jmr-workflow

Journal of Marketing Research Workflow (jmr-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It does not replace any specialized skill; it tells you **which jmr- skill to use right now* for your JMR manuscript.

Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as JMR — the American Marketing Association's (AMA) methods- and modeling-forward flagship, published by SAGE. JMR covers the full spectrum of marketing topics with an emphasis on methodological rigor and welcomes a wide variety of data and methodological approaches. Its defining feature is methodological pluralism within one journal: lab and field experiments in consumer behavior sit alongside econometric and structural/analytical marketing-science modeling, plus dedicated methods contributions. JMR enforces a dual bar — a manuscript must clear both a methodological-rigor bar and a substantive/theoretical-contribution bar — which distinguishes it from the more managerial Journal of Marketing.

First routing question: which genre is this paper? Behavioral (experiments + process), modeling/econometric (causal identification or structural estimation), or a methods paper (a new estimator/measure). The genre determines how jmr-theory-development, jmr-methods, and jmr-data-analysis are applied.

> Editor transition: Rebecca Hamilton (Georgetown) is EIC through 30 June 2026; Raphael Thomadsen's incoming team (Washington University in St. Louis, 2026–2029) has processed new manuscripts since 1 April 2026 — authors submitting now are effectively handled by the incoming team. Verify the masthead at ama.org.

When to trigger

• "What should I do next?" with a half-built JMR manuscript
• You have a result but are unsure whether the dual bar (rigor + substance) is met
• A reviewer pushes on identification, exact-statistics reporting, or "what do we learn?"
• You received a JMR decision letter and need to switch into response mode

Routing table

| Current symptom | Next skill |

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------|

| Idea is vague; unsure it is JMR-fit vs. JM / Marketing Science / JCR | jmr-topic-selection |

| Conceptual claim or model primitive is underspecified | jmr-theory-development |

| Front end reads as a better application, not a contribution | jmr-literature-positioning|

| Design/identification may not support the causal or structural claim | jmr-methods |

| Need exact p-values, SEs, effect sizes, the right estimator | jmr-data-analysis |

| Results exist but the dual "so what" is thin | jmr-contribution-framing |

| Exhibits cluttered, or main-text vs. Web Appendix split is wrong | jmr-tables-figures |

| Prose buries the argument; abstract/style off AMA norms | jmr-writing-style |

| Ready to submit; need ScholarOne / 50-page / Web Appendix preflight | jmr-submission |

| Want to understand JMR's double-anonymized, two-review process | jmr-review-process |

| Received an R&R; need to plan and draft the response | jmr-rebuttal |

Default order

1. jmr-topic-selection → 2. jmr-theory-development → 3. jmr-literature-positioning → 4. jmr-methods → 5. jmr-data-analysis → 6. jmr-contribution-framing → 7. jmr-tables-figures → 8. jmr-writing-style → 9. jmr-submission → 10. jmr-review-process → 11. jmr-rebuttal

> jmr-tables-figures and jmr-writing-style are late-stage polish. Do not invoke them while identification, the model, or the contribution is still unsettled.

Difference vs. JM / Marketing Science / JCR

• JMR: dual bar (rigor + substance); experiments and modeling in one venue; 50-page print limit + 'W'-prefixed Web Appendix; ScholarOne at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ama_jmr.
• Journal of Marketing: managerial/substantive framing — manager-facing implications lead.
• Marketing Science: quantitative marketing science; analytical/structural models.
• JCR: consumer behavior, interdisciplinary, primarily behavioral experiments.

Anti-patterns

• Do not treat JMR as single-genre — route behavioral and modeling papers differently.
• Do not let polish skills run before the dual bar is plausibly met.
• Do not let jmr-rebuttal draft a response before the manuscript is actually revised.

Output format

[Target] JMR
[Genre] behavioral / modeling-econometric / methods
[Stage] workflow
[Main bottleneck] rigor bar / substance bar / fit / process
[Next skill] jmr-...
[Live-rule checks] masthead, 50-page limit, Web Appendix, fees → verify

Resources

• [../../resources/official-source-map.md](../../resources/official-source-map.md)
• [../../resources/external_tools.md](../../resources/external_tools.md)