| name | humrel-literature-positioning |
| description | Use when staking a Human Relations (HR) manuscript's contribution against the relevant scholarly conversation and adjacent journals. Positions the paper; it does not develop the theory or run analysis. |
Literature Positioning (humrel-literature-positioning)
When to trigger
- The theory exists (from
humrel-theory-development) but its novelty relative to the conversation is fuzzy
- Your literature review is an annotated bibliography, not an argument that creates a gap
- A reviewer says "this has been done," or cannot tell what is new versus prior work
- The paper could plausibly be read as an OS, JMS, AMJ, WES, or Organization paper and you must show why it is HR
Position against a conversation, not a topic pile
HR expects the literature to be marshalled into an argument that earns the contribution. The journal's own guidance is to "review recent issues to ensure that you are connecting to any relevant works in ways that take the conversation forward." So:
- Identify the specific conversation (e.g., identity work under precarity; algorithmic control; emotion and care work; institutional maintenance) and its current settled view.
- State the tension, gap, or anomaly in that view — what it cannot explain, gets wrong, or has overlooked.
- Show how your mechanism (from
humrel-theory-development) resolves or reframes it. The literature exists to set up the prior your paper overturns; it is not a tour.
- Cite into HR itself. HR papers are expected to be in dialogue with recent HR articles and the broader Tavistock-tradition conversation; an HR submission that ignores the journal's own active debates reads as a poor fit.
Make the contribution legible at the scoping screen
Because HR screens for "a unique and substantive theoretical contribution" before full review, the positioning must be visible early: the introduction should let a handling editor see, within a page or two, which conversation you advance and how. A buried or hedged contribution is a scoping-screen risk.
Sibling differentiation — write the boundary explicitly
Reviewers will ask "why here?" Pre-empt it.
| Adjacent venue | What it would reward | What HR adds / requires |
|---|
| Organization Studies (EGOS) | a contribution internal to organization theory / paradigm debate | broader interdisciplinary social science of work |
| Journal of Management Studies | managerial relevance, the firm, strategy | the social relation as the object, managerial payoff secondary |
| Academy of Management Journal | a clean US-style empirical test of an OB hypothesis | theory + social context, plural methods, not a template |
| Work, Employment and Society | sociology of work, labour markets, class | the case theorized up into organizational/relational theory |
| Organization | critical/deconstructive intervention | critique that is generative, with a constructive theoretical claim |
If your draft fits a sibling better, that is a routing finding, not a defect — flag it back to humrel-topic-selection.
Checklist
Anti-patterns
- A "literature dump": every adjacent study summarized, no argument built
- "Little is known about X" as a substitute for a real gap
- Citing none of HR's own recent conversation while claiming HR fit
- Straw-manning prior work to inflate the gap
- A contribution so hedged the scoping editor cannot locate it
- Positioning that would read identically for a sibling journal
Output format
【Journal】Human Relations
【Skill】humrel-literature-positioning
【Conversation joined】the specific debate + its settled view
【Gap/anomaly】the argued tension your paper resolves
【Contribution legibility】visible in intro? (yes/no)
【HR dialogue】recent HR/Tavistock works engaged
【Sibling boundary】why HR and not OS / JMS / AMJ / WES / Organization
【Next skill】humrel-methods
