What do introduction sections tell us about the intent of scholarly work: A contribution on contributions

This paper presents empirical examination of the semantics of contribution claims in the

introduction sections of journal articles, a significantly under-examined area of scholarly

activity, which underpins the methodical act of communicating the value of research to an

audience. The paper presents a systematic review of 538 papers in three leading industrial

marketing journals, Industrial Marketing Management, the Journal of Business & Industrial

Marketing and the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and uses a phased approach to

categorize contribution claims made by authors in their introductions and abstracts. The paper

identifies four main categories of contribution, defined as incremental, revelatory, replicatory

and consolidatory, with sub-categorizations within them, and reports on the proportionality of

these strategies in the sample while capturing the semantic games played by authors in pursuit

of these claims. Specific findings are of interest to industrial marketers, but the conceptual

framework and systematic methods presented in the paper are transferable to any discipline or

body of work, and therefore have broader disciplinary appeal. Findings are also of interest to

authors, reviewers and editors for coalescing fragmented understanding of contribution

strategies into a coherent framework for action.