If you are a practitioner this post will unfortunately be of no interest to you. However, if you are an academic, this may well interest you.

I attended a publishing seminar by Will Mitchell, the editor of the Strategic Management Journal, where he gave tons of good advices which I think may be useful to other young researchers.

Will explained that he sees actually two approaches to structure and get a paper published.

First approach:

1. Use relevant theories
2. Find an important problem in practice and raise conceptual questions
3. Test hypotheses
4a. Observe and describe the phenomenon
4b. Propose a theory

Second approach:

1. Fill the holes and extend boundaries in existing theories
2. Show the relevancy to theory
3. Test hypotheses
4. Discuss the new boundaries of the theory

Will also shared with us the main reasons why papers get rejected (at least in the Strategic Management Journal):

1. Rejection at the end of the first paragraph (90%)
   • No clear audience (cite the right papers in the first paragraph to show who you are talking to)
   • No clear contribution
2. At the end of the theory section
   • No causal logic
   • No cohesive argument
3. In the data and analysis section
   • Research design biases
   • Measures that do not match concepts
   • Flawed methods
4. In the references: wrong journal

My take:

After I learned why papers get rejected I can assure you that I started rewriting my introductions again and again.

I just read about an amazing study carried out by a French scientist (Claudia Fritz, University of Paris VI) on one of the most mythic and mysterious object of all times, Stradivarius violins.

The secret of Stradivarius has long been sought after. All possible kinds of analysis were done, for instance on the materials used, the veneer, the shape of the different parts, the wood origin, you name it.

Most violinists believe that instruments by Stradivari and Guarneri “del Gesu” are tonally superior to other violins—and to new violins in particular. Many mechanical and acoustical factors have been proposed to account for this superiority; however, the fundamental premise of tonal superiority has not yet been properly investigated.
Player’s judgments about a Stradivari’s soundmay be biased by the violin’s extraordinary monetary value and historical importance, but no studies designed to preclude such biasing factors have yet been published.

For the first time a researcher had the idea to study the consumer part (i.e. the musician playing the violin) and not the object itself.

On the occasion of an international music contest in Indianapolis in September 2010, she run an experiment with musicians and asked them to play and rate 6 violins (3 Stradivarius and 3 modern instruments). Musicians had their senses impaired on purpose (they had to wear welding glasses for instance) to avoid their recognizing the violin with any of their senses but their ears.

They were then asked to rate several “performance indicators” and in the end, you had already guessed, the “worst” instrument was a Stradivarius and the best one a modern violin.

My take:

This experiment is a classic one (applied however in a new and innovative way) and reminds us for instance of other studies which were carried out on the brand – price relationship or, most recently in the wine industry, on the link between pleasure (measured by Magnetic Resonance Imagery) and the price of the wine.

As most of you know already, pricing low is not always a good option because it shapes customers expectations and perceptions of quality.