---
name: jm-contribution-framing
description: Use when stating the contribution of a Journal of Marketing (JM) manuscript — making the substantive insight explicit and discharging JM's dual mandate of managerial, policy, and societal relevance. Frames the contribution; it does not run the analysis (jm-data-analysis) or polish the prose (jm-writing-style).
---

# Contribution Framing, Dual Mandate (jm-contribution-framing)

## When to trigger

- Results exist but the "so what" — especially the managerial one — is thin
- A reviewer or the Coeditor calls the contribution "incremental" or a "new-context replication"
- The discussion lists implications generically without a decision a manager would change
- You need to write the explicit contribution sentences for the intro and discussion

## JM's contribution bar has two parts — both required

JM publishes **the most impactful, thought-leading substantive research in the marketing discipline**, and its mission is explicitly a **bridge between the scholarly and the practical**. So a JM contribution statement must do two things at once:

1. **Substantive advance**: a *new, consequential understanding* of a real marketing question — a mechanism, reversal, boundary condition, or magnitude that the field did not have. (Not "we confirmed X in setting Y.")
2. **Managerial / policy / societal relevance**: a concrete way managers, policy makers, consumers, or society can act differently. At JM this is a **stated requirement, not a courtesy paragraph** — it distinguishes JM from purely theory-driven flagships.

Write both explicitly in the introduction and revisit them in the discussion. If you can only write one, the paper is not yet a JM paper.

## Defend against "incremental / new context"

For the predictable reviewer challenge, prepare a one-sentence answer to each:

- *"We already knew this."* → What is new, surprising, or decision-changing that prior work could not have told us?
- *"You just changed the setting."* → What about the **mechanism, magnitude, or boundary** is genuinely different — not merely the industry/country/platform?
- *"So what for practice?"* → Which decision changes, for whom, and how large is the gain?

## Make managerial relevance concrete (not boilerplate)

- Name the **decision** and the **decision maker**.
- Quantify the stake using your effect sizes in managerial units (sales lift, CLV, conversion, WTP, welfare).
- State the **conditions** under which the prescription holds (your boundary conditions become managerial guardrails).
- Where relevant, draw out **policy or societal** implications (consumer welfare, fairness, well-being, sustainability) — JM's stakeholders include policy makers and society, not only firms.

## Checklist

- [ ] One-sentence substantive contribution (new, consequential understanding) written
- [ ] One-sentence managerial/policy/societal contribution written
- [ ] Both appear in the introduction and are revisited in the discussion
- [ ] "Incremental / new-context" challenge answered explicitly
- [ ] Managerial stake quantified in real units, with conditions/guardrails
- [ ] Policy/societal implications addressed where the question warrants
- [ ] Contribution does not rest on methodological novelty

## Anti-patterns

- **Relevance boilerplate**: a generic "managers should pay attention to X" with no decision or magnitude.
- **Substantive claim with no practice**, or **practice claim with no new insight** — JM needs both.
- **Contribution = method**: leading with the estimator/model rather than the marketing insight.
- **New-context framing** dressed up as a contribution.
- **Over-claiming** beyond what the effect sizes and design support.

## Output format

```
【Substantive contribution】[one sentence: new, consequential understanding]
【Managerial/policy/societal contribution】[one sentence: decision changed]
【Incremental/new-context defense】[...]
【Quantified stake】lift / CLV / WTP / welfare = [...]; conditions: [...]
【Policy/societal angle】[...]
【Placement】intro + discussion sentences drafted? yes/no
【Next step】jm-tables-figures
```