Academy of Management Journal: Scopus, Scope & Submission Guide

Quick Answer: What Is Academy of Management Journal?

Academy of Management Journal is a bimonthly journal of the Academy of Management that publishes empirical research on management and organizations. AMJ states that it seeks studies that test, extend, or build management theory and that make contributions to management practice. It welcomes a range of empirical approaches, including qualitative, quantitative, field, laboratory, meta-analytic, and mixed-method research.

The source record supplied for this guide identifies AMJ as Scopus Source ID 20191. Its print ISSN is 0001-4273 and its online ISSN is 1948-0989. Researchers whose university, funding body, or doctoral regulations depend on current Scopus coverage should still confirm the live Scopus source profile immediately before relying on the indexing status for a formal requirement.

AMJ may be appropriate for research that makes a strong empirical and theoretical contribution to management scholarship. Purely conceptual papers are directed by the Academy of Management toward Academy of Management Review, while management-education work and evidence-based pieces without a primary theoretical focus may be better aligned with other AOM journals.

Key Takeaways

• Publisher: Academy of Management.
• Core scope: empirical research that develops, tests, or extends management theory and contributes to practice.
• Scopus identifier: Source ID 20191 in the supplied Scopus source record; verify live status when institutional compliance depends on it.
• Current AOM-reported Clarivate metrics: Journal Impact Factor 10.5, five-year Impact Factor 13.8, Article Influence Score 7.79.
• Frequency: six issues per year—February, April, June, August, October, and December.
• Peer review: initial editorial screening followed, for manuscripts that proceed, by an action editor and three reviewers; submissions are blind-reviewed.
• Typical length: AMJ says papers should typically not exceed 40 double-spaced pages, inclusive of all content, although longer papers can be considered when warranted.
• Open access: AOM currently supports a green open-access route for qualifying authors and does not support Gold author-funded open access for its journals.

Journal Information at a Glance

Journal metrics and indexing records change across reporting cycles. If a university requires a particular quartile, database listing, or metric year, use the relevant official database rather than an undated third-party journal-ranking page.

What This Page Covers

• AMJ’s aims, scope and intended scholarly contribution.
• Scopus identifiers and current AOM-reported citation metrics.
• Research themes and article types that may fit the journal.
• AMJ manuscript length, format, abstract and reference expectations.
• The ScholarOne submission workflow and blind-review process.
• AOM open-access, submission-fee, ethics and generative-AI policies.
• Practical journal-fit examples and a pre-submission checklist.
• Ethical ways Contentxprtz can support publication readiness without influencing editorial decisions.

Methodology and Source Note

This journal profile was prepared from the official Academy of Management Journal page, the Academy’s AMJ submission guidance, its editorial style guide, AOM open-access information, the supplied Scopus Source ID, and current publisher information. Metrics, editorial leadership, indexing, fees, and policies can change; authors should recheck official sources immediately before submission.

What Does AMJ Aim to Publish?

AMJ’s mission is unusually clear about the combination it expects: strong empirical work and strong theoretical contribution. The journal is not simply a venue for descriptive findings about organizations, nor is it a home for theory that lacks a substantial empirical component. The Academy describes AMJ as publishing empirical research that tests, extends, or builds management theory and contributes to management practice.

Methodologically, the scope is broad. The journal explicitly recognizes qualitative, quantitative, field, laboratory, meta-analytic, and mixed-method approaches. That breadth means the method itself is rarely the main fit question. More important is whether the method enables the manuscript to answer a consequential management question and support a contribution that matters beyond a narrow setting.

AMJ also emphasizes practical relevance and accessibility. Authors are expected to explain why the management issue matters, connect it to a strong theoretical framework, identify implications for practice when possible, and communicate specialized work so a broad management readership can understand its significance.

Research areas that may align with AMJ

Based on that stated mission and the journal’s management focus, potentially relevant themes can include:

• organizational behavior and employee outcomes;
• leadership, teams and interpersonal processes;
• strategy, competitive behavior and organizational adaptation;
• entrepreneurship and innovation;
• human resource management and employment relationships;
• organizational theory and organizational design;
• diversity, inclusion and workplace inequality;
• social networks, collaboration and knowledge flows;
• technology, digital transformation and organizational change;
• corporate governance and executive decision-making;
• institutions, legitimacy and organizational fields;
• international and cross-cultural management;
• sustainability, stakeholder relations and responsible management;
• research methods that enable stronger management theory testing or development.

These are representative fit areas, not an official exhaustive topic list. A manuscript can address a recognizable management topic and still be unsuitable if its theoretical contribution is weak, its empirical evidence is insufficient, or its relevance is too narrow for AMJ’s readership.

Understanding AMJ’s Scopus Coverage and Journal Metrics

The supplied source record identifies Academy of Management Journal as Scopus Source ID 20191. This gives researchers a precise identifier for locating the correct source rather than relying on title-only searches. It is especially useful when a doctoral programme or institution requires evidence from the live Scopus source profile.

For current citation indicators, the Academy of Management’s journal page reports a 10.5 Journal Impact Factor, 13.8 five-year Impact Factor, and 7.79 Article Influence Score, attributed to Clarivate 2025. These are distinct indicators and should not be conflated with Scopus CiteScore, SJR, or SNIP.

This guide deliberately does not reproduce a current CiteScore, SJR, SNIP, or Scopus quartile because an up-to-date official value was not independently verified from an accessible official Scopus source during preparation. That is preferable to presenting a scraped or stale figure. If one of those metrics is important for your institutional requirement, check the live Scopus source profile and record the reporting year and category.

How to interpret rankings responsibly

A high citation indicator can signal strong disciplinary visibility, but it does not establish whether your manuscript fits the editorial mission. Likewise, a quartile is meaningful only in relation to its source database, year, and subject category. Journal selection should combine verified indexing with scope, readership, article type, editorial expectations, cost, and any rules imposed by your university or funder.

Publisher, Frequency and Editorial Leadership

AMJ is published by the Academy of Management and appears six times a year—in February, April, June, August, October and December. The current AOM editorial-team page identifies Quinetta M. Roberson of Michigan State University as Editor. The journal also uses deputy editors, associate editors and an editorial review structure that supports its broad management remit.

Editorial personnel can change within a journal’s lifecycle. Authors do not need to tailor a paper to an individual editor’s personal interests, but they should review the current editorial team and recent issues to understand the journal’s active conversations and methodological range.

What Types of Manuscripts Does AMJ Consider?

The central AMJ article is an empirical management research paper with a meaningful theoretical contribution. The official submission guidance makes an important boundary explicit: work without a substantial empirical component will not be reviewed at AMJ. Purely conceptual work is directed toward Academy of Management Review; management-education research belongs with Academy of Management Learning & Education; and evidence-based work without a primary theoretical focus may be better suited to Academy of Management Perspectives.

AMJ also introduced a Research Methods manuscript type beginning in 2024. The journal describes these papers as contributions that should advance management theory by introducing or developing methodological approaches with broad relevance rather than presenting technique for technique’s sake. The official guidance also notes that responses or commentaries are considered only when they contain an independent empirical contribution and undergo peer review.

Is AMJ a Good Match for Your Research?

AMJ can be a strong fit when the manuscript has a consequential management question, robust empirical evidence, a clear theoretical contribution, and relevance beyond a very narrow context. Academic status—PhD student, professor, practitioner-researcher, or early-career scholar—is not itself a fit criterion.

Journal-fit checklist

• Does the research question fall squarely within management and organization scholarship?
• Is the empirical design capable of supporting the manuscript’s theoretical claims?
• Can you state the theoretical contribution in a few precise sentences?
• Have you read several recent AMJ papers close to your topic or method?
• Does AMJ publish work using your broad methodological approach?
• Will the journal’s readership understand why the findings matter?
• Can the full paper meet AMJ’s length and style requirements?
• Have all identifying details been removed for blind review?
• Does your institution accept the journal’s current indexing and metric status for your purpose?

Preparing a Manuscript for AMJ

The Academy’s current guidance says AMJ papers should typically not exceed 40 double-spaced pages, using Times New Roman 12-point type and one-inch margins, with the page count inclusive of all manuscript content. Longer manuscripts may be considered when warranted, but papers prepared incorrectly may be returned before full review.

Core formatting requirements

The AOM editorial style guide specifies a Word document on US Letter pages, Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced body text, 1.5 spacing for section headings and subheadings, and one-inch top and side margins. It states that page numbers and running heads are unnecessary. AOM journals use three levels of headings and do not number section headings.

The guide places the title and an abstract of no more than 200 words on page 2. References and appendixes, tables and figures are grouped toward the back of the manuscript. Tables precede figures, with appendices or supplementary materials after them. Figures are described as using TIF or JPEG formats in the style guide.

Citations and references

AOM uses an author–date citation system. References are alphabetized and are not numbered. Every cited work should have a corresponding reference, and the reference list should contain only works cited in the manuscript. Because style details can be updated, authors should use the current AOM Editorial Style Guide rather than an old copied template.

Blind-review preparation

AMJ states that all submissions are blind-reviewed. Before upload, remove author names, institutional identifiers, acknowledgements and other clues that could compromise anonymity. The submission instructions specifically direct authors to place acknowledgements in the cover-letter area and remove author identifiers from the manuscript being reviewed.

How to Submit to Academy of Management Journal

AMJ uses Manuscript Central / ScholarOne. The Academy describes a six-step submission process:

1. Type, title and abstract: choose the document type and enter the manuscript title and abstract.
2. Attributes: select three keywords for the submission.
3. Authors and institutions: add coauthors and institutional information in the submission system.
4. Details and comments: answer required questions; place acknowledgements in the cover-letter section and ensure the manuscript itself remains anonymized.
5. File upload: upload the manuscript and any required supplementary files.
6. Review and submit: inspect the assembled submission and complete the process.

As a practical publication-readiness step, authors should save a clean final manuscript, a separate cover letter, any permitted supplementary material, and a record of disclosures before beginning the online workflow. This is general workflow advice; the live submission system remains the authority for required fields and file types.

What Happens After You Submit a Manuscript?

AMJ first conducts an editorial screening. The editor evaluates whether a manuscript fits the journal’s mission and whether it has at least a minimal likelihood of being favorably evaluated by reviewers. Submissions that do not meet one or both criteria may receive a desk decision.

For manuscripts that proceed, the journal states that an action editor is assigned along with three reviewers. The action editor makes publication decisions in conjunction with recommendations from editorial-board members or other qualified reviewers. All submissions are blind-reviewed.

AMJ says it strives to provide constructive and developmental feedback within 60 days. That is an editorial aim, not a guaranteed review duration. Timing can vary with manuscript quality, reviewer availability, revision cycles and editorial circumstances. The journal does not appear to publish an official acceptance rate on the submission pages reviewed for this guide, so no acceptance percentage is estimated here.

Responding to a revision decision

If invited to revise, prepare a point-by-point response that reproduces each substantive reviewer concern, explains what changed, identifies where the revision appears in the manuscript, and provides a reasoned explanation when a suggestion is not adopted. Keep the response professional and make sure the revised text and response letter tell the same story.

Open Access, Publication Fees and Author Costs

The Academy of Management currently describes a green open-access pathway rather than a Gold author-funded model. Under AOM’s policy, qualifying authors can make an accepted manuscript available under specified conditions, and the version of record becomes open after a 12-month embargo in the circumstances described by the publisher. AOM also states that it does not currently support Gold author-funded open access.

AOM author resources state that the Academy does not charge submission fees. This should not be interpreted as a promise that no cost can ever arise in any publishing scenario. Authors with funder mandates or special access requirements should check the current AOM open-access page and the submission system before committing to a publication route.

Because publisher policies can change, confirm any fee, license, repository and embargo condition immediately before submission or acceptance rather than relying on an old saved copy of the policy.

Publication Ethics and Generative-AI Policy

AMJ directs authors to the Academy of Management’s ethics policy and Code of Ethics. Publication-readiness therefore includes accurate authorship, truthful reporting, appropriate attribution, avoidance of duplicate submission, transparent conflicts of interest, and responsible handling of data and research participants where applicable.

The current AMJ submission page also gives explicit generative-AI guidance: work submitted to AOM must be created by the authors and must not be the product of AI tools unless AI use is appropriate to the research question and properly cited. Authors are required to disclose AI use in the manuscript cover letter and article acknowledgements and to confirm that they have read and understood the AOM AI policy.

Researchers should treat AI as an area requiring disclosure and accountability rather than as a shortcut around authorship. Any AI-supported language assistance must be checked for factual accuracy, citation integrity, confidentiality, originality and compliance with the latest AOM policy.

Recent-Research Fit: What to Look for Before Submission

Before sending a manuscript to AMJ, review recent issues rather than relying only on the formal scope statement. Look for how authors frame their theoretical contribution, how much space is devoted to theory versus method, how empirical evidence is connected to claims, and how practical relevance is communicated.

Do not artificially cite AMJ articles just to signal journal fit. Cite prior AMJ work only when it is genuinely relevant to the argument. The more defensible fit test is whether your study joins an active management conversation in a way that AMJ readers are likely to value.

Practical Journal-Fit Examples

Example 1 — Strong empirical and theoretical alignment

A PhD researcher studies how algorithmic decision support changes team coordination across multiple organizations, using a longitudinal mixed-method design. The paper develops a clear theoretical mechanism and explains implications for managers. This could be a plausible AMJ candidate if the contribution is broad, evidence is rigorous, and the manuscript is positioned against current management literature.

Example 2 — Strong data, weak AMJ fit

A study accurately reports customer-satisfaction statistics for one local firm but offers little theoretical development and limited transferability. The analysis may be useful operationally, yet the absence of a substantial theoretical contribution would make AMJ alignment weak.

Example 3 — Conceptual paper without empirical evidence

An author develops a novel conceptual framework but provides no substantial empirical component. AMJ’s submission guidance says such manuscripts are not reviewed there; the Academy points purely conceptual work toward Academy of Management Review.

Example 4 — Good study, anonymity problem

A researcher has a well-aligned empirical manuscript but leaves author names, university details and acknowledgements in the uploaded file. Because AMJ uses blind review, those identifiers should be removed and acknowledgements placed in the designated cover-letter area before submission.

Example 5 — Sound research, unclear English

An international research team has credible results, but dense phrasing obscures the theoretical logic and method. Academic editing can improve readability, terminology and argument flow while preserving the researchers’ meaning. Editing cannot substitute for novelty, methodological quality, or editorial fit.

Pre-Submission Checklist for AMJ Authors

• Re-read AMJ’s current mission and submission instructions.
• Confirm the manuscript contains a substantial empirical contribution.
• State the theoretical contribution clearly and avoid overclaiming.
• Explain practical relevance to management and organizations.
• Check recent AMJ papers for topic, theory and methodology fit.
• Keep the paper within the typical 40-page guidance unless additional length is genuinely warranted.
• Use Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced body text and one-inch margins.
• Keep the abstract within the current AOM limit.
• Apply AOM citation and reference style consistently.
• Remove author-identifying information from the review manuscript.
• Prepare the three submission keywords required in Manuscript Central.
• Place acknowledgements in the appropriate cover-letter field.
• Check ethics, authorship, conflicts, data and participant-related disclosures.
• Disclose relevant AI use in accordance with AOM policy.
• Confirm current Scopus/indexing evidence if your institution requires it.
• Verify current open-access, repository and fee information.
• Have all authors review and approve the final submission.

How Contentxprtz Can Support AMJ Publication Readiness

Preparing for AMJ involves more than grammar correction. A manuscript must communicate why the management problem matters, make its theoretical contribution visible, present empirical evidence coherently, respect blind-review requirements, and follow current AOM style and submission instructions.

Contentxprtz can ethically support authors through journal-scope alignment review, manuscript assessment, academic editing, ESL language polishing, title and abstract refinement, structure improvement, journal formatting, reference consistency checks, cover-letter editing, submission-document review, reviewer-response editing and revision-stage proofreading.

Contentxprtz does not control editorial decisions and does not guarantee journal acceptance or publication. All research claims, data, interpretations, authorship decisions and final submissions remain the responsibility of the authors. Professional support should strengthen clarity and compliance, not manufacture evidence or imply influence over the journal.

Explore journal publication and manuscript-readiness support.

Summary: Academy of Management Journal

Academy of Management Journal is a bimonthly Academy of Management journal focused on empirical research that advances management theory and contributes to practice. The supplied Scopus source record identifies it as Source ID 20191, with print ISSN 0001-4273 and online ISSN 1948-0989. The Academy currently reports a 10.5 Journal Impact Factor, 13.8 five-year Impact Factor and 7.79 Article Influence Score, attributed to Clarivate 2025.

AMJ expects a substantial empirical component, strong theoretical contribution, broad management relevance and careful manuscript preparation. Its current guidance describes blind review, initial editorial screening, three reviewers for manuscripts proceeding to normal review, a typical ceiling of 40 double-spaced pages, and a six-step ScholarOne submission process. Authors should verify current indexing, metrics, editorial information, open-access conditions and author instructions immediately before submission.

Conclusion: Prepare for Fit Before You Prepare to Submit

AMJ may suit researchers whose studies combine a significant management question, rigorous empirical evidence, theoretical advancement and practical relevance. Its visibility can make it attractive to doctoral researchers and established scholars alike, but indexing or citation metrics should never be the only selection criteria.

Before submission, compare your paper with recent AMJ work, recheck the official author instructions, confirm any institution-specific indexing requirement, remove identifying information for blind review, and make the theoretical contribution easy to understand. If professional support is useful, use it to improve clarity, consistency and compliance while retaining full author responsibility for the research.