---
name: orgsci-topic-selection
description: Use when choosing or sharpening a research question for an Organization Science manuscript — testing whether it is a theory-driven question about organizations spanning micro to macro, and whether Organization Science (rather than ASQ, AMJ, Management Science, or a field journal) is the right venue.
---

# Topic Selection & Venue Fit (orgsci-topic-selection)

## When to trigger

- You have a phenomenon, dataset, or field access but no sharpened question
- You are unsure whether the idea belongs in Organization Science vs. a sibling venue
- A colleague asks "what is the organizational theory here?"

## What Organization Science wants

Organization Science publishes **theory-driven** research about organizations — their processes, structures, technologies, identities, capabilities, forms, and performance — and is deliberately **interdisciplinary**, drawing on organization theory, strategy, sociology, economics, and psychology. A strong topic lives where an organizational phenomenon meets a theoretical conversation, and it can sit at **any level**: individual/team (micro), the organization (meso), or fields/populations (macro). Cross-level questions — how micro behavior aggregates to organizational outcomes, or how macro structures shape micro action — are especially welcome.

The bar is **overall contribution**, not novelty for its own sake: "theoretical novelty is neither necessary nor sufficient." A good question promises a contribution from at least one credible source — new theory, new data, methodological insight, a new setting that tests generalizability, a clearer mechanism, or relevance to a social problem or grand challenge.

## Fit test (run before you invest)

- **Is it about organizations and organizing?** Not just an economics or psychology question that happens to use organizational data.
- **Is there a theoretical engine?** You can name the conversation it joins and the mechanism it implicates.
- **What is the contribution source?** New theory / data / method / setting / mechanism / social relevance — at least one, stated plainly.
- **Does the level of analysis match the claim?** Micro, meso, macro, or an explicit cross-level bridge.
- **Could it draw a fresh inductive insight?** The journal's openness to qualitative work makes a phenomenon-rich question a feature, not a liability.

## Venue routing

- **Organization Science**: theory-driven organizations research, eclectic methods, qualitative/inductive welcome; overall contribution over novelty.
- **ASQ**: deep contextual/qualitative work and bold framing, but the Cornell/SAGE venue, not INFORMS.
- **AMJ**: AOM empirical journal demanding equal empirical + theoretical weight under a page limit.
- **Management Science**: INFORMS sibling, more identification-leaning, with a code-and-data disclosure mandate.

## Anti-patterns

- A dataset in search of a question with no organization-theory engine.
- Forcing a causal-identification framing the data cannot support — the journal values mechanism and design logic over identification.
- Pitching pure novelty ("no one has studied X") instead of a contribution.


## Fit pass for Organization Science

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock a level map, a mechanism paragraph, and the cover-letter contribution statement; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: interdisciplinary organization reviewers who ask whether the mechanism travels across levels of analysis.

- **Do the pass:** Score the manuscript on venue fit, novelty, evidence readiness, and audience ownership; reject a prestige-only target when a sibling venue owns the contribution more directly.
- **Return a ledger:** give `claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location` rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
- **Sibling guard:** compare against AMJ for empirical management framing, ASQ for organization-theory depth, Management Science for formal/quantitative operations; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
- **Stop condition:** do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's `resources/official-source-map.md` has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

## Output format

```
【Question】one sentence, theory-driven
【Level】micro / meso / macro / cross-level
【Conversation】organization-theory literature it joins
【Contribution source】new theory / data / method / setting / mechanism / social relevance
【Venue verdict】Organization Science vs. ASQ / AMJ / Management Science — why
【Next step】orgsci-theory-development
```