Rolling with the punches: receiving peer reviews as prescriptive emotion management

Abstract

Although Collier's (2002) 'emotional economy' of academia is well travelled in management and organization studies research, this literature is predominantly informed by Hochschild's (1983) original formulation of emotional labour as mandated by management for commercial reasons. Equally, there is little analysis of research and even less of receiving peer reviews.Nonetheless, authors can find peer review emotionally challenging, especially when they receive rejections or caustic reviews. Qualitative interviews with management and organization studies academics indicate an understanding of the receipt of peer reviews as properly governed by Bolton's (2005Bolton's ( , 2009Bolton and Boyd, 2003) prescriptive feeling rules. This suggests such emotion work demands private processing to underpin public displays, even though these are anonymized and written. It may mean authors choose not to appeal to editors about reviewing outcomes except where due process has been breached, as well as involving proxy work by editors to forestall potential hurt to authors.