The Editor's Chair.
Dennis W. Organ, EditorI've never fully endorsed the maxim that a picture is worth a thousand words. As an academic whose tool of choice is the verbal medium, I insist that a few well-chosen words can convey a message more precisely, reliably, and profoundly than any picture.
But as an enthusiastic photographer (and manic buyer of new digital cameras), I fully appreciate the value of pictures when the right words are hard to come by. And right now, I just can't summon the words that would be appropriate for commenting on the tragedies of September 11 of this year. Much has already been said by President Bush, CNN, and the write-in letters published in your local newspaper. More will have been said by the time these words see the light of day. So I trust that our cover photo of the New York City skyline as we knew it, as we remember it, before the terrorist attacks, will convey something of the sadness, respect, nostalgia, pride, and hope that the BET staff feels.
Kudos to Joseph Monti of CAST Management Consultants and George S. Yip of Cambridge University. Their paper "Taking the High Road When Going International," published in the July-August 2000 issue, was chosen as Best Business Horizons Article on Global Business for the year 2000. This award is sponsored by the Indiana University Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) through its funding agency. IU's CIBER is one of 28 such U.S. Department of Education-funded national resource centers nationwide, mandated to support programs leading to improved U.S. global competitiveness.
BH receives and publishes many fine manuscripts that address global business issues, having received in 1998 a Golden Page Award from ANBAR, Europe's leading electronic intelligence monitor, for Outstanding Applications in Strategic Management. Picking one article from dozens of papers outstanding on their own respective merits is, to some extent, arbitary. What particularly stood out in the Monti and Yip article was the compelling manner in which it combined both depth and breadth as it addressed cross-functional integration in global business. Considering the group of superb articles with which theirs was compared, we believe our choice represents high praise indeed.
Look for a makeover of our product with the first issue of 2002. We've kept the same format and cosmetics for more than a decade now. And we've grown comfortable with it. But people (such as our friends at Elsevier) who know more than I do about the publishing world convinced us that a few alterations were in order. I've never doubted the importance of how a publication looks, any more than I question the value of attractive packaging, labeling, and design of cereal boxes, Web pages, or storefronts. Packaging cannot substitute for content, but it can determine whether the consumer ever sees the contents.
When such changes are contemplated, there is the inevitable concern about whether some sacrifice in brand identity is incurred. BH, we believe, has a distinctive identity, and part of that identity is something akin to "folksiness"--a disdain for folderol and glitz in favor of substance and plain talking. We hope you'll find continuity in what you like about our publication, while appreciating the improvements in visual aesthetics and reader-friendliness.
We won't go into the details of the new format, but one that prospective contributors should notice is the display of an editorial review board. I've noted in previous columns that I use what amounts to a large number of "ad hoc" reviewers drawn from my colleagues in the Kelley School of Business. We will continue to do that, but we want to document--for those potential authors worried about whether an article in BH should "count" for purposes of promotion and tenure dossiers--that ours is a refereed publication with a rigorous and competitive review process.
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| Title Annotation: | Dennis W. Organ, Business Horizons |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Business Horizons |
| Article Type: | Brief Article |
| Geographic Code: | 1USA |
| Date: | Nov 1, 2001 |
| Words: | 635 |
| Previous Article: | Danica Purg. |
| Next Article: | Interfirm Diversity in Global Alliances. (Executive Briefing). |
| Topics: | |