What do introduction sections tell us about the intent of scholarly work: A contribution on contributions

Nicholson, John, LaPlaca, Peter, Al-Abdin, A ORCID: 0000-0002-5818-5736, Breese, Richard and Khan, Zaheer (2018) What do introduction sections tell us about the intent of scholarly work: A contribution on contributions. Industrial Marketing Management, 73 (August). pp. 206-219.

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Abstract

This paper presents empirical examination of the semantics of contribution claims in the introduction sections of journal articles, a significantly under-examined area of scholarly activity, which underpins the methodical act of communicating the value of research to an audience. The paper presents a systematic review of 538 papers in three leading industrial marketing journals, Industrial Marketing Management, the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing and the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and uses a phased approach to categorize contribution claims made by authors in their introductions and abstracts. The paper identifies four main categories of contribution, defined as incremental, revelatory, replicatory and consolidatory, with sub-categorizations within them, and reports on the proportionality of these strategies in the sample while capturing the semantic games played by authors in pursuit of these claims. Specific findings are of interest to industrial marketers, but the conceptual framework and systematic methods presented in the paper are transferable to any discipline or body of work, and therefore have broader disciplinary appeal. Findings are also of interest to authors, reviewers and editors for coalescing fragmented understanding of contribution strategies into a coherent framework for action.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Contributions, Methods, Gap-spotting, Problematization, Literature review
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	21 Feb 2018 14:51
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 06:39
DOI:	10.1016/j.indmarman.2018.02.014
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3018309