[Written with Assoc. Prof. Julien Cayla]

For academics, being rejected forms a part and parcel of their work. 

But although rejection is an incredibly common event for academics, it remains a taboo subject in academia. Talking about our rejections openly is unusual. So unusual that when economist Johannes Haushofer published his CV of failures, he received unprecedented media attention. 

This invisibility of failure creates false expectations of immediate successes for early career researchers on the one hand, leading to a complete lack of confidence. On the other hand, seasoned academics used to receiving rejections may continue to have great difficulty with rejections, the cumulative force of multiple rejections acting as a real battering ram to their ability to function normally.

To put an end to this silence around rejection, let us start by sharing Julien's story.

JULIEN’S STORY OF REJECTION

Julien’s first big rejection came in 2005. It was a letter from the Journal of Marketing. He was in his first job at the Australian Graduate School of Management, and he had no publications to his name. When he read reviewer 2’s suggestion - that his work was a good story but “better suited to The New Yorker” - he felt an iron poker twist his insides.

The paper was a result of his award-winning thesis, which he had assumed would help him to effortlessly publish in a top journal. So the rejection was all the more devastating. He was completely stressed out and unable to imagine a future in academia if his best work was never going to be good enough. He began talking about quitting academia. 

But he stayed, and he became determined to publish in the top journals in his field. Seven years later, in 2012, his article was accepted for publication in the very same journal, Journal of Marketing, after a complete rewrite, and several years in the review process. The next year, he submitted an article which was accepted, in the same journal, in the very first round of submission. The tide had started to turn.

Today he is a tenured professor at one of the best research universities in the world, he is an associate editor for a prestigious scientific journal, and he also created a research center in India. 

Yet in 2020, he had a succession of four paper rejections from top journals. With time and experience, he is better able to digest the emotional turmoil unleashed by a rejection. 

We wanted to reflect on and share what makes these rejections so painful, and how to manage them to bring peace and equilibrium to our lives. 

REJECTION AND THE EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER OF ACADEMIA

In the past few months, we have been speaking to many researchers, some junior, some senior, about writing and emotions, and rejections in particular. 

What we found surprised us. Even for tenured faculty, and very senior academics, paper rejections can be very destabilizing. Consider, for instance, the story of the researcher below:

I do remember a rejection from AMJ, a conceptual paper which I thought was brilliant. That was post tenure but it threw me into a tailspin that lasted for 2 years. But why? I had tenure but it really shook my confidence. I was busy and the kids were little and that was a time when I really wanted to get my research career back on track [...] I was really struggling because most of the childcare fell on me. I thought I had a great paper that got rejected and I was like “maybe I don't have it, I really don’t have it. I am never going to publish in a good journal again.” (Full Professor with an endowed chair in marketing; former editor of a top journal in marketing)

Another senior scholar shared how intensely difficult it is for her to read the reviewers’ comments: 

I find it very very difficult. I almost feel like abandoning the field for the first minute. … I have the impression that they are critiquing me. (Full professor with an endowed chair in information systems; former senior editor of a top journal)

If even seasoned academics can be thrown by paper rejections, what chance do the rest of us stand? How can we make sense of this?? 

REJECTION AS AN IDENTITY-DESTABILIZING EVENT

An academic’s identity is tied to the number of papers they publish. Academic CVs, especially those of accomplished academics, can run into hundreds of pages. 

In a world where identities are tied to having a long list of publications, a rejection may signal an inability to join the community of scholars, and can induce shame. 

A management scholar spoke of her feelings of shame on being rejected early on in her career:

The early days of rejection meant deep shame and feeling “I am no good.” Because you don’t have a foundation of success right? Each early rejection is a very big event and it was very shameful. It was very personal and private and I wouldn’t tell anyone about it. I wouldn’t be angry with the reviewers but I would be angry with myself. (Full professor in management; member of multiple editorial boards )

The word rejection comes from the Latin reiectio, which is the “act of throwing back”; so, to be rejected is to be thrown out. This rejection, or being thrown out, runs against one of our deepest human desires: the desire to belong. The word “rejection” evokes an exclusion and breaking from a social bond. The shame that can accompany paper rejections comes from the fear of not belonging. It runs against the core of an academic’s social identity.

ACADEMIA AND THE CULT OF INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

The shame of paper rejections is amplified by academia’s cult of individual performance and self-reliance. Consider that a newly minted PhD student is usually given an office, a list of courses to teach, and an idea of the publications they need in order to achieve tenure. Apart from that, they are usually free to decide what they want to research, and how to go about it. 

Most academics find this kind of freedom to be amazing. After all, intellectual independence is a core academic value.

But independence and self-reliance come at a price. One of the consequences of this individualism is the expectation that early career researchers will deal with the challenges of publishing on their own, including the emotional roller coaster that publishing in top journals involves. 

Herein lies the paradox of academia. After the PhD, an academic is like a craftsperson without an expert to learn from. The majority of newly minted PhDs suffer from various forms of isolation and receive little guidance on how to deal with the emotional side of academia. 

If we accept that writing for top journals is a craft, then we must also consider that the path to becoming an expert does not finish upon graduation. Like other forms of expertise, the journey never stops. And learning how to deal with failures and setbacks is part of the journey.

Our goal is to provide some help and some resources, especially for early career researchers suffering from isolation, on how to deal with the emotional roller coaster of academia. In the next blog post we will examine strategies on how to deal with paper rejections.