Letter from the new Editor

Abstract

Journal of International Business Studies (2003) 34, 1–4. doi:10.1057/ palgrave.jibs.8400018 It is an honor and a privilege to assume the editorship of the Journal of International Business Studies. JIBS today is testament to the farsighted vision that led a small group of pioneering international business scholars to found the Academy of International Business and the first scholarly international business research journal. It was instructive for me to learn from its inception in 1969 it was determined that JIBS would have a strong research emphasis. I recall my early academic career as an assistant professor of management at NYU, having conversations with John Fayerweather about his vision and belief in the emerging importance of international teaching and research in business schools. Not unlike many of my contemporaries it was many years later before I came to recognize how prescient was this early group of international scholars. The inaugural issue of JIBS was published in Spring of 1970 under the editorship of Ernest W. Ogram Jr. In the ensuing 32 years JIBS has become the recognized pre-eminent journal in international business studies, with a worldwide readership. However, as the world of international business scholarship is diffusing more and more into the underlying social sciences of business schools and the traditional functional areas, JIBS increasingly will face the question of relevance. The new editorial team of JIBS firmly believes that the journal must continue its leading role of defining international business studies. However, as international business studies has come into its own as a major research domain for scholars in business schools and the underlying social sciences, the scope of international business studies has changed as well. New questions are being raised about received theory on internationalization, limits to free markets, globalization and equity, democracy of capital and globalization, Internet-based network organizational forms and global management, unanticipated consequences of FDI in developing economies, rise of anti-globalization social movementsyand the list goes on. To open JIBS to these and other emerging themes the new JIBS editorial team is placing renewed emphasis on attracting new and important theoretical papers that extend the intellectual reach of international business, bridge disciplinary boundaries, and break out of the single-theme research silos. Towards this end JIBS has abolished the distinction between long and short research papers, page limits on papers and submission fees. The new editorial structure of the journal is our attempt to come to grips with this new expanded scope. The office of the Editor-inChief has been expanded to include five Associate Editors-in-Chief. Journal of International Business Studies (2003) 34, 1–4 & 2003 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. All rights reserved 0047-2506 $25.00