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Submitting to
Academy of Management Annals

Submit your manuscript

Academy of Management Annals (Annals) is the highest ranked peer-reviewed journal in the categories of management and business. Annals publishes integrative reviews that synthesize, interpret, and critique the literature on management-related topics. Annals reviews not only summarize and integrate recent literature, but also feature critical and potentially provocative positions that are grounded in the review.

Annals publishes two issues per year: January and July. Deadlines for proposals are April 1 and October 1.

Although Annals permits rolling submissions, the submissions are not reviewed by the editors until the submission deadline has passed. Since proposals are peer-reviewed, decision letters on proposals are sent out approximately six weeks after the submission deadline.

Visit Manuscript Central to upload your submission.

Contact the editors, Gary Ballinger or  Cristina Gibson with any questions.

Read Annals FAQs

Annals contributions should:

  • Review, synthesize, interpret, and critique the literature on management-related topics
  • Feature critical and potentially provocative positions that are grounded in the review
  • Summarize and challenge established concepts, pinpoint problems and factual errors, inspire discussions, and illuminate avenues for future research
  • Target academic scholars in management and professionals in allied fields, such as organizational psychology and sociology of organizations
  • Have a broad scope to appeal to general interest, but not so broad that it cannot all be covered in one article
  • Avoid being a theory development paper or a traditional review that lacks a perspective and solely updates literature

Submission Requirements

Authors interested in publishing articles in Annals must first submit a brief proposal outlining their article. If the proposal is accepted, the authors will be invited to submit a full manuscript.

Proposals will be evaluated based on the extent to which they meet the criteria listed below. Proposals that do not conform to the proposal guidelines will not be considered.

Proposals should be no longer than 5 pages, single-spaced with standard 1-inch margins and in a 12-point font. References and article elements (including tables, figures, and graphs) are not counted in the 5-page threshold and can be included at the end of the proposal.

The proposal should be grounded in work already completed on the review (rather than work you plan to do in the future). It MUST include the following information with these precise headings:

  • Focus of the review: What issue or problem domain does your review cover? Why is this an important issue or area of research? Is there a sufficient body of high‐quality empirical research to warrant a review?
  • Related reviews: What prior reviews have been published on this topic? How will your review add value above and beyond what has already been done?
  • Review scope and process: How did you set the scope of your review and conduct a comprehensive literature search? What were your inclusion/exclusion criteria? What process did you use to analyze the literature to identify integrating themes and novel insights?
  • New insights: What new insights emerged from your analysis of the literature? How will these new insights alter the trajectory of research in this problem domain? What implications and new directions will your manuscript offer for future research?

When authors submit their proposal or manuscript to Annals, they agree to abide by all Annals publication requirements. Specifically, an author must:

  • Agree that the proposal or manuscript is not under review for publication elsewhere and will not be submitted to another publication entity during the review period at Annals
  • Confirm that the proposal or manuscript has not previously been submitted to Annals for review. This includes prior submission of a proposal that covers the same general topic area. The key issue is the extent to which the proposal focuses on a review of the same literature as an earlier proposal submission. If submitters are unsure if a new proposal is distinct enough from a prior proposal to qualify for submission, they should contact the editors for clarification

Important information for submitters to Annals

It has come to our attention that there are fraudulent websites claiming to act on behalf of Academy of Management Annals and its editors.

Submissions to our journal can ONLY be made via our submission center: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/aomannals.

AOM does NOT charge any fees for author submissions. Please be mindful of scams and predatory publishers, who are using the name of established journals to solicit content from authors. Submissions to AOM journals are not published “on demand” nor are they invited contributions, and go through a rigorous review process.

Proposals are double-blind peer-reviewed by the Associate Editors. Once a proposal has been accepted, the second step is that the author is invited to submit a full article. An invitation to submit a full article does not guarantee acceptance.

Please review our Style Guide for manuscript requirements before submitting.

For additional guidance:

 Please feel free to contact the Annals Editorial Office with any questions.

Submitting an Article Proposal

The Academy of Management Annals (Annals) follows a two-step process for article submissions. First, authors must submit a brief proposal that outlines the article.

Proposals will be evaluated based on the extent to which they meet the criteria listed below. Proposals should be no longer than 5 pages single-spaced with standard 1-inch margins and in a 12-point font. References and article elements (to include tables, figures, and graphs) are not counted in the 5 page threshold and can be included at the end of the proposal.

The proposal MUST include the following information with the following headings:

  1. What issue or problem domain will your review cover? Why is this an important issue or area of research? Is there a sufficient body of high‐quality empirical research to warrant a review?
  2. Related reviews: What prior reviews have been published on this topic? How will your review add value above and beyond what has already been done?
  3. Review scope and process: How will you set the scope of your review and conduct a comprehensive literature search? What will be your inclusion/exclusion criteria? What process will you use to analyze the literature to identify integrating themes and novel insights?
  4. New insights: What new insights are expected to emerge from your analysis of the literature? How will these new insights alter the trajectory of research in this problem domain? What implications and new directions will your manuscript offer for future research?

**Proposals should be submitted directly via this site: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/aomannals.

Proposals are double-blind peer reviewed by the Associate Editors. Once a proposal has been accepted, the second step is the author is invited to submit a full article. An invitation to submit a full article does not guarantee acceptance.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact the Annals Editorial Office with any questions.

Please review our Style Guide for manuscript requirements prior to submitting.

Publishing in Annals

The following video offers tips for publishing academic work in Academy of Management Annals.

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