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asq-topic-selection

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Use when judging whether a research idea fits Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ) and has the *surprising* theoretical insight ASQ demands. Sharpens the puzzle and the contribution claim; it does not design the study or write theory sections.

Administrative-Science-Quarterly-Skills/skills/asq-topic-selection/SKILL.md

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# Topic Selection & Fit (asq-topic-selection)

## When to trigger

- You have an interesting phenomenon but are unsure it rises to an ASQ-level *puzzle*
- The idea feels descriptive ("X happens in organizations") rather than surprising
- You can describe a finding but not yet say why a smart org-theory reader would be wrong about it
- You are choosing between ASQ and AMJ/SMJ/Organization Science as a home

## What ASQ rewards

ASQ publishes deep, often **counterintuitive** insight about organizations and the social structures around them. Since its 1956 founding (by James D. Thompson at Cornell), the journal has prized organizational ideas drawn from sociology, psychology, political science, economics, anthropology, and management — not a single home discipline. The bar is not "is this interesting?" but "**does this change how we understand organizing?**" A finding that merely raises firm performance (the SMJ test) or cleanly tests a hypothesis in a new sample (a common AMJ profile) is not yet an ASQ paper.

Fit test — a strong ASQ paper usually has all four:
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