I hereby recommend the paper “Global North-South Science Inequalities Due to Language and Funding Barriers” by Turba and colleagues (2025), which addresses issues affecting researchers from the Global South. This group are typically non-native English speakers from lower-income countries, face double restrictions compared to their counterparts from higher-income countries. These restrictions include language barriers and the financial burdens of business publishing models. 

Turba and colleagues are researchers from different countries dedicated to natural science and technology fields, including biology, bioeconomy, ecology, environmental science, and engineering. Their paper is not only highly interesting and focused, but also provides an opportunity to open PCI Organization Studies to academics from other fields and establish a dialogue on issues that can be addressed from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives.

I will begin this recommendation essay with a story published by El País (Ansede, 2025). It reports the way a prestigious journal called “Science of the Total Environment” was expelled from Clarivate’s indexing system due to “irregularities” and failure to meet quality criteria. From 2012 to 2025, under editor Damià Barceló, the journal dramatically increased its output, reaching nearly 10,000 articles per year. Open access system was tied to a pay-to-publish model that cost authors around $4,150 plus taxes. The search for revenues created incentives to accept papers regardless of merit. Consequently, the journal’s peer review process was allegedly compromised. Elsevier retracted around 50 studies tied to fake peer reviews, including cases with fraudulent reviewer identities. 

Significantly, the editor himself “… is a hyper-prolific scientist, one of those who publishes a new study every five days or even less. He has authored some 1,800 papers in his lifetime, more than 200 of them in Science of the Total Environment, his own journal” (Ansede, 2025). Damià Barceló is one of the Highly Cited Researchers list, compiled by Clarivate. Highly cited researchers are ranked in the influential Shanghai Ranking, which designates the best academic institutions worldwide. “In 2023, an investigation by El País revealed that Saudi Arabia had offered bribes of up to €70,000 per year to highly cited scientists to falsify their affiliations in Clarivate’s database. The scientists were instructed to claim that they worked at an Arab university in order to boost those institutions' rankings” (Ansede, 2025).

In terms of academic and scientific relevance, the "publish or perish" culture of academia has created systemic incentives that prioritize the quantity of publications over their quality. This has fueled a flood of low-quality research and diverted public research funds into the profits of private publishers. The Science of the Total Environment scandal highlights broader structural issues in scientific publishing. Both the journal and Clarivate are owned by private corporations. Elsevier, a multinational company, publishes the journal. Clarivate, with a history of mergers and acquisitions dating back to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), founded in 1957 by Eugene Garfield, is a private company that leads the business of indexing science publications (see https://clarivate.com/).

According to Karl Polanyi (1977), the emergence of markets disrupts social cohesion by commodifying everything. Society responds to this disruption with counter-movements that aim to stop the expansion of market relations. These counter movements appear in the form of social movements, regulations, and new rights, to address the excesses of market advancement. For Polanyi, the economy is not limited to markets. Rather, it comprises elements that form different structures of interaction, such as reciprocity, redistribution, domesticity, and exchange. Each structure has an organizing principle that defines economic life: symmetry, centrality, circularity, and the market (Peck, 2013; Polanyi, 1977). The result is a diverse economy with multiple forms of interaction. 

 

Polanyi's analysis is particularly helpful in interpreting the dynamics of activities that are outside the scope of the market economy, such as academic work. Investigating the impacts of commodification is worthwhile in such cases because commodification undermines the cohesion and coherence of social reproduction in these activities. Turba and colleagues' (2025) paper successfully illustrates the changes to the former academic artisanal production system. The transformation they describe shows the uneven outcomes of the marketization of science, which is now a system managed by large corporations and oriented toward profit, while maintaining elements of artisanal labor, such as voluntary peer review and editorial activities.

Turba and colleagues (2025) propose an essential discussion of open science, dismissing the illusions it may suggest. The authors provide a fascinating historical introduction to the topic, highlighting the historical shift prompted by the United States' entry onto the international scientific scene. As the paper describes, the postwar period was a turning point that solidified the internationalization of academic activities by promoting conferences, collaborations, and growing societies with increasing scope and reach. 

I would like to add that this shift toward international scientific and academic influence was a US geopolitical strategy. Known as the "Cultural Cold War," it has been conducted by the CIA through soft anticommunist ideological moves, such as editorial sponsoring, translations, academic missions, and interchanges; and it has also involved supporting dictatorships and wars (Saunders, 1999). The Cultural Cold War had epistemological and methodological foundations, and the science of management was one of the ideological weapons used by US imperialism. Thus, management science literature is an interesting case study for understanding how biased social perspectives are produced under the guise of social science. Nodoushani (2000) examines management theory showing how the Cold War molded the prevalence of positivist epistemology and the behavioral science revolution, which was used to combat Marxist and materialist social science ideas. This geopolitical strategy heavily influences Western countries' acceptance of functionalism and positivism as dominant social science paradigms (Burrel & Morgan, 1999).

Since 1992, the motto "publish or perish" has become a central issue in scientific research, as the kingdom of metrics and indexes was established by Thomson Scientific & Healthcare (Moskovkin, 2024). Turba and colleagues (2025) have described how this reflects the institutional pressure that academics around the world face to publish in order to be promoted and advance their careers. This emphasis also creates a significant barrier to the advancement of scholars from underprivileged geopolitical areas. Therefore, it is crucial to discuss the challenges of open science initiatives as a means of overcoming these obstacles and promoting equity and inclusivity in science.

Open science (OS) aims to promote fair production and distribution of scientific resources. UNESCO's statement on OS relies on researchers and scientists' voluntary work to deliver many principles – “transparency, scrutiny, critique, and reproducibility; equality of opportunities; responsibility, respect, and accountability; collaboration, participation, and inclusion; flexibility; and sustainability” (Turba et al., 2025, p. 6). However, ensuring equitable access to scientific resources through free and open access to knowledge is not easy, if one is aware that the very opening of science is closely related to the political economy of science organizing.

As Michel Callon (1993) once put it, the debate over whether science is a public good rests on the boundary between economics and sociology because of the progressive privatization of science. Today scientific publishing is managed by businessmen driven by market imperatives. The four largest scientific publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis) together made over $7 billion in 2024 with profit margins exceeding 30%, driven by high article processing charges and open access fees. Elsevier alone had about a 38% profit margin and earned roughly $1.5 billion in 2024. 

The commodification of knowledge strongly impacts science and the workers who depend on it for their livelihood. What was once a craft based on traditional practices, with masters and disciples building relationships of trust based on reputation and mutual care, has been transformed into a machine driven by quantifiable metrics and rankings. Thus, the open science (OS) project reflects Karl Polanyi's concept of a counter movement against the marketization of knowledge (Fraser, 2012; Sanda, Unimna, & Edet, 2025). OS aims to decommodify knowledge invoking the professional ethics of research scientists to restore confidence and proposes using volunteer work to review and publish scientific articles. Quality is based on maintaining the traditional system, as opposed to commercial publishing practices. 

Turba and colleagues (2025) describe how this kind of ethical commitment has been co-opted by the business model. The vast resources and interests involved in publishing make reaching a consensus on OS principles and practices unlikely. The marketization process is a hybrid that retains the value of volunteer work and the confidence it inspires. Once the market controls the labor process, the spread of open source (OS) has not met expectations for greater equity or enhanced societal impact (Ràfols, 2025). One significant symptom of this hybridization is the disconnection between open science (OS) and open access (OA). This disconnection is certainly one of the most unsettled factors hindering the expansion of the open system and is what harms the Global-South research potential through language and funding barriers.

Today, the leading high-impact journals are published in English, which puts non-native speakers at a disadvantage. The need for translation services adds financial strain and further limits publication opportunities. However, the open access system adds another budgetary layer, making it even more disadvantageous. Turba and colleagues (2025) revealed that open access license fees range from USD 4,995 to USD 11,690. It is important to highlight how economic inequalities impact access to top journals. Turba and colleagues (2025, p. 12) inform that, on the one hand, the Gold Open Access fee in Nature corresponds to 3.56% of the annual budget of a European Research Council Starting Grant, on the other hand, the same Access fee amounts 35.19% of the annual budget of a starting grant in Chile, 64.95% of an equivalent starting grant in Peru and 585% of an equivalent Iranian starting grant.

Consequently, the likelihood of researchers from the Global South joining the citation elite has decreased, indicating a growing gap in recognition and influence. Empirical studies show that articles from the Global South are often perceived as localized, while those from the North are viewed as universal, affecting their citation rates. Despite these challenges, there is a growing recognition of the need to support and amplify research from the Global South. Addressing these inequalities is essential for a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of global scientific issues.

For Turba et al (2025) the overcoming of such a complex situation depends on a nuanced collaborative approach to support the core values of open and accessible research, in order to face language barriers and funding restrictions to the Global-South academy. The foundations of the Anglocentric system must be shaken by a diversification in scholarly communication that recognizes and validates research contributions in multiple languages. The establishment of sustainable funding structures through the development of mechanisms that cater to the financial constraints of researchers worldwide will be instrumental in fostering a more inclusive and collaborative research ecosystem.

This paper is very welcome to PCI in Organization Studies and I encourage scholars from various disciplines to submit their work when motivated by promoting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives. I hope you enjoy reading it!

References

Ansede, M. (2025). The fall of a prolific science journal exposes the billion-dollar profits of scientific publishing. In: https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2025-11-28/the-fall-of-a-prolific-science-journal-exposes-the-billion-dollar-profits-of-scientific-publishing.html 

Callon, M. (1994). Is Science a Public Good? Fifth Mullins Lecture, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 23 March 1993. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 19(4), 395-424. https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399401900401 (Original work published 1994)

Fraser, N (2012). Can society be commodities all the way down? Polanyian reflections on capitalist crisis. FMSH-WP-2012-18. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00725060v1/document

Moskovkin, V. (2024) Tracing the origins of ‘publish or perish’. In: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2024/07/15/tracing-the-origins-of-publish-or-perish/ 

Ràfols, I. (2025). Rethinking Open Science: Towards Care for Equity and Inclusion. In: https://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/articles/rethinking-open-science-towards-care-for-equity-and-inclusion 

Sanda, F., Unimna, B., Edet, U. (2025) The Commodification of Knowledge: Scopus-Indexed Journal Publication Requirement, an Aberration to Inclusivity in Nigerian Universities- A Critical Examination. Education For Today 21(2). In: https://philarchive.org/archive/SANTCO-44 

Saunders, FS. (1999). Who paid the piper? the CIA and the cultural Cold War. London, Granta Books. In: https://archive.org/details/whopaidpiperciac0000saun 

Turba, R. et al. (2025). Global North-South science inequalities due to language and funding barriers. In: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14902146 

 

Many of the most pressing challenges we face in society seem intractable at least in part due to their complexity. The climate crisis, for instance, is the product of environmental and social systems – already complex in themselves (Dryzek, 2013) – interpenetrating across such a diversity of spatial and temporal scales as to effectively evade human comprehension and agential engagement (Morton, 2013). Yet complexity also carries with it emancipatory promise. Against understandings of the status quo as a unified, stable and self-reinforcing system, complexity-embracing perspectives draw attention to the vulnerability of existing systems of domination (Wright, 2010) as well as the emancipatory possibilities of alternative practices, both actual and potential (Elder-Vass, 2022; Gibson-Graham, 2006). Intentionally steering towards emancipatory possibilities, however, requires that we apprehend, at least to some degree, the forms of complexity that give rise to such potentialities. 

The causal complexity perspective seeks to address the shortcomings of the dominant approach to explanation – the Newtonian linear model – which can be unhelpfully simplistic in a variety of domains, including those of the social sciences (Abbott, 2001; Meyer, Gaba and Colwell, 2005; Zara and Delacour, 2023). By ignoring the ways in which specific effects can depend on the conjunction of various causal conditions, including interactions across levels of analysis, and how particular causes can give rise to feedback loops, discontinuities and non-proportional effects (Delacour and Zara, 2025; Misangyi et al., 2017; Ragin, 2008), this dominant paradigm offers parsimonious causal accounts optimized for certain purposes and, for that reason, ineffective for others (Durand and Vaara, 2009; Furnari et al., 2021). 

Despite the promise of the causal complexity perspective, however, the authors of “Embracing causal complexity” argue that this approach remains underutilized in organization studies due to outstanding operationalization difficulties and poor understanding of the central concepts of causes and causality (Delacour and Zara, 2025). Configurational theory scholarship has done much to incorporate causal complexity into empirical analyses, most notably through the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA - Fiss, 2007; Furnari et al., 2021; Misangyi et al., 2017; Ragin, 2008; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012). Nevertheless, the authors argue that the value of such approaches is limited because they lack a clear ontology of causes and causation (Delacour and Zara, 2025). 

The authors thus turn to Aristotle’s multivocal conceptualization of causes and causalities as the basis for their proposed three-step analytical framework. Step 1 involves identifying the four per se causes – material, formal, efficient and final – of the phenomenon under investigation. The presented illustrative analysis of a typical firm broadly corresponds to prior efforts to apply the Aristotelian framework in management scholarship (e.g., Strong, 2000). Step 2 goes further, however, using Aristotle’s categories of instruments, secondary causes and accidents to characterize the context of the phenomenon under analysis. Finally Step 3 makes use of Aristotle’s thinking regarding the different forms of causation at play in the relationships between the foregoing types of causes. According to the authors, this ontological grounding usefully advances the causal complexity perspective by accounting for why the dynamics within causal configurations are non-aggregative and tend towards non-linearity and non-proportionality. 

I recommend this paper primarily because I share the authors’ belief in the need for organizational scholarship to pursue greater understanding of not just the fact of causal complexity but most importantly its underlying mechanisms. While any such apprehension will surely be partial and approximate at best, even dim improvements enhance our agential capacity to imagine and intentionally deploy the causes of new effects (Gümüsay and Reinecke, 2022; Mahoney and Goertz, 2006; Schoppek, 2021). Furthermore, the grounding in Aristotelian metaphysics in particular is auspicious for those of us interested in the reality of unrealized potentialities (Bhaskar, 2008, 2016; Elder-Vass, 2022; Shanahan, Jaumier, Daudigeos and Ouahab, 2024). 

Given the ontological importance of human agency and intentionality in Aristotle’s framework (Jacobs and O’Connor, 2013), I do find curious the paper’s reluctance to use such features to more clearly demarcate, for instance, instruments from secondary causes and accidents. I also struggle to see, from the specific illustrations presented in the paper, a clear demonstration that the conceptual complexity added by the proposed framework gets us something of corresponding value in terms of explanatory power. However, I’m inclined to read the paper’s circumspect explanatory ambition as merely an artefact of the authors’ choice to prioritize simplicity and clarity to effectively illustrate the Aristotelian framework in its own right (p. 14). Most notably, the illustrations are generally constrained to a single level of analysis, taking “the firm” as its single, generic object. 

I would be interested to see organization studies research building on this groundwork by exploring what the proposed Aristotelian approach might offer when applied to multiple objects of study in interaction. The example of the consultant who inadvertently reinforces the CEO’s existing inclination by deploying ineffective persuasive techniques (p. 21), for instance, hints at the potential for deeper theorization. Even limiting ourselves to a single level of analysis, might more novel insights be revealed by overlaying the existing framing, where the CEO is understood as the efficient cause, with a secondary framing that takes the consultant as the efficient cause of a separate but intersecting project? And what theorization might be made possible by overlaying such framings at multiple levels of analysis? 

While references to Aristotelian thought are not particularly unusual in organization studies, Aristotle’s metaphysics has been relatively neglected within our discipline. If we accept that the pursuit of emancipatory responses to complex societal challenges requires a correspondingly complex and therefore interdisciplinary understanding of causes and causation (Ferraro, Etzion and Gehman, 2015; Geels, 2022), adopting the proposed framework could be valuable not just as a particular way of conceptualizing causal complexity, but also as a means of tapping into a productive vein of contemporary philosophical work in the Aristotelian tradition (Jacobs and O’Connor, 2013; Jansen and Sandstad, 2021; Novotný and Novák, 2014; Simpson, Koons and Teh, 2017; Tahko, 2011). The present paper is thus recommended by Peer Community in Organization Studies as an invitation to organization scholars to explore what such metaphysical approaches might reveal not just in analysis of what is, but more pressingly in exploration of what we might intentionally cause to be.  

References

Abbott, Andrew (2001). Time matters: On theory and method. University of Chicago Press.

Delacour, Helene and Zara, Andreea (2025). Embracing causal complexity: An analytical framework based on Aristotle’s conceptualization of causes and causalities. Zenodo, 10300126. version 3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Organization Studies. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10300126.

Bhaskar, Roy (2008). A realist theory of science. Routledge.

Bhaskar, Roy (2016). Enlightened common sense: The philosophy of critical realism. Routledge.

Dryzek, John S. (2013). The politics of the earth: Environmental discourses. Oxford University Press.

Durand, Rodolphe and Vaara, Eero (2009). Causation, counterfactuals, and competitive advantage. Strategic Management Journal, 30(12), 1245–1264. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.793

Elder-Vass, Dave (2022). Ethics and emancipation in action: Concrete utopias. Journal of Critical Realism, 21(5), 539–551. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2031789

Ferraro, Fabrizio, Etzion, Dror and Gehman, Joel (2015). Tackling grand challenges pragmatically: Robust action revisited. Organization Studies, 36(3), 363–390. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840614563742

Fiss, Peer C. (2007). A set-theoretic approach to organizational configurations. The Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1180–1198. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.26586092

Furnari, Santi, Crilly, Donal, Misangyi, Vilmos F., Greckhamer, Thomas, Fiss, Peer C. and Aguilera, Ruth V. (2021). Capturing causal complexity: Heuristics for configurational theorizing. Academy of Management Review, 46(4), 778–799. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0298

Geels, Frank W. (2022). Causality and explanation in socio-technical transitions research: Mobilising epistemological insights from the wider social sciences. Research Policy, 51(6), 104537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104537

Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006). A postcapitalist politics. University of Minnesota Press.

Gümüsay, Ali Aslan and Reinecke, Juliane (2022). Researching for desirable futures: From real utopias to imagining alternatives. Journal of Management Studies, 59(1), 236–242. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12709

Jacobs, Jonathan D. and O’Connor, Timothy (2013). Agent causation in a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics. In S. C. Gibb, E. J. Lowe and R. D. Ingthorsson (Eds.), Mental causation and ontology (pp. 173–192). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603770.003.0008

Jansen, Ludger and Sandstad, Petter (2021). Neo-Aristotelian perspectives on formal causation. Routledge.

Mahoney, James and Goertz, Gary (2006). A tale of two cultures: Contrasting quantitative and qualitative research. Political Analysis, 14(3), 227–249. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpj017

Meyer, Alan D., Gaba, Vibha and Colwell, Kenneth A. (2005). Organizing far from equilibrium: Nonlinear change in organizational fields. Organization Science, 16(5), 456–473. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0135

Misangyi, Vilmos F., Greckhamer, Thomas, Furnari, Santi, Fiss, Peer C., Crilly, Donal and Aguilera, Ruth (2017). Embracing causal complexity: The emergence of a neo-configurational perspective. Journal of Management, 43(1), 255–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316679252

Morton, Timothy (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and ecology after the end of the world. University of Minnesota Press.

Novotný, Daniel D. and Novák, Lukáš (2014). Neo-Aristotelian perspectives in metaphysics. Routledge.

Ragin, Charles C. (2008). Redesigning social inquiry: Fuzzy sets and beyond. University of Chicago Press.

Schneider, Carsten Q. and Wagemann, Claudius (2012). Set-theoretic methods for the social sciences: A guide to qualitative comparative analysis. Cambridge University Press.

Schoppek, Dorothea Elena (2021). How do we research possible roads to alternative futures? Theoretical and methodological considerations. Journal of Critical Realism, 20(2), 146–158. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2021.1894908

Shanahan, Genevieve, Jaumier, Stephane, Daudigeos, Thibault and Ouahab, Alban (2024). Why reinvent the wheel? Materializing multiplicity to resist reification in alternative organizations. Organization Studies, 45(6), 855–879. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406241244522

Simpson, William M. R., Koons, Robert C. and Teh, Nicholas J. (2017). Neo-Aristotelian perspectives on contemporary science. Routledge.

Strong, Kelly C. (2000). A voice from the past: Aristotle on the mission of the firm. Business and Professional Ethics Journal, 19(2), 83–94. https://doi.org/10.5840/bpej200019217

Tahko, Tuomas E. (2011). Contemporary Aristotelian metaphysics. Cambridge University Press.

Wright, Erik Olin (2010). Envisioning real utopias. London; New York: Verso.

Zara, Andrea and Delacour, Hélène (2023). Exploring the ontological origins of dualism: Towards a conjunctive structure of thought in organization studies. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 39(4), 101302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2023.101302