Academy of Management Annals: Scopus, Scope & Submission Guide

Quick Answer: What Is Academy of Management Annals?

Academy of Management Annals (often shortened to Annals) publishes in-depth integrative reviews of advances in management research. AOM describes the journal’s reviews as work that can summarize and challenge established assumptions, identify problems or factual errors, stimulate discussion, integrate concepts, and illuminate avenues for future research.

For authors, this means a manuscript is unlikely to fit simply because it is a literature review. Annals explicitly seeks reviews with a substantive position and a contribution that changes how scholars understand a body of research. The journal publishes two issues each year, in January and July, and proposal deadlines are April 1 and October 1. Proposals may be submitted on a rolling basis, but AOM states that they are evaluated after the relevant deadline.

Key Takeaways

• Academy of Management Annals is published by the Academy of Management and focuses on integrative reviews of management research.
• The supplied Scopus source identifier is 19900191906; the source is associated with Business, Management and Accounting and Social Sciences classifications.
• AOM lists the journal as publishing two issues per year, in January and July.
• The 2025 Clarivate metrics displayed by AOM are 16.5 Impact Factor, 26.9 five-year Impact Factor, and 13.88 Article Influence Score.
• Authors must first submit a proposal of no more than five pages, single-spaced, with 1-inch margins and 12-point font; references and article elements are outside that five-page threshold.
• Proposal review is double-blind. If the proposal is accepted, an author is invited to submit a full article, but the invitation does not guarantee acceptance.
• AOM states that it charges no author submission fee and currently does not support Gold, author-funded open access; Green OA/self-archiving rules apply.
• Professional editing can improve clarity, structure, references, and guideline compliance, but neither Contentxprtz nor any editing service can guarantee journal acceptance.

Journal Information at a Glance

Journal metrics, indexing status, editorial teams, fees, and policies can change. Researchers working under university, promotion, funding, or PhD publication rules should verify the current database record immediately before submission.

What This Page Covers

• Academy of Management Annals aims and scope
• Scopus source identity, indexing context, and major journal metrics
• Article type and the journal’s distinctive integrative-review model
• Proposal requirements and the two-step submission process
• Peer review, timing, ethics, and AI-use requirements
• Open-access and publication-fee arrangements
• Journal-fit checks and practical manuscript-readiness examples
• How Contentxprtz can ethically support authors without promising acceptance

Methodology and Sources

This profile prioritizes current information from the official Academy of Management Annals page, the official Annals submission instructions, AOM’s open-access policy, AOM’s subscription information, and the Scopus source identifier supplied with the journal record. ISSN details are cross-checked against the ISSN system and AOM subscription information.

Where a metric such as a current Scopus CiteScore, SJR, or SNIP could not be verified through an accessible official live source, this guide intentionally leaves it as “verify current value” rather than repeating scraped or third-party numbers. That distinction is important because database metrics and quartiles update by reporting cycle.

Academy of Management Annals Aims and Scope

The journal’s mission is to publish current, in-depth, integrative reviews of research advances in management. Its scope is broad across management and allied organizational fields, but the expected article is methodologically and intellectually specific: a review should synthesize a substantial evidence base, interpret it, critique it, and generate a new way of seeing the research domain.

AOM’s submission guidance emphasizes several features. Annals contributions should review and critique management-related literature; take critical or potentially provocative positions grounded in the review; challenge established concepts where warranted; identify problems or factual errors; stimulate discussion; and illuminate paths for future research. The intended audience includes academic management scholars and professionals in allied fields such as organizational psychology and the sociology of organizations.

The journal also defines what it is not looking for. A proposal should not be a conventional theory-development paper, nor a traditional review that merely updates the literature without a perspective. The review should be broad enough to matter to a general management audience, but not so broad that the authors cannot comprehensively cover the field within one article.

Representative research domains that may fit

Based on that broad management remit, potentially relevant review domains may include organizational behavior, leadership, teams, human resource management, strategy, international management, entrepreneurship, corporate governance, organizational theory, innovation, careers, identity, work design, diversity and inclusion, ethics, decision making, networks, institutional processes, and management-relevant organizational psychology. These are illustrative fit areas, not an official exhaustive topic list.

Scopus Indexing, Subject Categories and Scholarly Visibility

The supplied source record identifies Academy of Management Annals as Scopus Source ID 19900191906, with coverage reported as active from 2010 onward. The supplied ASJC classifications include 1403 Business and International Management and 1407 Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management. Researchers can use the official Scopus source URL to confirm live status, current CiteScore, percentiles, quartiles, SJR, and SNIP when their access permits.

For Clarivate visibility, AOM’s official journal page displays 2025 Impact Factor and related Clarivate metrics. That is strong evidence that the journal is tracked in Clarivate’s journal-metrics ecosystem. If your institution requires a specific Web of Science collection, category, JCR rank, or quartile, verify the journal directly in Clarivate’s current Master Journal List or JCR interface rather than relying on an old screenshot or an SEO ranking site.

Current Journal Metrics: What Is Verifiable

AOM currently displays the following Clarivate 2025 metrics for Academy of Management Annals:

These indicators describe citation patterns and journal visibility; they do not tell an individual author whether a paper fits. For Annals in particular, the stronger decision variable is whether the review has the depth, integration, critique, and future research agenda expected by the journal.

What Type of Article Does Annals Publish?

The core contribution is an integrative review of management research. Annals is not a general outlet for empirical research articles, short communications, case reports, or routine narrative reviews. Authors are expected to use the literature itself as an evidence base and to produce a review with a position.

In practical terms, a strong Annals concept should be able to answer four questions convincingly: What important problem domain is being reviewed? What high-quality body of research exists? Why are prior reviews insufficient? What genuinely new insights will emerge from your synthesis and how might those insights redirect future scholarship?

Who Should Consider Submitting?

Academic rank is less important than the maturity of the review project. A PhD scholar, early-career researcher, professor, interdisciplinary research team, or professional academic author may consider Annals if they can demonstrate command of a substantial management literature and a credible integrative contribution.

Researchers should be cautious if the project is still at the “topic idea” stage. AOM states that the proposal should be grounded in review work already completed, not primarily in work the authors plan to conduct after proposal acceptance. That makes the journal a better fit for authors who have already mapped the literature, evaluated prior reviews, defined inclusion and exclusion decisions, and begun substantive synthesis.

Proposal Requirements and Submission Guidelines

Annals uses a two-step process. The first step is a proposal. According to AOM, the proposal must be no longer than five pages, single-spaced, with standard 1-inch margins and 12-point font. References and article elements such as tables, figures, and graphs are not counted within the five-page limit and may be placed after the proposal.

The proposal must address four required areas:

1. Focus of the review: define the issue or problem domain, explain its importance, and establish that enough high-quality empirical research exists to warrant a review.
2. Related reviews: identify prior reviews and explain exactly how the proposed review adds value beyond them.
3. Review scope and process: explain the review boundaries, literature-search process, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and the analytic process used to identify integrative themes and insights.
4. New insights: show what the analysis reveals and how those insights could alter the future research trajectory.

Authors submit through the official Annals Manuscript Central portal. AOM specifically warns authors about fraudulent websites and states that submissions to Annals can only be made through that submission center.

AOM also states that a submission must not be under review elsewhere during the Annals review period and that authors should confirm the proposal/manuscript has not previously been submitted to Annals for review in substantially the same topic area.

Peer Review and Publication Workflow

The proposal stage is double-blind peer reviewed by Associate Editors. If the proposal is accepted, the author is invited to submit a full article. AOM explicitly cautions that this invitation does not guarantee acceptance.

AOM describes the second stage differently from the initial blind review: one reviewer becomes the Associate Editor for the paper, after which the article is reviewed by the Associate Editor and Editor rather than continuing as double-blind review. This makes the process developmental but also demanding; the full manuscript still has to meet editorial standards after the proposal succeeds.

A practical workflow is: completed review groundwork → five-page proposal → deadline-based proposal review → invitation if successful → full manuscript preparation → Associate Editor/Editor review and revision → final editorial decision → production and publication if accepted.

On timing, the current official AOM pages are not fully consistent: the Annals submission page says proposal decisions are sent approximately six weeks after the deadline, while another AOM submission overview has stated approximately 75 days and reviewer resources have referenced roughly 45 days. Because these official AOM pages differ, authors should treat any single figure as approximate and confirm the current timeline with the journal.

Open Access, Copyright and Publication Fees

AOM states that it does not charge author submission fees. Its current open-access policy says AOM does not support Gold, author-funded open access for its established journals. Instead, AOM operates Green OA/self-archiving arrangements subject to version, repository, mandate, and embargo rules.

AOM states that complete open access to the Version of Record through an institutional repository can occur only after a 12-month embargo, and its policy describes conditions for sharing preprints and accepted manuscripts. AOM’s Green OA materials also reference a CC BY-NC-ND licence in the applicable OA route. Authors with funder mandates should read the current AOM policy before submission because eligibility and sharing conditions are policy-sensitive.

This means “no submission fee” should not be confused with “fully open access.” The journal is part of AOM’s subscription-access environment, while Green OA options provide specific self-archiving pathways. Always confirm any current production, licensing, or access charges directly with AOM before committing to a route.

Publication Ethics and AI Use

Authors are expected to comply with AOM publication requirements and ethics policies. Relevant issues include originality, duplicate submission, accurate representation of the literature, authorship, conflicts of interest, research integrity, and responsible citation.

AOM’s current Annals submission page includes an explicit AI policy: work submitted to AOM must be created by the authors and not be the product of AI tools unless AI is appropriate to the research question and properly cited. Authors must disclose AI use in the cover letter and article acknowledgements and confirm that they understand AOM’s AI policy. Because policy wording can change, authors using generative AI for any permitted task should check the current AOM rule immediately before submission.

How to Decide Whether Your Manuscript Fits Annals

A journal-fit decision should begin with contribution type, not citation metrics. Use the following checklist:

• The manuscript is an integrative review, not a conventional empirical article.
• The topic belongs to management or a closely allied organizational field.
• There is a substantial body of high-quality research to review.
• Prior reviews exist or can be evaluated, and you can show how your review goes beyond them.
• You have a defensible search, inclusion/exclusion, and analysis process.
• The synthesis produces new integrative insights rather than only descriptive categories.
• The review has a point of view that is grounded in evidence.
• The contribution can matter to a broad management audience without becoming unmanageably broad.
• You can state a future research agenda that follows logically from the synthesis.
• You can meet the proposal and AOM style requirements.

As a practical publication-readiness step, compare your topic with several recent Annals papers and editorials. Look at how authors define the review problem, explain their search and synthesis, structure integration, and make future-research claims. This is not a journal requirement to imitate particular papers; it is a way to test whether your planned contribution resembles the level and type of review Annals publishes.

Practical Journal-Fit Examples

Example 1 — Strong fit

A research team has spent two years reviewing leadership succession research across organizational behavior, corporate governance, and strategy. It identifies contradictory assumptions across subfields, has transparent inclusion criteria, and proposes an integrative framework that resolves the contradictions. This is closer to the Annals model because the review is mature, critical, cross-literature, and agenda-setting.

Example 2 — Weak fit

A doctoral student has completed a bibliometric overview of 120 papers and wants to report publication counts, keywords, and co-citation clusters. Unless the analysis develops a substantive interpretive synthesis and a new perspective, the project may be too descriptive for Annals.

Example 3 — Good topic, premature proposal

An author has a strong question about AI-enabled management but has not yet completed the literature search or analyzed prior reviews. Because AOM expects the proposal to be grounded in work already completed, the project would benefit from further review work before proposal submission.

Example 4 — Scope too broad

A team proposes to review “all research on organizations and technology.” Even if important, the domain may be too large to cover comprehensively. A stronger proposal would define a defensible problem domain and show why the chosen boundaries support deep integration.

Example 5 — Language and presentation barrier

An international team has a strong synthesis but the proposal’s logic is difficult to follow because headings, transitions, definitions, and contribution statements are unclear. Academic editing can improve readability and argument presentation without changing the research conclusions or guaranteeing editorial success.

Pre-Submission Readiness Checklist

• Confirm the latest Annals aims, scope, deadlines, and editorial contacts on AOM.
• Verify live Scopus status if your institution requires Scopus indexing.
• Check the latest AOM Style Guide before final formatting.
• Keep the proposal within five pages excluding permitted references/article elements.
• Use the exact required proposal headings and answer each one substantively.
• Demonstrate prior-review awareness and a clear value-add.
• Explain search, scope, inclusion/exclusion, and synthesis procedures transparently.
• State new insights and future research implications precisely.
• Check that the proposal is not simultaneously under review elsewhere.
• Review AI-use disclosure obligations and all publication ethics requirements.
• Proofread references, tables, figures, terminology, and author details.
• Submit only through the official AOM Annals Manuscript Central portal.

Summary: Academy of Management Annals

Academy of Management Annals is an Academy of Management journal devoted to integrative reviews that synthesize, interpret, critique, and redirect management research. It is represented in Scopus by Source ID 19900191906 and uses a proposal-first submission model. AOM currently displays 2025 Clarivate metrics of 16.5 Impact Factor, 26.9 five-year Impact Factor, and 13.88 Article Influence Score.

The strongest potential submissions are not generic literature reviews. They are mature review projects that identify an important management problem, establish a rigorous evidence base, explain how they go beyond prior reviews, and deliver new integrative insights with a defensible future research agenda. Before submitting, authors should reconfirm the latest AOM instructions, live database metrics, deadlines, and policies.

Authoritative Sources to Recheck Before Submission

• Academy of Management Annals — official journal page
• Submitting to Academy of Management Annals — official author instructions
• Academy of Management Open Access policy
• AOM subscriptions and ISSN information
• Scopus source profile — Source ID 19900191906
• ISSN Portal record