STOP HAVING YOUR PAPER REJECTED FOR LACK OF FIT (5 February 2025)

Description

One of the main reasons article submissions get desk-rejected by journals is for lack of fit. But what does that actually mean? And how can we figure this out before we submit our work? Well there are several tests you can do to evaluate the fitness of your work to an information systems journal: you can evaluate whether you are writing about a discourse that already takes place in information systems journals. You can check whether your arguments have a hook for information systems academics. You can determine whether you have a digital artefact at the core of your paper because while a digital artefact at the core is not required, having such a focus can be good indicator for fitness. Finally, you can establish whether your research is at least to some extent sociotechnical in orientation.

Episode Reading List

  • Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge And the Discourse on Language. Pantheon Books.
  • Abbott, A. (2001). Chaos of Disciplines. University of Chicago Press.
  • Schumpeter, J. A. (1933). The Common Sense of Econometrics. Econometrica, 1(1), 5-12.
  • Tully, S., Longoni, C., & Appel, G. (2025). Lower Artificial Intelligence Literacy Predicts Greater AI Receptivity. Journal of Marketing, https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429251314491.
  • Grant, A. M., & Pollock, T. G. (2011). Publishing in AMJ—Part 3: Setting the Hook. Academy of Management Journal, 54(5), 873-879.
  • Matherly, T., & Greenwood, B. N. (2024). No News is Bad News: The Internet, Corruption, and the Decline of the Fourth Estate. MIS Quarterly, 48(2), 699-714.
  • Watson, R. T., Boudreau, M.-C., & Chen, A. J. (2010). Information Systems and Environmentally Sustainable Development:  Energy Informatics and New Directions for the IS Community. MIS Quarterly, 34(1), 23-38.
  • Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217-226.
  • Park, Y., Fiss, P. C., & El Sawy, O. A. (2020). Theorizing the Multiplicity of Digital Phenomena: The Ecology of Configurations, Causal Recipes, and Guidelines for Applying QCA. MIS Quarterly, 44(4), 1493-1520.
  • Berente, N., Seidel, S., & Safadi, H. (2019). Data-Driven Computationally-Intensive Theory Development. Information Systems Research, 30(1), 50-64.
  • Yin, R. K. (2009). Case Study Research: Design and Methods (4th ed.). Sage Publications.
  • Orlikowski, W. J., & Iacono, C. S. (2001). Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the ‘IT’ in IT Research-A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact. Information Systems Research, 12(2), 121-134.
  • Weber, R. (2006). Reach and Grasp in the Debate over the IS Core: An Empty Hand? Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 7(10), 703-713.
  • Lyytinen, K., & King, J. L. (2006). The Theoretical Core and Academic Legitimacy: A Response to Professor Weber. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 7(10), 714-721.
  • Berente, N., Salge, C. A. D. L., Mallampalli, V. K. T., & Park, K. (2022). Rethinking Project Escalation: An Institutional Perspective on the Persistence of Failing Large-Scale Information System Projects. Journal of Management Information Systems, 39(3), 640-672.
  • Abramova, O., Recker, J., Schemm, U., & Barwitzki, L.-D. (2025). Inclusion of Autistic IT Workforce in Action: The Auticon Approach. Information Systems Journal,forthcoming.
  • Sarker, S., Chatterjee, S., Xiao, X., & Elbanna, A. R. (2019). The Sociotechnical Axis of Cohesion for the IS Discipline: Its Historical Legacy and its Continued Relevance. MIS Quarterly, 43(3), 695-719.
  • Recker, J., Zeiss, R., & Mueller, M. (2024). iRepair or I Repair? A Dialectical Process Analysis of Control Enactment on the iPhone Repair Aftermarket. MIS Quarterly, 48(1), 321-346.
  • Kitchens, B., Johnson, S. L., & Gray, P. H. (2020). Understanding Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles: The Impact of Social Media on Diversification and Partisan Shifts in News Consumption. MIS Quarterly, 44(4), 1619-1649.
  • Haidt, J. (2024). The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press.
  • Safadi, H., Lalor, J. P., & Berente, N. (2024). The Effect of Bots on Human Interaction in Online Communities. MIS Quarterly, 48(3), 1279-1296.
  • Pienta, D., Vishwamitra, N., Somanchi, S., Berente, N., & Thatcher, J. B. (2025). Do Crowds Validate False Data? Systematic Distortion and Affective Polarization. MIS Quarterly, 49, https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2024/17482.
  • Freeman, L., Schroeder, R. G., & Everton, S. F. (2017). Social Media Exploitation by Covert Networks: A Case Study of ISIS. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 41(5), 97-120.
  • Ciriello, R. (2025): Taboos in Information Systems Scholarship: Speaking of the Unspeakable.Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Call for papers, https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/whatsnew.html.

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