IS HUNTING JOURNAL ARTICLES MAKING US MISS THE BOAT OF BIG IDEAS? (19 February 2025)

Description

Is the journal publishing process and the “game” around journal publishing forcing us to give up on big ideas and instead work on small ideas about trivial matters? We are not so sure. We think that science needs many different types of academics, and they have all sorts of different ideas, big and small, and we need outlets for expressing every single one of them. But outlets, like ideas, are not all equal. Journals are an incremental genre leaning toward rigor and thus risk type-2 errors. Book are an expansive genre learning towards big ideas – and thus risk type-1 errors. So the question is rather what type of scholar you are and whether you can handle the very different processes and mechanisms – those associated with big ideas that take a long time to develop, versus the production of smaller ideas and insights that incrementally push our knowledge forward.

Episode Reading List

  • Recker, J., Zeiss, R., & Mueller, M. (2024). iRepair or I Repair? A Dialectical Process Analysis of Control Enactment on the iPhone Repair Aftermarket. MIS Quarterly, 48(1), 321-346.
  • Bechky, B. A., & Davis, G. F. (2025). Resisting the Algorithmic Management of Science: Craft and Community After Generative AI. Administrative Science Quarterly, 70(1), 1-22.
  • Kallinikos, J. (2025). Management and Information Systems (in all shapes and colours) missed the wider significance of computerization and informatization. LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jannis-kallinikos-07448616_management-and-information-systems-in-all-activity-7289650197784125440-2cJm/.
  • Beniger, J. R. (1989). The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Harvard University Press.
  • Zuboff, S. (1998). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. Basic Books.
  • Zuboff, S., & Maxmin, J. (2004). The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism. Penguin Publishing Group.
  • Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Profile.
  • Zuboff, S. (1985). Automate/Informate: The Two Faces of Intelligent Technology. Organizational Dynamics, 14(2), 5-18.
  • boyd, d., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230.
  • Zittrain, J. L. (2006). The Generative Internet. Harvard Law Review, 119, 1974-2040.
  • Kahneman, D. (2012). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Penguin.
  • Parker, G., Van Alstyne, M., & Choudary, S. P. (2016). Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy – and How to Make Them Work for You. W. W. Norton & Company.
  • Harari, Y. N. (2024). Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Random House.
  • Sauer, H. (2024). The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality. Profile Books.
  • Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harper.
  • von Briel, F., Davidsson, P., & Recker, J. (2018). Digital Technologies as External Enablers of New Venture Creation in the IT Hardware Sector. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(1), 47-69.
  • Davidsson, P., Recker, J., & von Briel, F. (2020). External Enablement of New Venture Creation: A Framework. Academy of Management Perspectives, 34(3), 311-332.
  • Davidsson, P., Recker, J., & von Briel, F. (2025). External Enablement of Entrepreneurial Actions and Outcomes: Extension, Review and Research Agenda. Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, 12(3-4), 300-470.
  • Safadi, H., Lalor, J. P., & Berente, N. (2024). The Effect of Bots on Human Interaction in Online Communities. MIS Quarterly, 48(3), 1279-1296.
  • Chen, Z., & Chan, J. (2024). Large Language Model in Creative Work: The Role of Collaboration Modality and User Expertise. Management Science, 70(12), 9101-9117.
  • Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J., & Reijers, H. A. (2018). Fundamentals of Business Process Management (2nd ed.). Springer.
  • Harari, Y. N. (2014). Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Harvill Secker.
  • Recker, J. (2021). Scientific Research in Information Systems: A Beginner’s Guide (2nd ed.). Springer.
  • The Stakeholder Alignment Collaborative. (2025). The Consortia Century: Aligning for Impact. Oxford University Press.

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