I totally understand the case when an author doesn't sufficiently give context because they are so close to their previous work that they take it for granted th

I totally understand the case when an author doesn't sufficiently give context because they are so close to their previous work that they take it for granted that it's obvious (or, like you said, they are wary of auto-citation). I may be misremembering, but I believe the case with Grant was that the referee was using his own work to discredit his submission. Ie "If the author was aware of the work of Adam Grant, they would understand why the submitted work is wrong."