From the editors

Abstract

Happy New Year! Welcome to the first issue of 2004. We are pleased to begin the year with the addition of two new editorial board members. David Gefen, who has published numerous articles in Data Base, the most recent of which appeared in 34:3, will begin a three year term beginning this January. David's comprehensive, rigorous, and articulate approach to research will undoubtedly benefit many papers as they work their way through the review process under his guidance. Also joining our board is Roger Chiang. Roger will be filling a very large void that was left when Veda Storey rotated off the board. Roger will take responsibility for the initial screening and subsequent review processes of the more technical oriented papers that over the past two years have not entered into the review process because we were simply ill-equipped to accommodate the reviews of such paper based upon the expertise of our editorial board. We are pleased to now have eliminated this gap and once again, be able to ensure a quality review process for manuscripts that focus on technical IS issues.This first issue of 2004 marks a first of a kind for us as editors. Among the papers published in this issue is one of the first papers we received as new editors. This is in fact the first paper to appear in print that was submitted subsequent to our becoming co-editors. The paper went through two rounds of review over the course of a year. Co-authored by Powell, Piccoli, and Ives, it reviews virtual team research and offers guidance for future research in this field. The authors have read, interpreted, and aptly organized a great deal of research and provided insights into how to further the research and theory in this area. Because the very topic of "virtual teams" is quite broad, there are sundry theoretical lenses through which one could examine a virtual team. One could conceivably build a theory about managing virtual teams, about communication in virtual teams, about trust in virtual teams and so forth. Hence, rather than using the review to build a particular theory of virtual teams in general, the authors have provided an astute synthesis of the various theories that one can apply to the area of virtual teams, without favoring one such theory over another. This should help aspiring as well as experienced virtual team researchers in crafting their research programs.The remaining two articles in this issue are part of a special section on Contemporary Virtual Environments, co-edited by Manju Ahuga, France Bélanger, and Mary Beth Watson-Manheim. The two papers in the special section are introduced in the insightful introduction written by Ahuja, Bélanger, and Watson-Manheim. We sincerely thank these fine researchers for their efforts in serving as editors of this special section.