Call for Papers in Journal of Management Scientific Reports
Special Issue: Theory Testing and Replications in Strategy and
Entrepreneurship
Special Issue Editors:
James G. (Jim) Combs
University of Central Florida
G. Tyge Payne
Louisiana State University
Karen Schnatterly
Virginia Tech
Management research has long prized new theories and theoretical insights that reshape
theoretical landscapes (Hambrick, 2007). The push for new theory and theoretical novelty,
however, often comes at the expense of theory testing and replication (Kraimer et al., 2023),
leaving management researchers with a large number of theoretical ideas with little or dubious
empirical support (Allen et al., 2024).
Within the broad domain of management, strategic management and entrepreneurship
researchers have not been immune to the pressure to introduce novel theoretical insights
(Hambrick, 2007). The heavy reliance on publically available datasets means multiple author
teams might run the same tests on different samples, greatly increasing the chance that someone
will, by chance, find a statistically supportive result (Bettis et al., 2016). Given editors' and
reviewers' preferences for statistically significant "novel" findings, authors often "clean up" tests
of ex ante hypothesized models by, for example, removing or adding controls (Bettis, 2012;
Harrison et al., 2017). At the extreme, authors engage in the nefarious practice of "searching for
astricks" in data and working backwards to explain them (Bettis, 2012). Thus, the potential for
error in the empirical record of strategic management and entrepreneurship research is quite
high. Goldfarb and King (2016) estimate that between 24 and 40 percent of "significant"
published findings (at p < 0.05) would not be significant in repeated tests and about 30 percent of
these are essentially zero. Harrison et al. (2017) similarly pegged bias in firm-level research at
about 30 percent. These findings echo concerns found throughought the social (Open Science
Collaboration, 2015) and physical (Horton, 2015; Ioannidis, 2005) sciences.
The Journal of Management Scientific Reports (JOMSR) was launched to address the imbalance
between theory creation and theory testing in management research. Its mission is "to move
management science forward by publishing research aimed at theory testing and refinement."
The aim of this special issue is to advance the mission of JOMSR with specific focus on strategic
management and entrepreneurship research. Our hope is to advance theoretical understanding of
important strategic management and entrepreneurship phenomena by enhancing, clarifying, and
where necessary, correcting the empirical record. We call for the evaluation of competing
theories, empirical investigation of foundational assumptions, constructive replications of
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foundational studies, and examination of previously published yet untested theories or theoretical
models within the strategic management and entrepreneurship domains.
We encourage submissions that test, refine, replicate and extend existing strategic
management and entrepreneurship theories. We are open to a variety of methodological
approaches as long as they are robust, consider levels of analyses appropriately, and adhere to
open science principles adopted by JOMSR (see JOMSR Methods Checklist at
https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/MSR). Specific emphasis should be given to
how the study refines or extends theory, resolves controversy, addresses past methodological
weaknesses, or addresses boundary and contextual conditions. As per the mission of JOMSR,
papers will be considered regardless of the significance of the findings and can be initially
reviewed with the results "masked" (i.e., while the study is fully completed, the initial
submission includes only the introduction, hypotheses, and methods, and does not include the
results and discussion sections). While not an exhaustive list, and not meant to curtail
submissions in other areas, the following examples highlight areas that could address this call:
• Understanding the nature and size of the gender gap in top leadership and
entrepreneurship, and clarifying the effect of CEO and board-member gender on
organizational outcomes (e.g., Carmen Triana, Miller, & Trzebiatowski, 2014).
• Untested ideas about the purposes of and alternative to different kinds of alliance
activities (Reur, 2024) and competing approaches to learning through alliances and
alliance portfolios (e.g., Phan & Peridis, 2000)
• The best way to configure innovation resources and practices to maximize innovation
output (Alexander & van Knippenberg, 2014)
• Effects of different owners, such as families, institutions, and hedge funds on strategic
and entrepreneurial behaviors and key outcomes (e.g., Anderson & Reeb, 2003; Xia &
Walker, 2015).
• Further testing and refinement of theoretical models such as:
o Stakeholder theory (Stoelhorst & Vishwanathan, 2024)
o Competing models of venture start-up processes (Combs, Gruber, Zarha, 2024)
o Organizational Resiliance (Hernes et al., 2024)
o Value capture theory (Ross, 2024)
• Re-evaluate links between strategic actions such as diversification, divestiture, and
acquisions on alternative measures of key outcomes such as firm performance (e.g.,
Sakhartov, 2024; Zollo & Meier, 2008).
• Test core hypotheses about dynamic capabilities that have been tested on one dimension
of the construct by focusing on different construct dimensions to investigate consistency
across the construct's multiple dimensions (Schilke & Helfat, 2025).
• Tests of competing theory regarding the mobility of firm-specific human capital, the
extent to and conditions under which seemingly non-specific skills lose value when
transferred across firms, the role incentives play in shaping firm-specific human capital,
and an assortment of measurement issues related to these questions (Kryscynski & Coff,
2024).
• Define and validate measures of corporate purpose and test theory linking alternative
theories of corporate purpose on strategy and other outcomes (Durand & Huynh, 2024).
• Validate and clarify measures of corporate ethical behavior or its inverse, misconduct,
and the links between ethical and/or unethical actions and strategic decision making and
firm-level outcomes.
• Broad societal changes such as Black Lives Matters, the #metoo movement and the
impact of issues like race, gender, intersectionality, culture, or more broadly, context, on
our current understanding of strategic decision making and corporate social responsibility
(George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016).
• Methodological advances, such as machine learning (Choudhury, Allen, & Enders,
2016), Baysean analysis (Scheibehenne, et al., 2015), and transportability analysis (Lee,
2024). This can include examining improvements into testing theory as well as
understanding what these advances bring to our understanding of the phenomena.
Submission Process and Timeline
To be considered for the Special Issue, all manuscripts, including those prepared with results
masked, should be submitted between February 1 and March 31, 2026, with a final deadline
of April 1, 2026, midnight U.S. Eastern Time. Submitted papers will undergo a double-blind
review process and will be evaluated by at least two reviewers and a special issue editor. We
anticipate the special issue to be published late 2027 or early 2028. Final acceptance is
contingent on the review team's judgments of the paper's contributions on three key dimensions:
• Contribution to theory refinement. Original research manuscripts should test
hypotheses that are clearly grounded in existing theory. Manuscripts should clearly
explain how the study either confirms, generalizes, limits, or refutes existing theory.
• Methodological rigor. Hypotheses tested with a rigorously designed study that balances
internal and external validity will be more positively evaluated. The study design should
be appropriate for testing the theory and hypotheses. Multiple studies within a single
paper are not expected.
• Implications for researchers. The study's findings should have clear implications for
future research testing the specific unit theory (i.e., specific model or hypotheses) and for
advancing the programmatic theory (i.e., general knowledge of leadership research).
Authors should prepare their manuscripts for blind review according to the JOMSR's
Submission Guidelines, which can be found at the following website:
https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/MSR
Manuscripts can be submitted electronically at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jomsr
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Karen Schnatterly
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg VA
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