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Topic Selection: Is There a Theoretical Puzzle? (amr-topic-selection) · brycewang-stanford | DecimalAI

researchby brycewang-stanford

Topic Selection: Is There a Theoretical Puzzle? (amr-topic-selection)

brycewang-stanford/amr-topic-selection

Source brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills ↗License MIT

Use when the theoretical puzzle is the bottleneck for an Academy of Management Review (AMR) manuscript — deciding whether an idea is theory-worthy and AMR-fit before any theorizing begins. Frames the puzzle; it does NOT build constructs (that is amr-theory-development) or design any empirical study (AMR has none).

SkillScore77Maintained

Automatic

Research pack

Last verified 8/15/2026

What it changes

Passed 17 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 4 of 22 without it.

Without skill18%

With skill77%

Checks it passed that the model alone missed

AMR fit value is set to no.
AMR fit value is set to yes.
Uses bracketed field header 【Phenomenon】.

and 12 more in the full report

15 fixed2 passed either way3 still failing2 broke

Pass-rate lift: +59 pp
Tokens: +4%
Agent turns: 0%
Response time: -47%

Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/15/2026v117 of 22 cases passed with skill

Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.

Use this skill

Save it into your project's skills folder. Claude Code picks it up in its next session.

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o .claude/skills/brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection/SKILL.md https://app.decimal.ai/s/brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection/SKILL.md

Want it pinned and updatable? pip install "decimalai>=0.15", then decimalai skills add brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection, and start Claude Code with claude --plugin-dir "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.agents"

1 · One-time — install the CLI (docs ↗)

pip install "decimalai>=0.15"

2 · Get the skill — writes .agents/skills/brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection/ and pins it in .decimal/skills.lock

decimalai skills add brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection

No CLI? Get the same file — curl · raw file

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o .claude/skills/brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection/SKILL.md https://app.decimal.ai/s/brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection/SKILL.md

Raw file: /s/brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection/SKILL.md ↗ · machine-readable summary at /s/brycewang-stanford-amr-topic-selection.json ↗

Safety checks: 3 of 3 passed

Code scan CleanIntent PassedContent Clean

See it in action

One of 15 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.

1 of 15

Prompt

Empirical studies consistently show that chief sustainability officers increase firm compliance, but existing theories offer no explanatory mechanism for why this occurs despite CSOs lacking budgetary power. Evaluate this topic for AMR using fields 【Phenomenon】, 【Theoretical tension】, 【Theory at stake】, 【Theoretical question】, 【So-what for theory】, 【AMR fit】, and 【Next step】.

What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked	Without skill	With skill
AMR fit value is set to yes.	Missed	Passed
Theoretical question section contains exactly one sentence.	Missed	Passed

case-12 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/15/2026 · answers are capped and redacted

What's inside

The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.

SKILL.md83 linessingle file

Topic Selection: Is There a Theoretical Puzzle? (amr-topic-selection)

When to trigger

You have an interesting phenomenon, trend, or anomaly but no theory yet
You are unsure whether the idea is "big enough" for AMR
The idea feels like a study you'd run rather than a theory you'd build
You can describe what happens but not why existing theory fails to explain it

The AMR fit test

AMR wants a theoretical puzzle, not a topic. A topic is "leadership and remote work." A puzzle is "existing leadership theory predicts X, yet under condition C we should see not-X — and no current theory resolves the contradiction." Run every idea through:

Is it conceptual? AMR publishes no data. If the natural next step is "collect a sample," stop — that is AMJ/ASQ/SMJ. AMR builds the theory those journals later test.
Is there a genuine puzzle / tension / contradiction? A gap ("no one has studied Z") is NOT a puzzle. A puzzle is a place where current theory is internally inconsistent, incomplete in a specific way, or makes a prediction that fails.
Whose theory is at stake? Name the existing theory you will challenge and extend. If you cannot, route to amr-literature-positioning.
Will it change how scholars think? AMR asks for theory that reorients a conversation, not an incremental relabeling.
Does it yield testable knowledge-based claims? AMR's scope requires submissions to "extend theory in ways that develop testable knowledge-based claims." You do no testing — but your propositions must, in principle, be refutable by someone, later.
Is the scope a journal article, not a book? One focused theoretical move, fully developed.

AMR's own scope names four legitimate paths for a topic: (a) develop new theory; (b) significantly challenge or clarify existing theory; (c) synthesize recent advances into fresh theory; (d) identify and delineate a novel theoretical problem. If your idea fits none of these, it is likely not AMR. Exemplars to emulate: Oliver's "Strategic Responses to Institutional Processes" (AMR 1991, DOI 10.5465/amr.1991.4279002) challenged institutional theory's conformity assumption by theorizing agency; Dyer & Singh's "The Relational View" (AMR 1998, DOI 10.5465/amr.1998.1255632) synthesized a new locus of advantage. Neither used data.

Sources of a strong AMR puzzle

Puzzle type	Looks like
Theoretical contradiction	Two established theories make opposite predictions in the same setting
Boundary failure	An accepted theory breaks down at a condition no one has theorized
Construct ambiguity	A widely used construct conflates two distinct phenomena that should be separated
Missing mechanism	An empirical regularity is robust but the why has never been theorized
Phenomenon outrunning theory	A new organizational form / practice that current categories cannot capture

Track record

Benchmark

17 / 22

test cases passed, vs 4 / 22 without

Adoption

Users: 0
Times used: 0

Safety and source details

SkillSafety

✓ 3 of 3 passed

Code scan15 of 15 checks clean

0 critical · 0 warning · 0 info — scanner v4 — 8/3/2026

View 15 scanner checks

live_secretremote_code_executionreverse_shelldata_exfiltrationssrf_metadataagent_snoopinganti_refusaldestructive_commandsobfuscated_unicodeunicode_homoglyphopaque_blobsuspicious_urltool_overreachtrigger_abuseprompt_injection_phrasing

IntentSafe

LLM judge · does the skill do what it claims

ContentClean

LLM judge · policy & harmful-content review

Source

Imported

brycewang-stanford / awesome-journal-skills

Academy-of-Management-Review-Skills/skills/amr-topic-selection/SKILL.md

View on GitHub ↗

License MITImported 8/3/2026Version v1

Other skills for the same job

Published skills whose descriptions closely match this one, with their headline benchmark lift.

More skills from the same source and nearby in the registry, with their headline benchmark lift.

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See it in action

What's inside

Topic Selection: Is There a Theoretical Puzzle? (amr-topic-selection)

When to trigger

The AMR fit test

Sources of a strong AMR puzzle

Track record

Benchmark

Adoption

SkillSafety

Source

Other skills for the same job

Related skills