The AIB Executive Board selected Lorraine Eden as the new Editor-in-Chief of Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS). I believe that Lorraine is an outstanding choice for JIBS Editor-in-Chief. She is well respected among the AIB community. She has been a dedicated, tireless, and effective Departmental Editor (DE) for International Political Economy and Comparative Capitalism. As DE she provided editorial leadership to the recently published focused issue ‘Three Lenses on Multinational Enterprise: Politics, Corruption and Social Responsibility’. This past year she has been a very effective Deputy Editor-in-Chief for four editorial areas ofs JIBS and has rebuilt the accounting editorial area. I know that Lorraine will be a strong leader and that she has the commitment and deep understanding for taking JIBS to the next level.

In this Letter from the Editor, I wish to share with you details of the transition plans that are crucial for effecting a smooth transition to the new editorial team.

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    New Managing Editor Office. As part of negotiating the contract renewal with Palgrave, the JIBS publisher, for the next 7 years, Palgrave has made certain commitments that will provide AIB the resources to fund a permanent JIBS Managing Editor Office within the AIB secretariat. A major goal was to create continuity for this crucial operation from one Editor-in-Chief to the next.

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    New Online Manuscript Processing System The agreement with Palgrave also requires the publisher to cover the cost of the transition to a new online manuscript processing system. The new system, Scholar One, is in use by many top journals and is currently being modified for the specific requirements of JIBS. Dr. Tunga Kiyak, the Executive Director of AIB, is overseeing this process with the assistance of Ms. Danielle Trojan and in close collaboration with Outdare (the current service provider) and the technical staff at Scholar One. The goal is to have the new system operational by July 1, 2007. I fully expect that Scholar One will greatly improve the system efficiency of processing manuscripts in terms of reliability, fewer manual transactions and better reporting capabilities.

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    Key milestones

    • As of July 1st all new submissions to JIBS will be the responsibility of the new JIBS Editorial Team under the leadership of Lorraine Eden.

    • The collective responsibility of the current editorial team is to complete processing all open files by December 31, 2007.

    • Any open file that is very close to completion (i.e. first quarter of 2008) will continue to be the editorial responsibility of the current DE who is guiding that file. However, all other open files will be moved to the new editorial team on January 1, 2008. Decisions on which files stay with the original DE or are shifted to the new editorial team will be determined by the new Editor-in-Chief, Lorraine Eden, in consultation with the DE. My responsibilities as JIBS Editor-in-Chief end on January 1, 2008.

In conclusion, I wish to express my deep appreciation for the honor and privilege of serving as the Editor-in-Chief for the past 5 years. I have been fortunate to be associated and work with a great editorial team. Becoming the Editor-in-Chief has been one the most rewarding editorial challenges in my 30 years as editor, first as DE in Management Science, founding Editor-in-Chief of Organization Science and finally JIBS. I have always felt that in every one of these editorial assignments, whatever success that was ascribed to me, much of the credit was always due to the team of editors with whom I worked. This is especially true in the case of JIBS. Without the labor of love, dedication and commitment of the DEs, Consulting Editors, Editorial Review Board, Tatiana Kostova (for creating the JIBS paper development workshop), The Rotterdam School of Management team and the tireless efforts of Ms. Danielle Trojan (the mother of all JIBS authors), the transformation of JIBS could not have succeeded. It has been a most humbling experience and I am most grateful and appreciative for the privilege of working with such a great team. Many thanks.