Paradigm busters: researchers into stomach ulcers and corporate psychopaths

Through the lens of Kuhn's ideas concerning scientific paradigms, this paper looks at two fields of research where findings were previously rejected by their disciplines; firstly, the existence of bacteria in the human stomach as a cause of ulcers and secondly of psychopaths in corporations as a cause of organisational dysfunction. The paper discusses how both streams of research were pioneered and propagated by a few individuals and involved methodological breakthroughs. Additionally, both streams set themselves against the prevailing view of their subject matter and were initially ridiculed and rejected by journal editors, preventing findings from being published. Eventually, both streams of research proved to be insightful, busting the prevailing paradigms of the time. The paradigmatic understanding of what causes ulcers has been changed forever and the paradigmatic understanding of organisational disease has been expanded to include corporate psychopathy. A way forward to improve the acceptance of radical new papers is suggested.