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Perspective—Rigor and Relevance in Organization Studies: Idea Migration and Academic Journal Evolution

Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708
dick.daft{at}owen.vanderbilt.edu
ayl3{at}duke.edu

This perspective paper addresses the issues of rigor and relevance in organizational studies in the context of idea migration and journal evolution. We argue that creeping parochialism can happen to any journal, which reflects an evolving narrowness within boundaries of academic subcommunities. Evidence suggests that ideas do migrate across academic subcommunities, although the underlying process is not well understood and the idea flow is not symmetrical. Two kinds of knowledge relevance are discussed—the value for end users such as managers in organizations, and the value for one's own or other academic subcommunities. We argue that the most important mission of Organization Science (OS) is to be a "source" journal for academic subcommunities in organization studies by attracting and publishing new theories and ideas that increase the varieties of knowledge about organizations.

Key Words: academic publication; idea migration; rigor and relevance