Completing the transition at the AJB

Citation

Reed, R. and Storrud-Barnes, S.F. (2013), "Completing the transition at the AJB", American Journal of Business, Vol. 28 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ajb.2013.54028aaa.001

Completing the transition at the AJB

Article Type: Editorial From: American Journal of Business, Volume 28, Issue 1

This issue of the journal marks the completion of the transition to the new organization structure for the American Journal of Business. First, we welcome Bonnie Roach as a new Associate Editor representing Ohio University on the Editorial Board. We also welcome a group of 13 scholars to the new Advisory Board and 47 scholars to the new Review Board, some of whose names are as recognizable as those on the Advisory Board and others that are earlier in their careers and are in the process of establishing themselves with high-quality research and publications. The composition of both the Advisory Board and the Review Board not only reflect the multidisciplinary nature of the journal – accounting, finance, information systems, management, marketing, operations, and strategy – they also reflect the transition of the journal’s contributors and readers from regional (mid-America) to international arenas.

To illustrate the breadth and depth of expertise within the new AJB organization, it is worth examining the makeup of the Advisory Board in more detail. First, Bintong Chen (Associate Dean for Research in the Lener College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware, and the Overseas Dean for the School of Business Administration at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China) is an expert on supply-chain optimization. David Deeds (Director of the Morrison Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota) is perhaps best known for his work on the management of alliances and organizational knowledge in the biotech industry and on entrepreneurship. Jerry Goodstein (Professor, Washington State University Vancouver) is widely cited for his work on institutional theory, strategic choice, governance and stakeholders. Robert Grant (ENI Chair of Strategic Management at the Universita Bocconi, Italy) is best known for his highly-cited work on the knowledge-based and resource-based theories of the firm. Dhruv Grewal (Toyota Chair in Commerce and Electronic Business at Babson) has widely cited work in marketing – pricing, services, retailing, and consumer behavior. Also equally well cited, mainly for his work in strategy, is Duane Ireland (President Elect of the Academy of Management and the Conn Chair in New Ventures Leadership at Texas A&M University). Bill Schulze (David Eccles Professor, Department Chair and Director of the Center for Medical Innovation at the University of Utah) is best known for his groundbreaking research on family firms. Rick Sias (Tyler Family Endowed Chair in Finance at the University of Arizona) has published work on institutional investors and is particularly well known for his work on the phenomenon of herding among investors. Tom Tripp (Professor, Washington State University Vancouver campus) is best known for his research that has made him one of the foremost authorities on the dimensions of conflict management, employee revenge in organizations, and negotiations. Harry Turtle (Fred T. Tattersall Distinguished Chair in Finance at West Virginia University) has published research on and is an authority on corporate-security valuation, stock market behavior, and bankruptcy, plus other topics in finance. Beverly Tyler (Professor at North Carolina State University) is renowned for her work on strategic decision-making but, more recently, has been focusing on contracts and relationship management in firm supply-chains. Joe Valacich (Eller Professor University of Arizona) is widely cited for his work in management of information systems, particularly his work on the use of electronic meeting and collaboration technologies. Finally, Dan Yang (recently promoted from Executive Dean to VP of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China) is the author of 19 books on finance and financial management, and currently is focusing his research on IPOs, behavioral accounting, and investor protection.

One of the key tasks of the Advisory Board members was to nominate people for the Review Board, and some of their nominees are as influential in their fields as the members of the Advisory Board. As mentioned above, others are at earlier points in their careers but clearly are productive and well versed in the current literature in their field. Their names, along with those of the Advisory Board and the Editorial Board, now appear on the front masthead pages. One of the most striking features of the people nominated is their diversity, not only by discipline but also by nationality. They originate from North America (both Canada and the USA), Eastern Europe and Western Europe, Asia (China, India, Japan, Korea, and Thailand), Australia, and the Middle East. However, as is the norm in academia, the universities at which they work have little correlation with those origins. While some 2/3 of their universities are American, the remainder are scattered across the globe. Like the increasing globalization of the businesses we study, the increasing globalization of business scholarship is evident in the makeup of the AJB’s Review Board. Despite the diverse perspectives that the members of the Review Board bring to the task of reviewing, it is gratifying from an editorial perspective to note the reliability that exists in the feedback they provide for submitting authors.

Some of the diversity in the Review Board’s nationalities and universities is evident in the nationalities and universities of the authors contributing to this issue of the journal. We should note that three articles in this issue were accepted by the previous Editor-in-Chief. The other two and the Executive comment mark the completion of the transition to the restructured AJB. The objectives of the AJB include publishing work that is relevant to both academics and business professionals, and that reflects phenomena currently affecting business. The order of the articles in this issue reflects a progression from macro to micro phenomena. We start with the piece by Meier and McClain that clarifies what is happening with “Cap and Trade,” the emissions trading initiative. Their paper explains the history behind cap and trade, and examines the alternatives and the pro-and-con arguments of cap and trade by addressing both the benefits and costs, and by examining the mechanics by which the cap-and-trade system is expected to operate. This work does not fit the classic conceptual or empirical mold from which most academic work is drawn, but it fits well the objectives of the AJB and is critical for academics and practitioners. The second article by Friesner, Khayum, and Schibik explores how much information and predictive content is contained in business sentiment surveys. To answer the question they examine information in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Manufacturing Survey. The question they ask is important because business-sentiment surveys are widely used in planning as determinants of future demand, which, of course, affects everything from strategy formulation to the more tactical decisions on supply-chain contracts, through decisions on capital investment and hiring, to decisions on marketing. The third article by Caner and Tyler is a strategy piece addressing the effect of alliance portfolios on new product development. They explore the question of how portfolio size and relationships with upstream and downstream alliance partners affect new product development using data for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. They find support for their hypotheses, including the differential effects between pharmaceuticals and biotechs. The fourth paper by Aubert, Hooper, and Schnepel examines communication in enterprise resource planning systems. They question accepted wisdom on the importance of communication in the success of implementation, and their analysis reveals that communication quality affects different aspects of success. They also deduce that, in addition to communication quality, forms of communication are important. The final paper by McEvoy and Buller questions whether or not HR practices in medium-sized firms conform to the accepted wisdom on HR that is derived from examining practices in large firms. They find that differences do exist and, given that the preponderance of firms are either small- or medium-sized, their conclusions have importance for not only for future research on the topic of HR and firm size, but they also have immediate relevance for managers.

This brings us to the Executive Viewpoint in this issue. Michael Early, President of Sherry Laboratories Petrochemical’s Environmental and Food Divisions, discusses the importance of the need for organizational change and being able to manage such change. He uses his experience at Sherry Laboratories to provide insights on the use of teams and action learning in the change process, as well as the importance of harvesting the “low-hanging fruit” as the organization moves from one strategy and set of tactics to the next.

Over the past nine months, we have seen an increase in the number of manuscripts submitted for consideration for publication in the AJB, and we are pleased with the topics being addressed – they have relevance for both research and practice. We hope that the members of the Editorial Board and their sponsoring universities, the Advisory Board, the Review Board, the people at Emerald, the publisher, contributing authors, and, of course, you, the readers of the journal also are pleased.

Richard Reed, Susan F. Storrud-BarnesEditors-in-Chief