Exceptionalism and Outliers: Advancing Management Theory and Public Policy

This Academy of Management Perspectives special issue considers the role exceptional performers play in management theory, practice, and policy. Exceptional performers—those whose outcomes are statistical outliers—represent a massive overproportion of certain key outcomes, such as growth, profits, and employment. The six papers contained herein provide unique insights for researchers, managers, and policymakers, and advocate for greater attention and focus on, and distinction between, performances within the expected range of outcomes and those that fall outside the explanatory power of traditional statistics. Those exceptional performances represent a unique opportunity for novel learnings and insights that can benefit both those seeking replication and understanding. Within this editorial, we set the context for, introduce, and summarize the special issue; we amalgamate the insights generated therein; and lay out the high-level implications for future theory and practice agendas.