Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion: David in the Land of Goliaths

With the Journal of Management , Spirituality & Religion ( JMSR ), a non-profit professional society niche publication, having reached its centenary issue, we reflect on its journey as an independent, relatively small-scale journal in an era of unprecedented conglomerate consolidation. Employing a Collaborative Autoethnographic (CAE) methodology, we examine the structural and procedural challenges facing “David” journals such as JMSR in a “Land of Goliaths”. Projecting from the case of JMSR, we argue that the primary challenge for independent, niche professional societies’ journals is not content quality, but the enclosure of the scholarly commons. This enclosure is driven by administrative convenience and algorithmic governance, mediated by institutional libraries and commercial metrics that inadvertently (or not) help sustain the oligopoly. This paper highlights how small-scale professional societies publishers attempt to leverage singular capabilities in order to thrive in this environment. Altogether, we offer a rare “behind the curtain” account of non-profit independent publishing, providing insights for scholars, librarians, and editors committed to preserving bibliodiversity.