By name: jbv-topic-selection description: Use when shaping or stress-testing a research question for the Journal of Business Venturing (JBV) — confirming the entrepreneurial phenomenon is central, picking a multidisciplinary lens, and checking fit before investing in theory or data. Defines the question; it does not build the mechanism (jbv-theory-development) or frame the contribution (jbv-contribution-framing).
Topic Selection & JBV Fit (jbv-topic-selection)
When to trigger
- You have an idea or a dataset but are unsure it belongs in JBV rather than a general management or strategy outlet
- A co-author asks "is this really an entrepreneurship paper?"
- You want to pick which disciplinary lens (economics, psychology, sociology) drives the question
- A desk reject said the work is "off-topic" or "entrepreneurship is incidental"
The JBV fit test
JBV publishes research on the entrepreneurial phenomenon in its myriad of forms — the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences of entrepreneurship. Before anything else, pass this gate:
- Centrality: Is the creation of new ventures or new economic activity (or entrepreneurial cognition, behavior, financing, teams, social/sustainable/international entrepreneurship, or ecosystems) the heart of the contribution? If entrepreneurship is merely the empirical setting for a general theory of organizations, JBV is the wrong venue — that distinction is the single most common desk-reject reason at this FT50 flagship.
- Phenomenon, not method: The question must matter for understanding entrepreneurship, not exist to showcase a dataset or technique.
- Disciplinary lens: JBV is grounded in economics, psychology, and sociology and welcomes anthropology, geography, history, and multiple functional areas (finance, management, marketing, strategy). Name the primary lens — it shapes the mechanism and likely area-editor domain.
Sharpening the question
- State the question as a tension or puzzle in the entrepreneurial phenomenon, not as "no one has studied X in startups" (gap-spotting reads as weak here).
- Identify the unit and stage of the entrepreneurial process: nascent/pre-founding, founding, early growth, exit/failure. JBV studies span the whole life course.
- Decide whether you are offering "theories, narratives, and interpretations" or testing hypotheses — JBV explicitly welcomes both, so a rich interpretive question is legitimate, not a fallback.
Domain sweep (common JBV territories)
- Opportunity recognition, evaluation, and entrepreneurial judgment/cognition
- New-venture financing (VC, angels, crowdfunding, microfinance, bootstrapping)
- Founding teams, identity, passion, and entrepreneurial behavior
- Social, sustainable, and international/transnational entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurial ecosystems, institutions, and regional context
Checklist
- Entrepreneurship / new venture creation is the central contribution, not the setting
- Primary disciplinary lens (econ / psych / sociology / other) named
- Stage of the entrepreneurial process specified
- Question framed as a phenomenon-puzzle, not a literature gap
- Plausible area-editor domain identified for routing
- Decision made: hypothesis-testing vs. narrative/interpretive theorizing
Fit triage and venue routing
When the centrality gate is borderline, use this table to decide whether JBV is the home or a sibling owns the question.
| Signal in the idea | Verdict and routing |
|---|---|
| Creating a venture/opportunity under uncertainty. | Strong JBV fit; build the mechanism in jbv-theory-development. |
| Strategy/competitive advantage of an established firm. | Likely Strategic Management Journal — entrepreneurship is incidental. |
| Broad entrepreneurship theory or pedagogy/identity. | Possibly Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice; check whether JBV's micro/process emphasis fits. |
| Reads identically for any organization. | Off-fit; reframe around the venture primitive or route to a general-management outlet. |
Worked micro-example: a fit decision (illustrative)
An author has Crunchbase data on AI startups and a finding that "advisory-board prestige predicts Series A." Triage:
- Centrality test: as stated, a signaling/legitimacy effect that could describe any firm raising capital — fails the gate.
- The fix that earns fit: reframe to the nascent stage — does advisory prestige substitute for the missing track record that defines the liability of newness, vanishing once a venture has its own operating history? Newness becomes the mechanism.
- Lens: sociology (legitimacy/endorsement) primary, economics (signaling) secondary — a multidisciplinary framing fitting JBV.
- Stage/unit: pre-Series-A nascent ventures, founder-and-venture level.
- Verdict: fit after reframing; the raw "prestige → funding" version is a desk-reject risk.
Calibration anchors (hedged)
- The highest-leverage screen is the centrality gate: if the contribution survives deleting the word "startup," it is probably not yet a JBV paper.
- JBV's identity leans toward micro-foundations and the process of emergence — opportunity, cognition, founding, early financing — differentiating it from strategy-interface entrepreneurship venues.
- Scope and welcomed disciplines evolve; treat any precise scope statement as guidance and confirm against the journal's current aims-and-scope.
Anti-patterns
- Entrepreneurship as window dressing — a generic org/strategy study run on a startup sample.
- Method-first — "I have Crunchbase data, what can I ask?" instead of a phenomenon puzzle.
- Single-discipline tunnel vision when a multidisciplinary framing is stronger.
- Gap-spotting ("understudied") as the sole justification.
Output format
【Phenomenon】the entrepreneurial puzzle in one sentence ...
【Centrality check】entrepreneurship central? yes/no + why ...
【Lens】primary discipline + secondary ...
【Stage/unit】nascent / founding / growth / exit ...
【Mode】hypothesis-testing or narrative/interpretive ...
【JBV fit verdict】fit / borderline / off-fit (→ alternative venue) ...
【Next step】jbv-theory-development