Conforming to expectations is not straightforward
because manuscript structure varies both by content and
by outlet. Different structures are needed for different
types of articles such as theory-building papers, reviews,
and empirical studies, and there are variations within
each of these broad categories. But guidance is available.
For example, Langley and Abdallah (2011) discuss
ways of presenting different types of qualitative
research. Bansal and Corley (2012) describe differences in the reporting of qualitative versus quantitative
research. And Short (2009) discusses the art of writing
review articles. All these authors stress the importance
of a good match between a paper’s content and
structure.