Paradigmatic plurality or citation market? : A longue durée perspective of management writing

Purpose – This essay aims to focus on the long‐term emergence of management research journals, and highlights the social, cultural, technological and financial factors that facilitate or constrain such modes of writing. Drawing on historical material and direct observations, two future scenarios can be projected. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews management writing in its long‐term historical context, offers a critical analysis using direct observations and projects two future scenarios. Findings – This work sheds light on a long‐term historical imprint on management writing. It describes a long‐term legitimacy trap in which management research is stuck. Two possible scenarios for the next years are described: first, development of a Global Market of Citations (GCM). Incentives become more and more individual. Research and researchers both become commodified. E‐reputation (at the individual level) becomes the key driver of management science. Scientific paradigms disappear...; second, development of several competing paradigms, involving various cumulative traditions. New incentives, shedding light on collective dynamic, are institutionalized. Scientific performance is not any more the sum of individual performances. Originality/value – Very few studies put management writing into perspective with the long‐term history (three centuries old) of scientific writing. Critical analysis of this historical imprint (on writing standards but also evaluation or diffusion of articles) is rarely offered in management literature. In addition, this paper's two scenarios are a way to suggest an interesting debate about management writing and the way we evaluate it.