Are special issues becoming “too much of a good thing” in elite general management journals? Although a few special issues might serve to spur innovative research in important areas of management scholarship that otherwise are being overlooked, the author argues that profligate commissioning of special issues distorts the marketplace for ideas by commanding particular frequency distributions of preferred topics in journals. This results in a “command economy” for ideas that, ironically, can retard innovation. Scholars would be well served by being more selective when commissioning special issues in elite general management journals.
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