Insights on Professional Insights

Equal Opportunities International

ISSN: 0261-0159

Article publication date: 1 February 2006

415

Citation

Bell, M.P. (2006), "Insights on Professional Insights", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 25 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/eoi.2006.03025baa.002

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Insights on Professional Insights

Insights on Professional Insights

It is with excitement and anticipation that I joined the editorial team of Equal Opportunities International (EOI) as the editor of Professional Insights. With the mission of becoming the outlet of choice for research on equality, diversity, and inclusion from around the world, the journal will fill a critical and obvious void. No longer will such scholarship be relegated to the back burners of the best journals, EOI will focus solely on such scholarship, welcoming and embracing its importance, rather than reluctantly accepting it.

Professional Insights will contribute to this mission in two ways: conference reports and interviews. As many readers know, a considerable amount of high quality, important research is presented at conferences. Some of this research, for a variety of reasons, never results in published, widely accessible articles. Of the research that does result in such articles, time to press is sometimes two or more years after it is presented at conferences. As the Program Chair of the Gender and Diversity in Organizations division of the Academy of Management in 2005, reading more than 150 submissions, the volume of high quality research in the field that is never widely disseminated became painfully obvious to me. Along with providing details of conferences, sessions, or tracks relevant to the content of EOI, the conference reports will help international readers to rapidly, in months instead of years (if ever), access research and become aware of those with common interests. How are trade unions and researchers studying discrimination and xenophobia in the UK What is the most current research on international and national historical trends of gender and migration in Europe? You can find out in the Professional Insights section of this issue.

The other valuable contribution of Professional Insights is interviews with noted scholars and activists in the field. These interviews shed light on the background and inspiration of those who do critical work to make a difference around the world. Beyond their outstanding research or activism with which readers may already be familiar, Professional Insights indeed provides insights into the minds and motivations of the featured individuals. What makes them keep working for change, and what recommendations to they have for those in the field? Because EOI is an international journal, these interviews will help publicize the work of people who may not be widely known outside their home region or country, but that is nonetheless relevant to work being done in many other areas.

We are extremely fortunate in our inaugural issue under the new editorial team to have an interview with Cynthia Cockburn, whose 1991 book In the Way of Women is one of the UK's most widely read and cited books on sex and gender and the interactions of race, class, sex, and sexual orientation in organizations. Cockburn's decades of work and continued passion about these issues are clear in Gill Kirton's interesting interview.

I look forward to receiving conference reports and interview submissions to EOI and to the contributions that Professional Insights will make to the success of EOI in becoming the outlet of choice for research on equality, diversity, and inclusion from around the world. Through submitting our best work, reviewing, and spreading the word about EOI, we in the field can make this goal a reality.

Myrtle P. Bell

Related articles