mw-literature-review

Management World Literature Review (mw-literature-review)

Trigger timing

The review section is all English literature, with no Chinese classics
The review is written as a "list" rather than a "dialogue"
Reviewers point out that a certain Chinese classic is not cited

Structural norms

Management World preferencesThree-tier structurereview:

First tier: international mainstream context(mainly English literature)—establish the international positioning of the question
Second tier: Chinese local research(mainly Chinese literature)—sort out existing findings in the Chinese context
Third tier: this paper's position—clearly point out "the difference between this paper and existing research"

Avoid a one-tier structure (listed chronologically) or a two-tier structure (a "foreign research / domestic research" two-part format with no dialogue).

Chinese-English literature ratio

Rules of thumb:

Total citations 40–80
Proportion of Chinese literature 30%–50%(cannot be <20%, and should not be >60%)
Proportion of literature within five years ≥ 40%
Proportion of top-journal literature ≥ 30%(AER / QJE / JPE / Econometrica / RES / Management World / Economic Research Journal / JF)

Must-cite pitfall-avoidance checklist

Are there relevant Chinese classic reviews? (Search for reviews on the same topic in Economic Research Journal and Management World)
Are there papers on the same topic in top journals within the last 3 years?
Do the citations cover three types: theoretical literature, methodological literature, and local empirical literature?
Has "clustered self-citation" been avoided? (Self-citations ≤ 3)

Review sentence templates

[作者 (年份)] 利用[数据 / 方法]研究了[问题]，发现……。
然而，该研究[局限]，未考虑[本文要补的空白]。
与之相比，本文……。

Each review paragraph should contain at least once "compared with this / distinguished from / this paper extends / this paper supplements."

Anti-patterns

Writing the review as a "textbook-style introduction of knowledge"
Pointing out this paper's position only at the end, with only listing before that
Citing only one or two Chinese sources to make up the numbers
The review contains parallel citations such as [27,28,29,30,31]—split them apart and discuss them separately by contribution

This journal's literature review peer-review expectation table

Management World is sponsored by the Development Research Center of the State Council and gives equal weight to management and economics; the review must both connect with the international mainstream context and be rooted in China's local research tradition. Editorial board members are especially sensitive to "citing only English works and not Chinese classics" and "treating Chinese research as an applied footnote to international research." The table below anchors this journal's peer-review expectations (the top-journal list and ratio thresholds are subject to the editorial office's latest manuscript guidelines):

Dimension	This journal's expectations	High-risk signals for rejection
Structure	Three tiers (international context—local research—this paper's position)	Listed chronologically, with no dialogue
Local literature	Chinese classics and local empirical work from the last 3 years are complete	Only one or two Chinese sources cited to make up the numbers
Dialogic quality	Each paragraph contains "differs from/this paper extends"	The literature review is disconnected from this paper's contribution
Strategic alignment	Point out the connection between the problem and national strategy/policy issues	Purely academic literature review, with no policy anchor

Common rejection patterns (literature review dimension)

The literature review is written as a "textbook-style knowledge introduction," and the marginal position of this paper is not discernible
Omitting the same-topic accumulated work published in leading domestic journals such as Economic Research Journal and China Industrial Economics is spotted immediately by reviewers
The five parallel citations [27-31] are not broken down, so the recognition of each reference's contribution cannot be shown
International literature is piled up to thirty items while Chinese literature is fewer than five, mismatched with the journal's positioning of "equally emphasizing economics and management, with local concerns"

Mini walkthrough example: digital transformation and total factor productivity of enterprises

Fictional manuscript, walked through according to the three-layer structure (item counts are illustrative):

First layer (international lineage): cites about 18 international works (illustrative) on information technology and productivity, enterprise digitalization and organizational change, establishing the international positioning of "how digital technology affects enterprise performance."
Second layer (domestic research): sorts out about 22 domestic empirical works (illustrative) on measuring digital transformation in the Chinese context (annual report text word-frequency method) and its relationship with TFP, among which same-topic papers in Management World, Economic Research Journal, and China Industrial Economics must be covered.
Third layer (this paper's position): clearly states "unlike existing domestic studies that are mainly based on cross-sectional correlations, this paper uses the 'enterprises going onto the cloud' pilot policy to construct a quasi-experimental identification and opens the mechanism black box."
Proportion self-check: Chinese-language share is about 48% (illustrative, falling within the 30%-50% range), and literature from within five years is about 55% (illustrative, >=40%).
Journal-context check: aligns digital transformation with the strategic issues of "Digital China" and "high-quality development," so that the literature review naturally leads to a policy anchor.

Reviewer follow-up question patterns + journal-context revision methods

Follow-up question: "Why ignore a recent work in Management World?" -> Revision method: before submission, use topic keywords to search the recent 3-year tables of contents of this journal and Economic Research Journal, include same-topic papers in the second layer, and make dialogic distinctions.
Follow-up question: "The literature review only lists conclusions and does not clarify methodological evolution?" -> Revision method: discuss separately by the three categories of "theoretical literature-methodological literature-domestic empirical studies," and in each category point out the generational differences in methods or identification.
Follow-up question: "This paper's contribution appears only in the third layer; the preceding text looks like background introduction?" -> In the journal context, editorial board members expect each paragraph of the literature review to end with a thread foreshadowing "how this paper differs from it," rather than piling it all up at the end.

Calibration anchor

The literature reviews of empirical papers published in this journal are mostly three-layer dialogic structures, and the proportion of Chinese literature is usually significantly higher than in general international journals, and the end of the literature review closely echoes the four-sentence marginal contribution pattern (see mw-topic-selection). The specific proportions and the scope of what counts as a leading journal are subject to the editorial office's latest manuscript guidelines.

Output format

When completed, output a "literature review quality inspection report":

【结构】三层 / 两层 / 一层
【中英配比】中文 X% / 英文 Y%
【五年内文献比例】X%
【顶刊比例】X%
【本土顶刊覆盖】管理世界/经济研究/中国工业经济 是否齐
【缺漏清单】...
【下一步】mw-institutional-background or mw-identification