The purpose of this study was to understand the practice of separating implications into separate sections or sub-sections in scholarly articles that report empirical research in social sciences. Using a stratified random sampling strategy, I selected 120 articles from 40 journals in the field of management available via the Social Sciences Citation Index. I analysed the articles using qualitative content analysis that was guided by two research questions: (1) do journal articles include implications as an independent component? and (2) What guidance do journal editors provide about the presentation of implications in article submissions? The results show that 72% of articles separated implications into a section or sub-section whilst the remaining 28% integrated them into other main sections. Of the first group, three quarters of authors separated implications into sub-sections of the Discussion section and one quarter presented them as independent main sections that followed the Discussion. Several patterns related to the range, length, order, and type of implications sections and sub-sections emerged. The results also showed that only 4% of journals mention implications in their guidelines for authors. Journal editors could use the results of this study to discuss the importance of implications to the journal strategic development, articulate their position on the article structure, and audit their guidelines. Researchers might use the study results to improve their article structure and, hence, increase chances of receiving positive editorial decision.

中文翻译：

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IMRD 成为管理期刊中的 IMRDi 了吗？作为研究文章的独立结构组成部分的含义

本研究的目的是了解在报告社会科学实证研究的学术文章中将含义分成单独的部分或子部分的做法。使用分层随机抽样策略，我从社会科学引文索引提供的管理领域的 40 种期刊中选择了 120 篇文章。我使用以两个研究问题为指导的定性内容分析来分析文章：(1) 期刊文章是否包含作为独立组成部分的影响？和 (2) 期刊编辑对提交文章中的含义提供了哪些指导？结果表明，72% 的文章将含义分为一个部分或子部分，而其余 28% 的文章将它们整合到其他主要部分中。在第一组中，四分之三的作者将含义分成讨论部分的子部分，四分之一的作者将它们作为讨论之后的独立主要部分呈现。出现了与含义部分和子部分的范围、长度、顺序和类型相关的几种模式。结果还表明，只有 4% 的期刊在其作者指南中提到了影响。期刊编辑可以利用这项研究的结果来讨论对期刊战略发展影响的重要性，阐明他们对文章结构的立场，并审核他们的指导方针。研究人员可能会使用研究结果来改善他们的文章结构，从而增加获得积极编辑决定的机会。