What gets published and what doesn’t? Exploring optimal distinctiveness and diverse expectations in entrepreneurship articles
通过分析两大创业学期刊的八千多篇论文，研究揭示了学术叙事如何平衡新颖性与方法论严谨性等多元期望以实现最优独特性，并反驳了关于成功论文的常见假设。
Abstract The field of entrepreneurship has seen remarkable growth, increasing the expectations of academic audiences. Articles need to balance novelty with rigorous methodology, theoretical contributions, social implications, and coherent argumentation to succeed in the publication process. However, navigating these varied and sometimes conflicting expectations to achieve optimal distinctiveness in academic narratives is challenging for authors. To explore how authors can achieve optimal distinctiveness amidst these complex expectations, we studied academic narratives and related editorial decisions of two leading entrepreneurship journals, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice (ETP, 4,151 papers) and Small Business Economics Journal (SBEJ, 4,043 papers), using computer-aided text analysis. Our study debunks common assumptions about what makes a successful entrepreneurship paper, providing an empirical basis for understanding actual versus perceived publication requisites. Furthermore, we extend optimal distinctiveness theory by demonstrating that high distinctiveness is not uniformly advantageous, meeting numerous expectations is not necessarily beneficial, and clear language is crucial for complex narratives. Our study underscores that crafting narratives is more nuanced than traditionally believed.