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aos-literature-positioning

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Use when situating an Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) manuscript in the literature — entering one of the journal's own long-running conversations, engaging the interdisciplinary sources (organization theory, sociology, psychology) those conversations draw on, and marking precisely what the paper adds. Positions the argument; it does not build the theory itself (aos-theory-development).

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/Accounting-Organizations-and-Society-Skills/skills/aos-literature-positioning/SKILL.md

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Literature Positioning (aos-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

  • The front end reviews literatures without joining any specific conversation
  • Reviewers could ask "why does this belong in AOS rather than a management or sociology journal?"
  • Citations cluster in a sibling journal's canon (JAR/TAR earnings-quality chains, AMJ theory-building chains)
  • You cannot name the two or three prior papers your findings push against

Position inside AOS's own 50-year canon

AOS is unusual: half a century of its own archive defines the conversations it cares about, and its editors read submissions against that archive. Locate the specific AOS thread your paper extends:

Thread (examples from the canon)You must engage it if your paper is about…
Roles of accounting beyond the textbook — Burchell et al. (1980); Hopwood (1983)any claim that accounting does unexpected work
Accounting, power and the calculable person — Miller & O'Leary (1987)costing, performance measurement, discipline
Accountability in everyday organizational life — Roberts & Scapens (1985)how systems shape conduct and self-accounts
Budgets as political instruments — Covaleski & Dirsmith (1986)budgeting, resource struggles, institutional pressure
Numbers as inscriptions and constructed reality — Hines (1988); Robson (1992); Chua (1995)measurement, representation, expertise
Culture change through accounting — Dent (1991)field studies of transformation
Control systems and strategy — Simons (1990)management control design in use
Behavioral/JDM synthesis — Libby, Bloomfield & Nelson (2002)experimental financial-accounting work
Risk and audit society — Power (2009)risk management, auditability, regulation

(Full verified references: resources/exemplars/library.md.)

Engage the interdisciplinary sources honestly

AOS conversations run on imported theory. Cite the primary social-science sources your tradition uses (e.g., the sociology behind institutional theory; Foucault for governmentality; Latour for inscriptions; the cognitive/social psychology behind a JDM design) as they are used in accounting — showing you know both the origin and the accounting appropriation. A paper that cites only accounting journals signals thin theorizing; one that cites only sociology signals the wrong venue.

Mark the delta

  • Name the two or three nearest prior papers and state, in one sentence each, what they established and what your paper changes.
  • Write the delta as a conceptual advance ("shows the mechanism is X, where prior work assumed Y"), never as inventory ("extends the literature on…").
  • Anticipate the misclassification risk: say explicitly why the paper is an accounting paper and not general organization theory — the accounting practice must be analytically central, not incidental scenery.
  • Disclose and differentiate your own related work in anonymized form ("prior research (Author, 20xx)").

Structure of a positioned front end

  1. The phenomenon and its stake (one or two paragraphs, concrete).
  2. The AOS conversation and its current settled view.
  3. The crack in that view — anomaly, silence, or contradiction.
  4. Your question, lens, and setting as the way through the crack.
  5. Preview of the conceptual answer and its consequence for the conversation.

Checklist

  • One specific AOS thread identified; its key papers engaged substantively
  • Primary interdisciplinary sources cited alongside their accounting uses
  • Nearest two or three papers named, with a one-sentence delta against each
  • The accounting practice is analytically central in the framing
  • Own related work disclosed neutrally, without breaking anonymity
  • No citation blocks that a reviewer could delete without loss

Anti-patterns

  • Gap-spotting: "little is known about…" with no live disagreement at stake.
  • Canon tourism: citing Burchell et al. and Miller & O'Leary ritually while arguing with neither.
  • Wrong-canon drift: building the front end on JAR/TAR measurement debates AOS readers do not share.
  • Sociology without accounting: the imported theory is centered while the accounting practice is a backdrop.

Output format

【Thread】the AOS conversation entered; key papers ...
【Settled view】what that conversation currently believes ...
【Crack】the anomaly / silence / contradiction ...
【Delta】vs nearest papers 1 / 2 / 3 — one sentence each ...
【Interdisciplinary base】primary sources + their accounting appropriation ...
【Next step】aos-methods