---
name: jibs-topic-selection
description: Use when choosing or sharpening a research question for a Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) manuscript — testing whether it is a genuine international-business phenomenon with country/culture as a level of analysis, and whether JIBS (vs. AMJ/SMJ/JWB) is the right venue. Locks the question; it does not build the mechanism (jibs-theory-development).
---

# Phenomenon-Driven Topic Selection (jibs-topic-selection)

## When to trigger

- You have an idea or a dataset but are unsure it is a real *international-business* question
- Your sample is one country and you are not sure that qualifies as IB
- You can describe a finding but not the cross-border phenomenon behind it
- You are deciding between JIBS and an adjacent journal (AMJ, SMJ, JWB, GSJ, MIR)

## The JIBS fit test

JIBS is distinctively **phenomenon-based**. Its Statement of Editorial Policy seeks "insightful and innovative" research on real-world international-business problems, and the journal explicitly discourages incremental extensions. Before anything else, your topic must pass four gates:

1. **Phenomenon gate.** Name a concrete cross-border, multi-country, or global phenomenon, problem, or puzzle (e.g., an MNE entry-mode choice, a subsidiary-HQ tension, a cross-cultural negotiation outcome, a de-globalization shock). If you can only name a "gap," you do not yet have a JIBS topic.
2. **Level-of-analysis gate.** JIBS treats **country and culture as levels of analysis**, not as control variables. State whether your effect lives at the individual, firm/subsidiary, or country level — and where the cross-level action is.
3. **IB-theory gate.** State what new thing the field learns about *international* business — internationalization, the MNE, cross-cultural management, international strategy/finance/economics, or global political economy. A general management insight that happens to use foreign data is not enough.
4. **Cross-national-variation gate.** Either your variation *is* cross-country, or you have a defensible reason a single-country study speaks to IB theory (e.g., it tests a boundary condition of an IB theory). Single-country convenience samples framed as "international" are a desk-reject risk.

## Venue routing

- **JIBS**: the contribution is to *IB* theory; country/culture is theorized, not controlled; AIB's official journal.
- **AMJ**: strong general-management empirics + theory, often single-country — route here if the cross-border element is incidental.
- **SMJ**: competitive advantage/performance; route here if the question is strategy-first and not distinctively cross-border.
- **JWB / MIR / GSJ**: IB-adjacent; viable if the contribution is solid but narrower than JIBS's phenomenon bar.


## Fit pass for Journal of International Business Studies

Use this as a second-pass capability check. First lock the cross-border mechanism, level of analysis, institutional context, and generalizability claim; then test whether the manuscript addresses international-business reviewers who expect cross-border theory, context sensitivity, and credible firm or institution evidence.

- **Primary move:** Score fit, novelty, evidence readiness, and audience ownership; reject prestige-only targeting when a sibling venue owns the contribution.
- **Decision ledger:** return `claim / evidence / blocker / next edit` rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
- **Neighbor test:** compare against Strategic Management Journal for strategy theory, Journal of Management for broader management, International Business Review for applied IB breadth; if the neighboring outlet has the stronger audience claim, recommend re-routing before polishing.
- **Verification floor:** before submission-ready advice, re-open `resources/official-source-map.md` for volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.

## Output format

```
【Phenomenon】the concrete cross-border puzzle ...
【Levels】individual / firm-subsidiary / country; cross-level action at ...
【IB-theory contribution】what the field learns about international business ...
【Variation】cross-country / justified single-country ...
【Fit verdict】JIBS / route to AMJ|SMJ|JWB because ...
【Next step】jibs-theory-development
```

## Anti-patterns

- "Gap-spotting" ("no one has studied X in country Y") with no phenomenon or mechanism.
- Treating country as a dummy control rather than theorizing the country/culture level.
- "Foreign-data management paper" with no distinctively international mechanism.
- Over-claiming a single-country sample as cross-national.