Essays in Management and Organization Studies: Past, Present, and Future of a Generative Genre

Essays are currently flourishing as a genre in the field of management and organization studies. Decidedly distinct from empirical, theoretical, or agenda-setting work, essays take a variety of forms throughout the field, including expository essays offering explanation, polemical essays providing critique, theoretical essays introducing new theoretical lenses, and narrative essays grounded in storytelling of personal experiences and emotions (Vince and Hibbert, 2018). Essays are an important platform where academics can recognize that our role is not only to predict or explain (Lindebaum and Wright, 2021) but also to motivate change through our writing. In this way, essays can be a generative genre for inviting purposeful (and sometimes radical) action towards changing our field.

The Journal of Management Studies is a strong proponent of this view of essays as a generative genre. In 2016, the journal launched its new essay section, entitled ‘JMS Says’. In its eight years of existence, JMS Says has matured, and the essays we edit have taken on a more defined objective and format as we lean into the possibilities of essays as a generative genre. Our focus has sharpened on narrative essays, which provide the opportunity for scholars to set out a unique and personal view on our environment (for us, as management academics) and what it could ideally become. We note that several other outlets have also created their own essay sections in accord with their views of the essay genre and particular focus. As JMS Says advances, and based on our collective years as editors at JMS Says, here we set out our views on the role, format, and potential of essays as a generative genre for management and organization scholars.

Essays matter more than ever because they can help shed light on unspoken aspects of our work as academics, from the vulnerabilities we experience (Hibbert, 2024) to the increasing risk of research extraction in marginalized communities (Bothello and Bonfim, 2023). They can also flip the script by challenging the assumptions at the core of our profession, such as those we have around data sharing (Schwarz and Bouckenooghe, 2024) or the roles of the deans in business school (Cassell, 2024). In short, essays have the power to inspire us to be better at what we do.

Yet, we can only shape essays as a generative genre with a clear definition and expectation, which we have progressively refined for the Journal of Management Studies. We see that the strength of JMS Says is its distinctiveness in coexisting with more traditional genres such as empirical or theoretical work. As a generative genre, JMS Says essays need to (1) draw from personal experiences to carry emotional weight, (2) identify an original or overlooked issue among management scholars, and (3) offer a clear ‘call to action’ for our academic community. Building on this threefold mandate, our team has edited a range of essays that we hope can make us think and act differently as management academics.

Management scholarship is often seen as aiming to ‘build theory and contribute to management practice’ (George, 2014, p. 1). Yet, how we concretely do that is left to be imagined and the two objectives can be remote. Contributing to management practice is the paragon of impact (MacIntosh et al., 2021), and writing novel theory is what opens the door of top journals (Cornelissen and Durand, 2014). But there is a world out beyond scientific writing aimed at contributing to theory and practice.

Much of the debates around essays in our field have been to establish how they constitute ‘legitimate management knowledge’ and help us ‘overcome the dogma of empiricism’ (Suddaby, 2018, pp. 441–442). The usefulness of essays is less questioned nowadays, and it has become accepted as a ‘scholarly form’ (Delbridge et al., 2016, p. 239). Essays are an invitation for management academics to write for a different genre, with different codes and approaches, yet with a different potential for impact.

In viewing essays as a generative genre, we see essays as a form of institutional entrepreneurship for our field (Battilana et al., 2009): Their content challenges our assumptions and values in a way that is generative for our profession and its relationship with society. Our obsession with the impact of management scholarship (Bothello and Roulet, 2019) ignores the very mundane ways to do so: simply working on ourselves and our practices as management academics. Essays, by making us and our colleagues rethink what we take for granted as management scholars, can change the very essence of who we are, what we do, and ultimately how we impact the world of practice and more broadly society.

We tend to think of ourselves (management scholars) as an epistemic community rather than professionals trying to achieve a collective goal. We need to talk to each other, discuss our experiences, and how we work and contribute to our field and to society. This is particularly important in the fast-paced world we currently experience: Essays can help us engage in dialogue about what it means to be a management scholar. It gives us an opportunity to slow down (Marinetto, 2018) and reconsider our practices and identity.

Since the first essays were published in the Journal of Management Studies in 2016, other outlets have started accepting and printing essays. The flourishing of essay sections across journals is a testament to the dynamism they bring to our field. Yet, their increasing numbers might have blurred the boundaries of what essays, in contrast with other types of papers in our field, can accomplish.

As JMS Says evolved, we have progressively adopted a more clearly defined view of the type of essays we publish. Some of the essays we published in the past, despite being of high quality, would not fit JMS Says today. For example, some previous essays have set up an agenda for future research, fleshed out a particular theoretical construct, or developed methodological propositions; although these are important topics, these essays were not focussed on encouraging us as management scholars to act differently. In addition, some of these older JMS Says essays were not grounded in a personal narrative, as we now require. The current editorial team believes that one of the key strengths of JMS Says essays is to carry personal emotions as a fuel for action, thus making JMS Says importantly different from the essay sections of other journals. Below, we explain the key characteristics of essays in this section of the journal. We believe that the essays we edited continue to make significant impacts on our field, which is in line with our overall objectives.

Taken together, these four core elements (Table I) underpin the JMS Says essay section as an outlet for personal reflection and critique of a scholar's lived experiences of the many and varied aspects of academic life that can trouble, confound, frighten, frustrate, and/or inspire us to want to do things differently. Submissions that aim to advance empirical knowledge through research, or conceptual knowledge through arguments grounded in extant literature, do not fit the JMS Says section and are more appropriately written up and submitted to the journal as a conventional full paper. Similarly, submissions pitching calls to action regarding the need for new research initiatives or methodologies do not fit the JMS Says section. Prospective authors who wish to make wider political or methodological points might consider the Point/Counterpoint section of JMS.

In this section, we focus on the key characteristics of an excellent JMS Says essay. We look for manuscripts that show how scholars have an original and critical take on their own personal experience of some particular aspect of academic life. In addition, they have married these insights with concrete calls to action about what should be done differently and by whom. In our years as editors of JMS Says, we have consistently reinforced the four core elements highlighted above as part of the journey from proposal to publication. We believe that adhering to these elements helps authors refine their call to action, make novel claims, and explain how their call was rooted in their personal experience. In terms of process, each initial 300-word proposal is considered by two JMS Says editors (who exercise this role for a given term of office) and one JMS general or associate editor. The editors collectively determine whether to offer an opportunity for the author(s) to write a revised proposal or a first version of the full essay, or decline the submission if it does not meet the criteria mentioned above. If the opportunity to develop a full essay is offered, there is still the possibility of rejection. However, the majority of invitations to submit a full essay have led to publication. As part of the process, the editors and the author(s) go back and forth through a series of revisions to sharpen the message and call to action, while highlighting the introspective and personal narrative that is critical to the essay.

The aim of the journal is ‘to publish original, innovative, and high-quality papers that advance conceptual and empirical knowledge, and address practice in the area of management and organization’. JMS Says plays a distinct role with regard to this aim, by helping us reflect, reconsider, and review how we publish original and innovative research.

Together these examples illustrate the vibrancy and challenges of our profession. They also point to the importance of JMS Says essays as a generative genre: This journal section encourages management scholars to reflect on who they are, and how they can improve as colleagues and as researchers.

As our academic and societal environment continues to evolve at a fast space, we predict a golden age for essays. Fully realizing the potential of essays as a generative genre requires narratives of academics who are currently missing in the pages of our journals.

The voices from the Global South, for example, remain under-represented. Yet, the experience of academia in those parts of the world is crucial to fostering relevant, inclusive, and representative theories of organizations and our scholarly community more broadly. The context of war or geopolitical uncertainty has become increasingly common, influencing both the research we produce and how we produce it. Knowing more about this context can help us as a field, with regard to understanding and unpacking the power structure within our profession and the content of such scholarship.

We also note that the voices of more established scholars, especially those from more central institutions, can tend to dominate the author list for published essays. This may be because they have the experience to understand and navigate the expectations of the publication process. However, it means the voices of early career and emerging scholars are mostly missing. Going forward, we hope JMS Says can provide opportunities for more scholars from marginalized backgrounds and at earlier stages of their career to share their unique experiences and inspire new calls for action.

Essays are increasingly important in management and organization studies, and the narrative essay form offers a unique, personal, and generative perspective that complements traditional empirical and theoretical work. The ‘JMS Says’ section in the Journal of Management Studies has been instrumental in expanding essays as a generative genre, emphasizing its distinct role in addressing visible or invisible academic challenges and inspiring social change in our field.

Essays can encourage introspection and dialogue among management scholars, prompting us to rethink our practices and identities. Thus, they provide a space to challenge assumptions and foster deeper connections within our academic community. We believe that by embracing essays as an integral component of academic work, we can continue to enhance our field by promoting a reflective and action-oriented approach to scholarship.

The authors are grateful for the all of those they have worked with on developing essays for JMSSays, and for the feedback provided by the general editors.