Author Guidelines
Submitting to DBR
DRIEMS Business Review (DBR) publishes empirical and review research that tests, extends, or builds management theory and contributes to management practice. In the case of a review manuscript, it must critically analyse the concept and must offer novel contributions to academia and the industry. All empirical methods, including, but not limited to, qualitative, quantitative, field, laboratory, meta-analytic, and combination methods, are welcome. A DBR manuscript must make strong theoretical contributions and highlight the significance of those contributions to the management field. Thus, submissions are preferred to test, extend, or build strong theoretical frameworks while empirically examining issues of high importance for management theory and practice. DBR is not tied to any particular discipline, level of analysis, or national context.
Criteria for Publication
All articles published in the DRIEMS Business Review (DBR) must make strong empirical or theoretical contributions. Submissions lacking such contributions will not be reviewed. Purely conceptual papers can be submitted. Manuscripts focused on management education should follow the appropriate submission guidelines. Evidence-based papers that introduce new perspectives to academic debates are welcome. Commentaries or responses to previously published articles will be considered only if they offer independent empirical or theoretical insights. All submissions undergo a rigorous peer-review process.
A manuscript's empirical contribution is usually the most difficult element to revise in response to reviewer concerns since measures and methods have already been applied and data collected. Two of the most common sources of manuscript rejection involve
- The creation of new, weakly validated measures when well-validated ones already exist and
- The implementation of flawed research designs. Because both of these features are determined at the research design stage, authors should seek peer review of their research designs and instrumentation before collecting their data.
All articles published in the DBR must also make strong theoretical contributions. Meaningful new implications or insights for theory must be present in all DBR articles, although such insights may be developed in a variety of ways (e.g., falsification of conventional understanding, theory building through inductive or qualitative research, first empirical testing of a theory, meta-analysis with theoretical implications, constructive replication that clarifies the boundaries or range of a theory). Submissions should clearly communicate the nature of their theoretical contribution in relation to the existing management and organizational literature. Methodological articles are welcome but must contain accompanying theoretical and empirical contributions.
All articles published must also be relevant to practice. The best submissions are those that identify both a compelling management issue and a strong theoretical framework for addressing it. We realize that practical relevance may be rather indirect in some cases; however, authors should be as specific as possible about potential implications. All articles published must be accessible to the DBRs wide-ranging readership. Authors should make evident the contributions of specialized research to general management theory and practice, avoid jargon, and define specialized terms and analytic techniques.
The action editor will evaluate manuscripts in terms of their contribution-to-length ratio. Thus, manuscripts should be written as simply and concisely as possible without sacrificing meaningfulness or clarity of exposition. Typically, papers should be no longer than 50 double-spaced pages (using one-inch margins and Times New Roman 12-point font), inclusive of references, tables, figures and appendixes. DBR reserves the right to ask authors to shorten excessively long papers before they are entered into the review process. However, we recognize that papers intended to make extensive contributions or require additional space for data presentation or references (such as meta-analyses, qualitative works, and work using multiple data sets) may require more than 50 pages. Manuscripts that are prepared incorrectly tend to be less favourably reviewed and may be returned to the author for revision prior to submission to the full review process.
Style Guide for Authors
- Manuscript Submission and Format
Submit manuscripts to each journal’s online submission and review website. Please use Times New Roman 12-point type (not “Times” or other font choice) and the 8 1⁄2 × 11 page (Letter) setting. Files should be Word documents, with body text double-spaced. Section headings and subheadings should be set to 2 spacing. Top and side margins should be set at 1 inch (using Word’s Normal margin setting). Neither page numbers nor running heads are necessary and should not be included in your document.
- Publication of Accepted Articles
Accepted articles will be copy-edited before final publication. Authors will be contacted to review edits in page proofs. Each journal’s production team will email the contact author after the Editor assigns the article to an issue.
- Front Pages
For final versions of accepted manuscripts only, a title page should be added (this is not included with submissions under review). Under the title of your work, list authors’ names, university affiliations (university names only, not departments) or the college's name, and complete addresses.
Example:
AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON JOB SATISFACTFACTION
Atul Kumar
Current University
Building and/or Street
City, State, Zip Code
Tel: (000) 000-0000
Email: scholar@univ.edu
If you wish to acknowledge financial support or other assistance, add a note at the bottom of your title page. This applies only to accepted papers. A title page with author-identifying information should not be included with a paper submitted for review.
An abstract of no more than 250 words and the title of the work go on page 2.
- Back Pages
Group references and any appendixes, tables, and figures at the end of your manuscript. Tables should be grouped together, followed by figures—regardless of the order in which they are mentioned in the body of your paper. They should follow the References section. Appendices/supplementary material would come last.
- Headings and Sections
DBR use only three levels of headings. Use boldface for all three.
Main headings (all capital letters; centered) are first.
Second-level headings (title-style letters; flush left) are next.
Third-level headings (first letter of first word capitalized; indented; italicized; and run into paragraph) are next.
Do not number section headings.
Don’t skip steps: no second-level headings before you use a first-level heading, for instance. Use second- and third-level headings in sets of two or more.
Examples:
METHODS [1st level]
Data and Sample [2nd level]
Measures [2nd level]
Independent variable. [3rd level]
Dependent variables. [3rd level]
- Footnotes
Use footnotes placed on their respective pages (not endnotes).
- Hypotheses (when applicable)
Fully and separately state each hypothesis you tested separately. Phrase it in the present tense. Give it a distinct number (Hypothesis 1) or number- letter (Hypothesis 1a) label. Set hypotheses off in indented blocks, in italic type, and single-spaced.
Examples:
Hypothesis 1a. Concise writing has a positive relationship to publication.
Hypothesis 1b. Following DBR’s “Style Guide for Authors” has a positive relationship to publication.
- Language
Help your work to be accessible to a wide-ranging readership. Define key technical terms. A technical term is a word or phrase that is not in a general-use dictionary with the meaning you (or even you and other published scholars) ascribe to it. Put quotation marks around the first appearance in your paper of each technical term, or define it.
Avoid using abbreviations for the names of concepts. Use ordinary words for variable names—not code names or other abbreviations. Use the same name for a variable throughout your text, tables, figures, and appendices.
Names of organizations and research instruments may be abbreviated, but give the full name the first time you mention one of these. Names of software and some databases may be abbreviated.
All equations need to be created in Word, or converted to Word if you’ve created them using another program. Do not “talk in math” in regular text. Use words. For instance, “We surveyed 100 employees,” not “We surveyed n = 100 employees.”
Do use symbols and numbers to report results and give formulas. Italicize letters that are customarily italicized (e.g., p, r, b, F, Z). Use boldface italic for vectors. Put spaces on either side of equals signs, minus signs, etc.
Within text go in parentheses. Introduce them with complete sentences.
Example: One coefficient for the interaction was significant (model 3: β = 0.06, p < .05; model 5: β = 1.06).
Present equations either in your running text or dis-played.
Examples:
Run-in equation—We used Craig’s (1992: 20) distance formula (d = xyz).
Displayed equation—
[e-A(xt)A(Xt)yt]
Pr(Yt = yt xt) = -------------------,
Yt! , (1)
where Yt is. . . .
Define each new term in all equations.
- Sexist or biased language
Avoid language that might be interpreted as denigrating. Do not use “he” or “she” exclusively. Using the plural—changing “the manager . . . he” to “managers . . . they”—is one solution; using “he or she” (“him or her”) is another.
- Active voice and first person
Write in the active voice (“They did it”) instead of the passive voice (“It was done”) to make it easy for readers to see who did what. Use the first person (“I” or “we”) to describe what you, or you and your coauthors, did.
Examples:
Passive (less desirable)—Two items were found to lack factor validity by Earley (1989).
Active (more desirable)—Earley (1989) found that two items lacked factor validity.
Third person (less desirable)—The author developed three new items.
First person (more desirable)—I developed three new items.
Do not describe inanimate entities (models, theories, firms, and so forth) as acting in ways only humans can act.
- Appendices
Present long but essential methodological details, such as the calculation of measures, in an appendix or appendices.
Avoid exact reproductions of surveys.
Label appendices “APPENDIX A,” “APPENDIX B,” and so forth. A substantive title, such as “Items in Scales,” should follow. Label tables within appendices “Table A1,” “B1,” and so forth.
- Tables and Figures
Look at tables and figures in published issues of other journals to see preferred formats. Write to the copy editor if you have questions. Use as many pages as you need to create tables and figures that match our formats.
Tables must be created using Microsoft Word, or converted to Word tables if generated using a different program, such as Excel. They should not be placed into your document as images. Note that a straight Excel file is not currently an acceptable format. Excel files should be converted to Word for placing into your Word document. Tables that contain artwork or graphics must be submitted as illustrations in an acceptable format.
Tables should be formatted as follows. Arrange the data so that columns of like material read down, not across. The headings should be sufficiently clear so that the meaning of the data is understandable without reference to the text.
Tables should have titles and sufficient experimental detail in a legend immediately following the title to be understandable without reference to the text. Each column in a table must have a heading, and abbreviations, when necessary, should be defined in the legend or footnote.
Number tables and figures consecutively (one series for tables, one for figures) using Arabic numbers (not letters or Roman numerals). Place them at the end of your manuscript, but indicate the position of each in the text as follows:
------------------------------------
Insert Table 2 about here
------------------------------------
Each table or figure needs an introductory sentence in your text.
Use the same name for each variable that you use in your text. Don’t use code names and abbreviations.
Example:
Desirable variable name—Profitability
Undesirable variable name—PRFT
Each table should report one type of analysis (which is identified in the title), and each vertical column and horizontal row should contain only one type of data.
Report only two decimal places for all statistics. Place correlation coefficients in the lower-left corners of their tables.
Use superscript small letters for table footnotes.
Significance levels go in a stack under your regular table footnotes.
Examples:
† p < .10
* p < .05
** p < .01
Or you may use a single-lettered footnote:
a All values greater than. . . are significant at. . . .
Figures, unlike tables, contain drawings (e.g., an arrow, boxes). Make sure your figures print out clearly so that they can be scanned. Figures should be in TIF or JPEG formats, placed immediately following your tables at the end of the manuscript Word document.
- Citations
These are your in-text, in parentheses, identifications of other research. Every work that has a citation needs to have a corresponding reference (see “References”).
Examples:
Name and year—Several studies (Adams, 1994; Bern-stein, 1988, 1992; Celias, 2000a, 2000b) support this conclusion.
Year only—But Van Dorn and Xavier (2001) presented conflicting evidence.
Order citations alphabetically. Designate two or more works by one author (or by an identical group of authors) published in the same year by adding “a,” “b,” and so forth, after the year. See the previous example for “name and year” example.
If a work has two authors, give both names every time you cite it. For three through six authors, give all names the first time, then use “et al.” in citations. Examples:
First citation—(Foster, Whittington, Tucker, Horner, Hubbard, & Grimm, 2000).
Subsequent citation—(Foster et al., 2000).
For seven or more authors, use “et al.” even for the first citation. (But the corresponding reference should give all the names.)
- Page numbers in citations
Use this format: Writing a book is “a long and arduous task” (Lee, 1998: 3).
For an article with no author, cite the periodical as author.
Example:
Periodical as author—Analysts predicted an increase in service jobs (Wall Street Journal, 1999).
For reports, handbooks, and the like, cite the “corporate author” that produced them.
Example:
Organization as author—Analysts predict an increase in service jobs in the U.S. Industrial Outlook (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1992).
Such sources can also be identified informally. No corresponding reference will then be needed.
Example:
Informal citation—According to the 1999 U.S. Industrial Outlook, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, service jobs will increase.
Use a regular citation (author, year) if you can identify an author of one of the types discussed above (human, periodical, or corporate). If not, give the web address that was your source in parentheses. No corresponding reference needs to be used in the latter case.
- References
References are your entries in the alphabetical list at the end of your article. Do not number your reference entries. This list should include only work you have cited.
Alphabetize references by the last name of a sole author, a first author, or an editor, or by the name of a corporate author (for instance, U.S. Census Bureau) or periodical (such as the Wall Street Journal) if there is no human author or editor. Order works by an identical author by year of publication, listing the earliest first. If the years of publication are also the same, differentiate entries by adding small letters (“a,” “b,” etc.) after the years. Repeat the author’s name for each entry.
Follow this form: Last names, initials (separated by a space). Year. Title (Boldface italic, capitalize only the first letter of the first word and of the first word after a long dash or colon.) City where published: Name of publisher. (For small U.S. and Canadian cities, follow the name of the city with the postal abbreviation for the state or province; for small cities in other countries, give the full name of the country.)
Examples:
Granovetter, M. S. 1965. Getting a job: A study of contracts and careers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kahn, R. L., & Boulding, E. (Eds.). 1964. Power and conflict in organizations. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. 1978. The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
National Center for Education Statistics. 1992. Digest of education statistics. Washington, DC: National Center for Edu-cation Statistics.
Follow this form: Authors’ last names, initials. Year. Title (regular type; same single-capital rule as for books). Name of Periodical (boldface italic, title-style capitalization), volume number (issue number, if needed—see below): page numbers.
Examples:
Shrivastava, P. 1995. The role of corporations in achieving ecological sustainability. Academy of Management Re-view, 20: 936 –960.
Nonaka, I. 1991. The knowledge-creating company. Harvard Business Review, 69(6): 96 –104.
Include an issue number only if every issue of the referenced periodical begins with a page numbered 1. (Look at more than one issue to check.)
If an article has no author, the periodical is referenced.
Examples:
BusinessWeek. 1998. The best B-schools. October 19: 86–94.
Harvard Business Review. 2003. How are we doing? 81(4): 3.
- Chapters in books, including annuals
Follow this form: Authors’ last names, initials. Year. Title of chapter (regular type, single-capital rule. In Editors’ initials and last names (Eds.), Title of book: Page numbers. City (same rules as above): Publisher. Examples:
Levitt, B., & March, J. G. 1988. Organizational learning. In W. R. Scott & J. F. Short (Eds.), Annual review of sociology, vol. 14: 319 –340. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.
Dutton, J., Bartunek, J., & Gersick, C. 1996. Growing a personal, professional collaboration. In P. Frost & S. Taylor (Eds.), Rhythms of academic life: 239–248. London: Sage.
These include working papers, dissertations, and papers presented at meetings.
Examples:
Duncan, R. G. 1971. Multiple decision-making structures in adapting to environmental uncertainty. Working paper no. 54 –71, Northwestern University Graduate School of Management, Evanston, IL.
Smith, M. H. 1980. A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Texas, Austin.
Wall, J. P. 1983. Work and nonwork correlates of the career plateau. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Dallas.
Include the author’s name, if known; the full title of the document; the full title of the work it is part of; the URL, http, or other address; and the date the document was posted or accessed.
- Biographical Sketches
Each author of an Accepted article is asked to submit a biographical sketch of about 100 words. Your sketch should identify where you earned your highest degree, your present affiliation and position, and your current research interests. The first author should include an email address, which is optional for the other authors.
Thank You
Your attention to the conventions in this guide is much appreciated and will increase the likelihood that your submission will be favourably reviewed and will make the work of everyone involved—you, the reviewers, the editors, and the readers—easier.
For more information, please contact: editor.dbr@driems.ac.in