotheses — JBV explicitly welcomes both, so a rich interpretive question is legitimate, not a fallback.

## Domain sweep (common JBV territories)

- Opportunity recognition, evaluation, and entrepreneurial judgment/cognition
- New-venture financing (VC, angels, crowdfunding, microfinance, bootstrapping)
- Founding teams, identity, passion, and entrepreneurial behavior
- Social, sustainable, and international/transnational entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurial ecosystems, institutions, and regional context

## Checklist

- [ ] Entrepreneurship / new venture creation is the *central* contribution, not the setting
- [ ] Primary disciplinary lens (econ / psych / sociology / other) named
- [ ] Stage of the entrepreneurial process specified
- [ ] Question framed as a phenomenon-puzzle, not a literature gap
- [ ] Plausible field-editor domain identified for routing
- [ ] Decision made: hypothesis-testing vs. narrative/interpretive theorizing

## Fit triage and venue routing

When the centrality gate is borderline, use this table to decide whether JBV is the home or a sibling owns the question.

| Signal in the idea                                        | Verdict and routing                                                                 |
|-----------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| *Creating* a venture/opportunity under uncertainty.       | Strong JBV fit; build the mechanism in `jbv-theory-development`.                     |
| Strategy/competitive advantage of an established firm.    | Likely Strategic Management Journal — entrepreneurship is incidental.                |
| Broad entrepreneurship theory or pedagogy/identity.       | Possibly Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice; check whether JBV's micro/process emphasis fits.|
| Reads identically for any organization.                   | Off-fit; reframe around the venture primitive or route to a general-management outlet.|

## Worked micro-example: a fit decision (illustrative)

An author has Crunchbase data on AI startups and a finding that "advisory-board prestige predicts Series A." Triage:

- **Centrality test**: as stated, a signaling/legitimacy effect that could describe any firm raising capital — fails the gate.
- **The fix that earns fit**: reframe to the *nascent* stage — does advisory prestige substitute for the missing track record that defines the **liability of newness**, vanishing once a venture has its own operating history? Newness becomes the mechanism.
- **Lens**: sociology (legitimacy/endorsement) primary, economics (signaling) secondary — a multidisciplinary framing fitting JBV.
- **Stage/unit**: pre-Series-A nascent ventures, founder-and-venture level.
- **Verdict**: fit *after* reframing; the raw "prestige → funding" version is a desk-reject risk.

## Calibration anchors (hedged)

- The highest-leverage screen is the **centrality gate**: if the contribution survives deleting the word "startup," it is probably not yet a JBV paper.
- JBV's identity leans toward **micro-foundations and the process of emergence** — opportunity, cognition, founding, early financing — differentiating it from strategy-interface entrepreneurship venues.
- Scope and welcomed disciplines evolve; treat any precise scope statement as guidance and **confirm against the journal's current aims-and-scope**.

## Anti-patterns

- **Entrepreneurship as window dressing** — a generic org/strategy study run on a startup sample.
- **Method-first** — "I have Crunchbase data, what can I ask?" instead of a phenomenon puzzle.
- **Single-discipline tunnel vision** when a multidisciplinary framing is stronger.
- **Gap-spotting** ("understudied") as the sole justification.

## Output format

```
【Phenomenon】the entrepreneurial puzzle in one sentence ...
【Centrality check】entrepreneurship central? yes/no + why ...
【Lens】primary discipline + secondary ...
【Stage/unit】nascent / founding / growth / exit ...
【Mode】hypothesis-testing or narrative/interpretive ...
【JBV fit verdict】fit / borderline / off-fit (→ alternative venue) ...
【Next step】jbv-theory-development
```