From jmis-skills
Positions a JMIS manuscript against IS literature to show it advances an IS-management/economics conversation rather than a reference discipline.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/jmis-skills:jmis-literature-positioningThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
- The front end reads as a reference-discipline paper (pure economics, marketing, CS, OB) that merely uses an IS setting
JMIS is an IS journal, so the literature you must engage first is the IS literature — IT business value, digital platforms, e-commerce, IS economics, security/privacy, decision support/analytics — even when your toolkit comes from economics or computer science. The test a JMIS reviewer applies: what did the IS field believe, and how does this paper move that belief? Borrowing a reference-discipline method is fine; positioning the contribution only in the reference discipline is a desk-reject signal because the IS audience cannot see the advance.
JMIS reviewers expect you to know the IS basket. Engage prior JMIS, MISQ, ISR, and JAIS work on your phenomenon — not just econ/CS papers. Failing to cite the closest IS predecessors (especially prior JMIS papers on the same platform/value/security question) reads as not knowing the field. Where your evidence comes from a reference discipline, cite that frontier too, but subordinate it to the IS contribution.
| If a reviewer says… | Reposition by… |
|---|---|
| "This belongs in MISQ as a design-science paper" | Foregrounding the managerial/economic value question, not the artifact build |
| "This is an economics paper with an IS label" | Showing the IT artifact is essential to the mechanism and the takeaway is for IS practice |
| "This is single-paradigm; try ISR" | Either embracing JMIS's clean management/economics framing or, if the edge is silo-bridging, considering ISR honestly |
| "This is just a better algorithm" | Reframing around managerial utility and IS decision-making, or rerouting to a CS venue |
A privacy paper opens: "Little is known about how breach disclosure laws affect firms." That is an absence, and a JMIS reviewer will read it as under-positioned. Reframed as a tension: the security-economics literature argues mandatory disclosure disciplines firms into investing more in protection [signaling/deterrence], yet the disclosure literature implies it can trigger reputational over-reaction and under-reporting; we identify which force dominates and for whom. Now the gap is a live debate the IS field can place, the contribution is a resolution rather than a first look, and the closest IS predecessors (prior JMIS/MISQ security-economics papers) become the conversation you advance rather than a citation pile.
JMIS reviewers notice when a paper engages the IS basket generically but skips the JMIS lineage on its own topic. If you write on platforms, e-commerce, IT value, or security/privacy economics, the journal has published streams on exactly those questions; engaging them signals you are joining JMIS's conversation, not just any IS conversation. This is also where the management/economics cut matters: position against the IT-value, platform-economics, or security-economics literatures (JMIS's home turf) rather than only against design-science or pure-behavioral streams, which read as a better fit for MISQ. The strongest front ends make the reader feel the paper was written for JMIS, not retrofitted to it.
A JMIS introduction's positioning usually resolves into three paragraphs. (1) The phenomenon and stake — a concrete IT/management development and why managers, firms, or platforms care. (2) The IS conversation and its tension — the specific stream you join, what it currently holds, and the contradiction or unresolved question (theory vs. evidence, or stream A vs. stream B) that your paper targets. (3) The delta and approach — what the field believed, what it should believe after your paper, and the leverage (identification, model, or evaluation) that lets you claim it. Reference-discipline tools appear in paragraph three as the method, never as the contribution. If a paragraph cannot be written because the stream, the tension, or the delta is missing, that is the gap to close before drafting further.
Resist the urge to inflate the gap. A reviewer who knows the literature will catch a "no one has studied this" claim that ignores a near-identical prior paper, and the credibility cost is high. State precisely what prior work established and where it stopped, then claim only the increment you actually deliver. Honest, well-bounded positioning that names the closest predecessor and the exact delta reads as command of the field; overstated novelty reads as not having done the reading.
【IS stream joined】name + current frontier belief
【Gap as tension】stream A vs. stream B (or theory vs. evidence)
【Delta】field believed X → should believe Y
【Closest IS predecessors】incl. prior JMIS work
【Sibling boundary handled】why JMIS not MISQ/ISR/MS
【Next step】jmis-methods
npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin jmis-skillsPositions an MIS Quarterly manuscript within the appropriate IS conversation by engaging canonical work, centralizing the IT artifact, and distinguishing from ISR, JMIS, JAIS, and reference disciplines.
Positions a JAIS manuscript against the IS conversation by naming the live debate, engaging the IS canon and JAIS discourse, and staking the gap the theory will fill. For when a reviewer says the paper does not engage the relevant IS literature.
Frames results as an explicit contribution to a JMIS manuscript by articulating the advance to IS-management/economics conversation with theoretical and managerial implications, then aligning the introduction and discussion.