When crafting your lit review, it's helpful to start from this formula: "[Scholar] handled this area of study [in this way] and [other scholar] handled it [in this other way], but what neither scholar has done is [x]. Like [first scholar], I [do what] and like [second scholar], I [do what], but unlike either of them, my paper also [does x]."

If you figure out how to fill in the blanks of this statement for your work, and distill that into 1-3 sentences at the end of your lit review as shown in the example above, it's more likely that your editor will understand the gap that your work fills, and thus its scholarly relevance.

Since your paper is a synthesis of existing literature, you might not actually be filling a gap with new knowledge. So you would need to make the case that no synthesis currently exists, and that a synthesis is badly needed.

Once upon a time, review articles summarised contributions to a particular theory in order to identify gaps in that theory that need to be filled. Unfortunately, these times are over, and reviews have become semi-automated annotated bibliographies. Without knowing your field I can only speculate but my speculation is this:

- Social identity theory and stigma theory are highly abstract, parsimonious and closed theories that explain processes in the field only in very general terms. They function as interpretive schemes rather than explanatory tools. What they are unlikely to do is explain why employees adhering to a particular religion in a specific way face specific difficulties in particular circumstances. For this, you would need a middle-range theory that links specific sets of conditions to particular social mechanisms and their specific outcomes.

- Because the two theories serve as interpretive schemes rather than explanatory tools, it is very difficult to contribute to them with empirical research. The literatureyou reviewed uses them without changing them (i.e. without contributing to them).

- Because the literature you reviewed does not contribute to these theories, your review cannot contribute to them either.

- What would be necessary (and could be your contribution) is pointing out the things that cannot be explained by the two theories and outlining what a more specific (less abstract) theory could contribute to advancing the field. For example, a more specific theory would need to include typologies of workplaces, workplace struggles, religious employees, conflict resolution processes, and outcomes.

I apologise again because this is all ill-informed speculation. I mainly outlined a pattern that I have seen in fields I know more about.

Elisabeth McCumber Your answer inspires me to organize my responses to the editor. Thank you!

Jochen Glaser No need to apologize at all, Prof. Your answer clearly gives me some ideas on how I should position those two theories in my article. Also to clarify that the main theoretical contribution of my paper was not on those two theories, but more on the field perspective. E.g., why only using those two would not be sufficient to comprehend the field extensively.

Thanks a lot!

Thank you very much, Elisabeth McCumber and Jochen Glaser

My paper has been published in the Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion. After incorporating your suggestions, my theoretical section became much more solid than before.

The final paper is here, and the theoretical section starts on page 5

Article Employment Struggles for Muslims: A Systematic Review

Once again, thanks!

Wonderful Jaya Addin Linando ! Thanks for following up!