Theorizing with preprints: Liminality, epistemic uncertainty and the pursuit of pluralism

Many organizational researchers support the pursuit of greater pluralism in the way we theorize about organizational phenomena. This pursuit, however, raises a difficult question for the day-to-day work and governance of our research community: How can we support peripheral forms of theorizing without unduly impairing peers who prefer dominant forms of theorizing? In this paper, we propose a new answer to this longstanding question. Organizational researchers should embrace – and, in particular, cite – preprints in their theorizing. To underpin this proposal, we reconceptualize preprints as a liminal genre of scholarly communication that sits between peer-reviewed and non-peer reviewed genres. Equipped with the unique characteristic of epistemic uncertainty, preprints offer researchers who embrace them new possibilities for rigorous theorizing. These new possibilities open up in particular for peripheral forms, such as interpretative or speculative theorizing, and thus support pluralism without interfering with the dominant forms of theorizing. Finally, to facilitate a nuanced debate about the future of preprints in organizational research, we discuss some of the puzzles, pitfalls, and perturbations to be expected if preprints become embraced as legitimate building blocks of theorizing.