Literature Positioning (jams-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• The contribution relative to prior marketing work is fuzzy or overstated
• A reviewer is likely to say "we already knew this" or "this is X in a new setting"
• You are unsure which literature stream owns the conversation you are entering
• The reference list is thin on the substantive canon a JAMS area editor would expect

Find the conversation, then locate the gap

JAMS is broad, so the first positioning move is naming which marketing-science stream the paper joins — strategy/performance, B2B/channels, services, retailing, sales, branding, innovation, marketing–finance, sustainability, or consumer behavior — and reading the gap inside that stream. A contribution that floats above all streams reads as unmoored; a contribution buried in one narrow niche reads as incremental. JAMS wants the paper sitting at a live, consequential edge of an established conversation.

Position on three axes at once:

1. Theoretical gap — what the existing framework cannot explain (a missing mediator, an untested boundary condition, a contradiction between two streams you reconcile).
2. Empirical gap — what has not been measured, identified, or estimated credibly (a construct never validated, an endogeneity never addressed, a relationship never quantified in real units).
3. Managerial gap — a decision the field cannot yet guide. JAMS's positioning is incomplete without this; "managers currently lack a basis for X" is a legitimate, expected gap statement here.

Defend against the two predictable challenges

Prepare a one-sentence answer to each before a reviewer raises it:

• "We already knew this." → What mechanism, reversal, boundary condition, or magnitude is genuinely new that prior work could not have told us?
• "This is just a new context." → What about the theory, mechanism, or managerial implication changes — not merely the industry, country, or platform? A new context is a contribution only when it breaks or bounds an existing relationship.

Cite the right canon

• Cite the foundational and current work in the chosen stream — area editors notice missing pillars and missing recent JAMS/JM/JMR work on the same construct.
• Distinguish your paper from the closest two or three papers explicitly, by name, in a sentence each — not in a vague "prior research" wave.
• Cite across the sibling boundary where relevant (a JCR consumer mechanism, a Marketing Science model) to show command of the field, while keeping the paper's home at JAMS.
• Use APA style (JAMS house style) consistently; reconcile every in-text citation with the reference list.

Build the contribution table reviewers look for

A compact way to make positioning auditable — and a frequent JAMS device — is a contribution/comparison table in the front end: rows are the closest prior papers, columns are the dimensions that matter (construct studied, mechanism, moderators, data/method, managerial outcome), and your paper is the last row showing what it adds. This turns "we extend the literature" into a visible gap. Keep the columns honest; a reviewer who is one of those prior authors will read it.

Positioning by archetype

• Survey/SEM contribution: the gap is often a missing mediator or moderator in an established nomological net, or a validated construct the stream lacked. Position against the canonical model you are extending.
• Secondary-data contribution: the gap is usually credible identification of a relationship the field has only correlated, or a magnitude in firm/market terms never quantified.
• Experimental contribution: the gap is a mechanism that prior work assumed but never tested, or a boundary condition that bounds a known effect.
• Meta-analytic contribution: the gap is resolving inconsistency across a fragmented literature and explaining it with theory-driven moderators — not merely averaging effect sizes.

In every case, end the positioning with the same two sentences you will reuse downstream: the new theoretical understanding, and the new managerial guidance.

Read the stream's current editorial signals

Area editors at JAMS know their stream's active debates, so position toward where the conversation is heading, not only where it has been. Check recent JAMS issues, special-issue calls, and editorials for the priorities the journal is signaling (e.g., sustainability/stakeholder marketing, AI in marketing, the marketing–finance interface), and locate your gap relative to those when it is honest to do so. This is positioning, not pandering — do not bolt a trendy keyword onto an unrelated paper, but if your contribution genuinely speaks to a live stream priority, say so explicitly so the editor sees the fit.

Place positioning correctly in the manuscript

JAMS papers carry positioning in two places, and they must agree. The introduction states the gap and the contribution compactly, in service of the question. A dedicated theoretical-background / conceptual-development section then does the deeper work — reviewing the stream, surfacing the tension, and motivating each hypothesis. Do not duplicate a full literature review in the intro; do not leave the intro without a clear gap statement. The contribution sentences in the intro should be the same ones the discussion revisits at the end — a paper whose claimed contribution drifts between intro and discussion reads as unsettled.

Checklist

• The literature stream the paper joins is named explicitly
• Gap stated on all three axes: theoretical, empirical, managerial
• The closest 2–3 prior papers distinguished by name
• "We already knew this" and "new context" challenges answered in one sentence each
• Foundational + current canon of the stream cited; no obvious pillar missing
• APA citations consistent; in-text and reference list reconciled
• Contribution not oversold beyond what the design can deliver
• Intro gap statement and discussion contribution claim agree

Anti-patterns

• A "gap" that is really just "no one has studied X in setting Z"
• Strawmanning prior work, or ignoring the closest competing paper
• A reference list that skips recent JAMS/JM/JMR work on the same construct
• Positioning above all streams so the paper belongs to none
• Claiming a theoretical contribution the empirics cannot support (or vice versa)

Output format

【Stream joined】strategy / B2B / services / retailing / sales / branding / innovation / mkt-finance / consumer
【Gap — theoretical】[...]
【Gap — empirical】[...]
【Gap — managerial】[...]
【Closest prior work distinguished】[paper A], [paper B], [paper C]
【"Already knew it" answer】[...]
【"New context" answer】[...]
【Citation hygiene】APA consistent; canon complete? yes/fix
【Next skill】jams-contribution-framing