the
Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management
Winter 2003
Vol. 4, No. 2
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Letter From the Editor (click on title to go to Editor's letter) Article Abstracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 106
Articles
Challenges of Virtual
Teams in the Classroom
Early versus Later Respondents
in Intranet-based, Organizational Surveys
Managing Language Use
in the Workplace
Case
Book Review |
I have now had the pleasure of serving as the editor for JBAM for a little over a year and before I summarize the contents of this issue I would like to take this opportunity to provide the readership some insight into the underlying philosophy of the journal as well as some information as to rates of submission, acceptance and manuscript review turnaround time.
In my humble opinion, the journal has three distinct objectives. The first goal is developmental in nature – as the journal representing the Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management (IBAM) we want to provide a forum for authors to receive constructive feedback on their work (whether empirical, theoretical, practical and/or instructional) and in a timely manner. Our normal turnaround time for a manuscript (receipt to disposition) is six weeks and we are making every effort to keep within that time frame. More importantly, the reviewers and I work with the authors in order have their work published, not rejected, as indicated by the fact that out of the 40 manuscripts we have received since October of 2002, only 12 manuscripts were returned (and not published) without requesting their resubmission. On the other hand, all of the other manuscripts we have received have required some, albeit in a few cases very minor, reworking and resubmission.
Our second objective is to allow authors to try to publish work that might not fit into mainstream management journals due to their controversial nature or due to the format of the work presented. For example, there are very few journals that publish cases and experiential exercises or that would publish undergraduate or graduate student papers (these are the best papers from IBAM’s annual conference).
Our final objective may be deemed a given for any academic journal, but certainly requires stating. Although JBAM may be regarded as a second tier journal, we are committed to academic excellence in empirical and phenomenological research, theory building, and instruction. Our reviewers, whom I am greatly indebted to, are painstakingly meticulous in ensuring that the work they recommend to be published meets high academic standards.
With our three objectives in mind, I would like to turn your attention to the Winter 2003 Issue of JBAM. Anthony F. Chelte of Western New England College continues the discussion on virtual teams from our Summer ’02 issue in the second article of this issue entitled “Challenges of Virtual Teams in the Classroom.” This paper examines the use of virtual teams in the context of an MBA distance-learning course. Four teams were assigned for the course. Of these four teams, only one maintained a virtual team structure while the others resisted a virtual team structure. This findings correlate with my own experiences with both undergraduate and MBA classes who are afforded the opportunity of forming virtual teams.
A second topic that has been rekindled from the last issue of JBAM is cross-cultural ethics of business students (see the short case by Michael Drexel). Jennifer E. Spencer, Victor E. Sower, and Mitchell J. Muehsam of Sam Houston State University in the first article of this issue address “Differences in the Ethical Orientations of Upper Level U.S. and Mexican Business Students.” This study is an investigation of cross-cultural ethical orientations of upper level business students from universities in Mexico and the United States using retail environment scenarios. No significant differences were found in ethical orientations between students in secular and Catholic universities in the United States; however, significant differences were found in ethical orientations between secular and Catholic university students in Mexico.
A third theme from the last issue, survey instruments and survey research methodology (see William D. Reisel and Moshe Banai) has emerged in the third article of this issue by Ingwer Borg, ZUMA and Tracy L. Tuten, Virginia Commonwealth University entitled “Early versus Later Respondents in Intranet-based, Organizational Surveys.” Ingwer and Tracy posit the notion that return time of surveys may eschew survey results. Their findings indicate that differences of earlier and later respondents using two cross-cultural employee surveys (using an on-line system that recorded response time) found that return time was unrelated to the rating of scale values (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and other survey items. However, some regional or cultural differences in responding earlier or later to an employee survey were observed.
Karl Krahnke, Lynn Hoffman, and Keiko Krahnke of the University of Northern Colorado examine “Managing Language Use in the Workplace” in the fourth article of this issue. In order to avoid a “Tower of Babel” in the workplace, many employers require that only English be spoken in the workplace, regardless of the demographics of their work force. The authors examine this phenomenon from socio-linguistic (social relationships, code-switching, and subject matter proficiency) and legal perspectives. Suggestions to employers for effectively managing the multilingual workplace are also presented.
The Winter edition of JBAM would not be complete unless it included an article about presents, especially toys. The fifth article is a case entitled “Toys-R-Us (A) in the Online Toy Business & Toys-R-Us (B) Forms an Online Alliance” by Alan B. Eisner, Robert F. Dennehy, and John Doherty of Pace University and Jerome C. Kuperman of Minnesota State University, Moorhead and deals with the impact of e-commerce on a very well-known brick and mortar operation. Topics covered include the general environment, the industry environment, internal environment resources and capabilities, value chain analysis, business level strategy analysis, and corporate level strategy.
William D. Reisel of St. John’s University has graced us with a second book review, this time looking at Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Annie McKee’s text entitled Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Being a big ‘fan’ so to speak of Richard’s work on competency-based training (Boyatzis, 1982) I was quite interested to see a preview of this new text and how the authors’ might connect leadership , skills, and emotional intelligence. As Reisel points out in his review that the authors note that leaders can strengthen their personal competence including their own self-awareness and self-management or their social competence, which includes social awareness and relationship management. He concludes that “this is an important book if for no other reason than its popularization of the idea that we need far more emotionally attuned managers.”
References
Boyatzis, Richard E. (1982). The Competent Manager: A Model for Effective Performance. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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