Article review guideline

The review may focus on:

1) What is the gap that the article addresses?
2) What is the main theoretical contribution according to your reading? What is the
underlying theoretical logic? The core argument(s)?
3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of the argument(s)?
4) How might the arguments be extended? Would this require modification to the basic
arguments? If you disagree with an argument, why and what would convince you
otherwise?
5) What thoughts does the article trigger in your thinking? What novel ideas do you get
from the article? Are there alternative explanations for the findings in the paper?
6) What in particular did you NOT like about the article, i.e., are there assertions with
which you disagree or literatures that the authors has missed or something else that is
disappointing or irritating to you?
7) For empirical papers, what type of data and methods are used in the paper? If you
were to replicate the study or do a similar study, what alternative methods could be used
to test the ideas presented?
8) How does this article advance thinking in entrepreneurship and innovation in your
opinion? On the basis of this article, what is entrepreneurship in your opinion? What is
innovation in your opinion?
9) How do the arguments in a particular paper compare to those of others we have read?
Are any differences across arguments amenable to an empirical test? If not, why not?
10) How has this article influenced the work of others? If the article is very recent, how
it can influence the work of others in the future? (To discuss this aspect, you might want
to do a citation analysis in ISI Web of Knowledge. Access the database “Web of
Knowledge” from your university library; Choose Web of Science; Choose Cited
Reference Search; type in the article information; check out a few articles in the
resulting list to see how they used the article in question. Also, you can rely on Google
scholar).
Further, consider the following points that are usually helpful when acting as a reviewer
for a Journal:

A. The motivation - Is the research question interesting? - Is the research question

important? - Have the authors justified why the question has been inadequately
addressed in - prior literature?
B. The literature review - Do they review the literature relevant to the research
question? - Do the draw helpful inferences from this literature review?
C. The theory - Is it clear which theory or theories the authors draw from to develop
their - arguments/hypotheses? - Are theories correctly characterized by the authors? -
In the theory or discussion section, do the authors consider alternative theories that
might explain the phenomenon similarly?
D. The Data - Is the context of the data appropriate for the research question? - Does
the data offer adequate control variables to control for alternative theories - predicting
the same phenomenon? - Are the topics of focus/variables investigated measured in a
reasonable way? - Consistent with theory - Follows standard procedures, robustness
checks
E. The Methods - Are the methods consistent with the theory? - Do they control for
potential bias or?
F. The discussion - Does it correctly reconcile the theory and evidence found in the
paper? Are the contributions evident and clearly presented? - Does it place the paper in
the context of the larger literature? - Does it identify limitations and opportunities for
future research?