The M@n@gement journey, spanning boundaries and navigating at the fringe

Abstract

A few weeks ago, one of the co-authors of this paper received a rejection from an FT listed journal. There is nothing in itself extraordinary in this: we are all used to rejections. The paper did have weaknesses and we could understand why it might have been rejected. What was remarkable about the decision was its concision and the motive presented for it. No justification was given beyond the following sentence: “a primary reason for rejecting the manuscript is that your research explores a unique case, which does not have applicability to many situations”. While the reviewers had picked out some of the other weaknesses of the paper, the main reason for rejection seemed genuinely to be the specificity of the case study (the French context) and the fact that it only examined a single case. What seemed to us an extraordinary opportunity to study this research topic, one that had been recurrently identified by other scholars as important, was seen by the reviewers as lacking possibilities of generalization. Among others, Bent Flyvbjerg (2006) suggests that it is conventional to assume that single case studies cannot be used to inform generalizations and do not therefore contribute significantly to scientific progress. He advocates and emphasizes the usefulness of “black swans” as a supplement or alternative to other methods, while suggesting that “formal generalization is overvalued as a source of scientific development, whereas ‘the force of example’ is underestimated” (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 228). This implies that academic journals are aware of this approach and, more widely, of the richness and diversity of research. Of course, we are not (only) telling this story because i