On the aims and scope of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management: What does APJM really seek to publish?

APJM also publishes papers on methodological, epistemological, and ontological issues and research design (e.g., Ahlstrom et al., 2009).

We receive a large number of papers at APJM that simply state they will “explore entrepreneurship in China” or “examine quality control in India.” These are very vague statements that barely confine the scope of the analysis; they are not research questions, and they rarely represent true exploratory or grounded research. For example, there has been a large amount of research on entrepreneurship in China in recent years, along with its related topics of family business and business groups (e.g., Carney, Gedajlovic, & Yang, 2009). An exploratory study on this topic, while certainly possible, would have to be carefully justified and situated in the past literature, of which there is now a great deal. This is a reminder to authors to build a comprehensive understanding of a research program in a certain area in terms of its past literature. If you call something “exploratory,” make your utmost effort to be sure it really is exploratory. APJM is certainly interested in receiving good exploratory research.