College of Business

What types of papers can be submitted to the Journal?

The Journal for Societal Impact accepts submissions from any College of Business discipline. Papers can be empirical or conceptual and may use quantitative or qualitative research methods. 

What sections should be included in the paper?

The sections included in your paper should follow your discipline (e.g., an economics paper should include the sections traditionally found in economics papers). 

Sections that are commonly found in academic papers include: Introduction, Literature Review/Theoretical Framework, Hypothesis Development (if applicable), Method, Results, Discussion, Conclusion.

All papers should include a Title Page that follows APA formatting and includes the title of your paper. All papers should also include an Abstract of 100-250 words that summarizes the research question, methods, main findings, and contribution of the paper. 

What should go in each section of the paper?

The content included in each section of the paper will differ depending on the discipline, and not all sections are relevant for every discipline. Be sure to follow your discipline’s norms when it comes to what is included in the paper.  

We have included a summary of the content typically discussed in the sections most commonly found across disciplines. 

Introduction:

The introduction is where you explain why your research is necessary. You should state your research question and make the case for why we need to know about this topic. What does this paper contribute to existing theory and research? You might also include a roadmap of the paper to let the reader know how the paper will unfold. 

Literature Review/Theoretical Framework:

In this section, you should summarize relevant prior research, identify gaps in the literature, and show how your study contributes to existing work. It might be helpful to think of the existing literature as an ongoing conversation about the topic. How does your paper add to the conversation? 

You may also want to tie your paper into existing theoretical or conceptual frameworks. You should summarize and explain what the relevant theories or conceptual frameworks are and how they are relevant to your research. 

Hypothesis Development:

If your study is testing specific hypotheses, you will need this section. This is where you will build the logic for why you expect to find each hypothesized relationship. You should also explicitly state each hypothesis (H1, H2, etc.). 

Method/Methodology/Empirical Strategy:

This section may be called different things depending on the discipline. In general, this section discusses where the data used in the study come from (e.g., datasets, participants), sample size, any measures or variables used, how the data were analyzed, and justifications for decisions made during analysis. 

Results:

This section is where you discuss what the results of your analyses are. This typically includes descriptive statistics, correlations, regression results, and the results of any hypothesis testing. Depending on the discipline, this may also include the interpretation of coefficients, as well as robustness tests and exploratory analyses. This section also typically includes relevant tables and figures that summarize analytical findings.

Discussion:

This section typically begins by reiterating the purpose of the study and briefly summarizing key findings. This is where you will interpret the results and explain the significance of your findings. This may include policy implications, practical applications, and theoretical contributions. You should also be sure to connect the study back to theory and previous literature and clearly demonstrate how you have filled any research gaps you identified in the introduction. 

Some disciplines also include a discussion of the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research in this section. 

Conclusion:

For some disciplines, the Conclusion is a single paragraph that summarizes the study and reiterates the main contributions of the paper. Other disciplines may also include limitations of the research and future research directions in this section as well. 

References:

All references used to write the paper should be cited in text and should have a full reference listed alphabetically in the References section. Please use APA formatting when putting together your list of references. 

Tables & Figures:

If your paper includes tables (e.g., correlation table, results table) or figures (e.g., graphs, conceptual models), these are included at the end of the paper (see APA guidelines). 

* Note: If you are writing a conceptual or theory paper, you will likely have different sections than those detailed above. Feel free to reach out to the Journal’s editor for more information on conceptual papers. 

How should I format my paper?

All submissions, regardless of discipline, must follow APA (7th edition) formatting. For details on APA formatting, including sample papers, please use the following resources:

• APA Style Grammar Guidelines Website
• APA Style Research and Citation Guidelines Website

Do I have to use Grammarly before submitting my paper?

Yes. All submissions are expected to demonstrate high writing quality. All submissions must be run through Grammarly prior to submitting to ensure the writing quality of the paper meets the Journal’s standards. All Tennessee Tech College of Business students have access to Grammarly. Check your email for invitations.

What can I expect from the review process?

During the review process, two members of the Journal’s editorial team and the editor will review your paper. They will provide comments and suggestions for ways to improve the paper and return it to you. You will then have the opportunity to make changes to the paper to address the reviewers’ concerns and suggestions and resubmit. The paper will be reviewed again by the same reviewers and editor to determine if their comments were adequately addressed. Once the editor feels confident that the paper meets the Journal’s standards, the paper will be published. 

It typically takes two months after submitting a paper to receive comments from reviewers and the editor. After receiving their comments, you will be expected to resubmit an updated version of your paper that addresses the reviewer/editor comments within two months. 

What is a Referee?

A referee is someone from the same (or similar) discipline as the author of an academic paper who provides a critical review of the author’s work in order to help a journal’s author make a determination about whether a paper should be published in a journal. As a referee, you are the “peer” part of the peer review process.

The editor will not have time to review every submission to the journal in depth. Your goal is to use your expertise to write a report about the author’s work, and to make a recommendation about whether the paper meets the standards of the journal. The editor will not have expertise in every discipline, so the editor will rely on the expert opinion of referees to help make determinations about what belongs in the journal. Your goal as a referee to provide a thorough evaluation of the author’s work (in the form of a referee report) so that the author knows how it can be improved. You should aim to help the author. Your report should not be hurtful to the author. Regardless of the quality of the author’s work, they should be able to read the report and learn how to improve as a researcher.

What Belongs in a Referee Report?

A referee report typically includes (at least) the following sections:

1. Summary
2. Evaluation/Major Comments
3. Minor Comments
4. Recommendation

Summary

The summary section should provide a brief summary of the author’s work. This summary section serves two main purposes. First, it provides the author and editor with your view of the paper’s main contributions. In the event that your summary highlights different contributions than what the author intended, this summary lets the author know that they either did not communicate their contribution well in their writing or that their contribution may not be what they initially thought (e.g., more broad or more narrow). Second, the summary serves as a commitment device that ensures the referee has read the paper in its entirety.

Evaluation/Major Comments

The major comments are your main contribution to the journal as a referee. These serve as the basis for your recommendation to the editor (discussed in the following section). These comments provide critical feedback for the author. Think of them as the necessary modifications required in order for the paper to meet the standard of acceptance in the journal.

Examples of major comments can include:

• The paper’s main contribution to the literature is unclear.
• The author does not discuss the paper’s relationship to an important body of work.
• The author does not provide sufficient intuition for results or does not provide satisfactory motivation the paper.
• The author has a mistake in data analysis.
• The author’s data analysis is incomplete.
• The author does not sufficiently investigate a hypothesis or result.

Minor Comments

Minor comments include small mistakes in writing, grammar, or explanation that you feel are important to point out to the author. While the author should make use of their Grammarly Premium subscription for proofreading, there may still be some edits that are better made by another expert in the field. For example, there may be a mistake in a table that would be difficult for Grammarly to catch or there may be a sentence that is particularly confusing to read. Typically, editing software is not as useful at proofreading field-specific language and terminology. Therefore, comments from a referee regarding how the author writes about topics in their specific discipline are welcome.

Importantly, your job is not to proofread. If a paper has sufficient grammar issues to the point of being difficult to read, this paper should be sent back to the editor. That being said, a second opinion on writing style can be useful to the author. Minor comments should be easily fixable. If a comment requires in-depth thought or effort for the author to address, it is a major comment.

Recommendation Options

Based on your evaluation of the paper, you should make one of the following recommendations to the editor:

• Accept
• Revise and Resubmit
• Reject

Accept means that the paper should be accepted to the journal with no changes or only minor editorial changes (e.g., minor comments). That is, the author’s work meets the standard of the journal and there is no room for major improvement.

Revise and Resubmit means that the author should rewrite parts of the paper to address the major comments of the referee. Upon satisfactory completion of these revisions, the paper will then be accepted to the journal. A paper falls into this category if the major comments can be addressed by the author within the revision time frame. If the referee comments that the paper does not make a meaningful contribution to the literature in the field, this would be difficult to the author to address with edits to the existing work. However, if the referee finds that the data analysis is incomplete, it is possible that the author can add additional tables using the existing data to satisfy the referee.

Reject means that there are major issues with the paper that cannot be sufficiently addressed by the author in the revision time frame. Importantly, the recommendation to the editor should be based primarily on the evaluation section of your referee report. You should include a justification for your recommendation which is supported by the major comments for the author.

Note: speculation about plagiarism or misuse of AI should be brought directly to the editor rather than brought up in the referee report.

Do

• Provide an unambiguous recommendation to the editor.
• Evaluate the paper thoroughly and provide thoughtful and timely feedback to the author.
• Use the opportunity to help a researcher improve and grow.

Do Not

• Reject only on the basis that a result does not “seem” believable without direct evidence.
• Use insulting, emotional, or vague language in your report.
• Give the author ambiguous feedback that is difficult to interpret or follow.
• Treat the referee report as if you are a co-author of the paper.