Etp workflow

ETP Workflow Router (etp-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It tells you which etp- skill to use at the current stage* of a manuscript aimed at Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP) — the theory-and-practice flagship of entrepreneurship research, published by SAGE on behalf of Baylor University and the official journal of USASBE (United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship). ETP rewards papers that build entrepreneurship theory — opportunity, effectuation, bricolage, entrepreneurial identity, cognition, family business, social/sustainable entrepreneurship — and draw out implications for practice, on the back of rigorous empirics (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed).

Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as ETP. Operational tells that you are at ETP and not a sibling: review is double-anonymized (scrub author identity, not just the title page); the contribution is judged on theoretical advance AND a defensible "implications for practice" section; Original Articles run ≤40 pages double-spaced, 12pt Times New Roman, 1-inch margins (Research Briefs ≤20 pages); references are APA; submission is via ScholarOne Manuscripts at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ETP. Johan Wiklund is listed as executive editor (待核实 — confirm the masthead at submission). Re-verify volatile specifics on the SAGE author-instructions page (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准).

When to trigger

• The user asks "what should I do next?" on an ETP-bound paper
• A draft needs its current bottleneck diagnosed
• Work is ping-ponging between theory, design, evidence, framing, and the response letter
• An ETP decision letter (usually R&R) arrived and the user needs to switch into revision mode

Routing table

Current symptom	Next skill
Question is interesting but not clearly entrepreneurship, or outlet fit is uncertain	etp-topic-selection
The theoretical contribution is thin / "could be about any firm"	etp-theory-development
Contribution vs. JBV / SEJ / AMJ is fuzzy or the gap is undersold	etp-literature-positioning
Design can't observe the venturing process; selection/survival worries	etp-methods
Estimation, endpoints, event-history, or qualitative coding need work	etp-data-analysis
The "so what for theory AND practice" claim is not sharp	etp-contribution-framing
Exhibits dense; significance asterisks; figures don't show the mechanism	etp-tables-figures
Prose buries the idea; intro/abstract don't land the ETP voice	etp-writing-style
Ready to submit via ScholarOne; need a preflight + double-anonymization scrub	etp-submission
Want referee timeline / desk-reject odds / R&R norms	etp-review-process
Received an R&R; need a response-letter strategy	etp-rebuttal

Default order

1. etp-topic-selection — lock an entrepreneurship-central question
2. etp-theory-development — build the entrepreneurial mechanism (opportunity / effectuation / identity / family)
3. etp-literature-positioning — stake the gap vs. the entrepreneurship frontier
4. etp-methods — design that survives selection/survivorship and observes the process
5. etp-data-analysis — estimation / event-history / SEM / qualitative rigor
6. etp-contribution-framing — sharpen the theory + practice claim
7. etp-tables-figures — exhibits and a mechanism figure, no asterisk theater
8. etp-writing-style — make the idea land (abstract + intro last)
9. etp-submission — ScholarOne preflight + double-anonymization
10. etp-review-process — calibrate the developmental R&R
11. etp-rebuttal — after the decision letter

etp-writing-style is a late-stage polish; do not rewrite the intro before theory, design, and evidence settle. The "implications for practice" section is a contribution, not boilerplate — sharpen it during framing, not the night before.

Routing by paper archetype

ETP spans several research traditions, and the binding constraint differs by archetype. Read the archetype, then enter the chain at the right link.

Archetype	Likely first bottleneck	Enter at
Inductive / qualitative process (opportunity, identity, sensemaking)	Process theory + trustworthiness, not a method label	etp-theory-development → etp-methods
Large-N archival venture panel (founding, growth, exit, financing)	Selection into founding + survivorship + endogeneity	etp-methods → etp-data-analysis
Experiment / cognition (effectuation, decision-making)	Construct anchored to a venture primitive; estimand	etp-theory-development → etp-methods
Family business / social-sustainable entrepreneurship	Why the family/social mechanism is theory, not context	etp-theory-development → etp-literature-positioning
Conceptual / theory paper	A genuinely new construct or reconciliation, not a review	etp-theory-development → etp-contribution-framing
Meta-analysis / replication	Boundary conditions and what new theory the synthesis yields	etp-literature-positioning → etp-data-analysis

Worked routing example (illustrative)

A user says: "My panel of nascent ventures shows that founder prior failure predicts faster pivoting, but a reviewer says it's just survivor bias and that the result 'isn't really about entrepreneurship theory.'" That is two distinct ETP pushbacks — a design threat (the nascent panel silently drops ventures that died before pivoting, owned by etp-methods → etp-data-analysis for an event-history fix) and a theory threat (the mechanism reads as generic learning, owned by etp-theory-development, which must tie pivoting to an entrepreneurial primitive like experiential learning under Knightian uncertainty). Route to theory first to secure the entrepreneurial mechanism, then to methods to defend the sample; only once both settle do you return to etp-contribution-framing and etp-rebuttal.

Anti-patterns

• Treating ETP like JBV (which welcomes a wider methodological/narrative range) or SEJ (strategy-of-entrepreneurship), or like AMJ (general management) — ETP wants entrepreneurship theory with practice implications
• Polishing prose before theory, design, and the evidence hierarchy are stable
• Treating "implications for practice" as a throwaway paragraph rather than part of the contribution
• Forgetting that review is double-anonymized — leaving author tells in the file
• Letting the appendix carry claims the main 40-page text must establish

Minimal decision snippet

if decision_letter_arrived:          -> etp-rebuttal
elif ready_to_submit:                -> etp-submission
elif exhibits_or_significance:       -> etp-tables-figures
elif estimation_or_coding:           -> etp-data-analysis
elif design_or_selection:            -> etp-methods
elif claim_or_positioning_fuzzy:     -> etp-contribution-framing / etp-literature-positioning
elif mechanism_not_entrepreneurial:  -> etp-theory-development
else:                                -> etp-topic-selection