EDITORIAL
Dear BAR Readers,
It is my pleasure to announce some important advances along BAR's path to becoming a truly international journal.
BAR has recently become a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) - www.publicationethics.org, http://publicationethics.org/category/country/brazil. This important step means that BAR subscribes to the most rigorous principles of publication ethics and can now count on the advice of the best experts on the subject. The fact that BAR has always followed, and fostered, ANPAD's Good Practices in Scientific Publication (Boas Práticas de Publicação Científica) certainly was paramount for COPE to accept BAR as a member.
BAR has also recently filed an application to be included in the Web of Knowledge database (http://wokinfo.com/) in order to have an impact factor published by JCR (Journal Citation Reports) in the future. The entire evaluation process by the Web of Knowledge expert team may take between one and two years. If we are granted inclusion in this important database, BAR's international visibility will increase substantially.
BAR shall soon start using ScholarOne (http://scholarone.com/), an editorial platform known worldwide that is used by several top-tier journals. Offered to BAR and to other Brazilian journals as part of the support provided by SciELO (http://www.scielo.org), ScholarOne shall improve the manuscript submission and review processes , as well as the editorial decision process.
I am also glad to announce that new Associate Editors have joined BAR. Counting on Associate Editors from several countries brings more international visibility to BAR and also improves the evaluation process of manuscripts submitted to the journal. Here are the distinguished scholars who are currently BAR Associate Editors:
1. Catherine Welch (University of Sydney, Australia)
2. Claude Obadia (ESCE, France)
3. Flávia Cavazotte (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
4. Flavio Menezes (University of Queensland, Australia)
5. Jean-François Chanlat (HEC Montréal, Canada)
6. José Pla Barber (University of Valencia, Spain)
7. Ricardo Leal (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
8. Sergio Biggemann (University of Otago, New Zealand)
9. Sumit Kundu (Florida International University, USA)
10. Sylvie Chetty (University of Otago, New Zealand)
11. Thomas Brashear Alejandro (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA)
12. Vitor Corado Simões (Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal)
I would like to add that all the accomplishments that BAR has made are the result of the invaluable contribution of our volunteer Reviewers and of the submitting Authors who recognize the quality of the journal and indeed dedicate their time and expertise to write good pieces of research. Also of extreme importance is the relentless support of our editorial team, composed of three enthusiastic and committed Editorial Assistants - Luciane Kiwara, Nadia Machuca and Debora Inacio - who share the responsibility for the tasks related to the three journals published by ANPAD - BAR, RAC and TAC. I am also thankful to colleagues Rogério Quintella - who preceded me as Editor-in-Chief - and Andrea Segatto - who was Managing Editor when I took over. They helped develop this great editorial team.
I must add that the frequent contacts between the three Editors of ANPAD's journals - myself, Herbert Kimura and Graziela Alperstedt - together with Prof. Antonio Carvalho Neto (ANPAD's Communication and Publications Director) is essential to share experiences and to make sounder judgments on more complex issues. Now, let me briefly present to you the six good pieces of research that compose this special issue.
We start with a Marketing article, "Factors Affecting Mobile Users' Switching Intentions: a Comparative Study between the Brazilian and German Markets" (by Rodrigo Martins, Luis Fernando Hor-Meyll and Jorge Brantes Ferreira), which investigated how customer defection in telecom services is affected by such variables as switching barriers, service performance, perceived value in carriers' offers, and overall satisfaction, among others. The study compared Brazilian and German customers and found that the effects were rather similar across the two cultures.
The next piece, "Trust and Supplier-buyer Relationships: An Empirical Analysis" (by Luciana Vieira, Ely Laureano Paiva, Andrew Finger and Rafael Teixeira), addressed the influence of regional (Western vs. Asian) differences on trust-based relationship with suppliers. Results suggest that levels of trust and timeliness may affect the development of partnerships in the supply chain across the two regions differently.
The next paper, "Gender and Work: Representations of Femininities and Masculinities in the View of Women Brazilian Executives" (by Alexandre Carrieri, Ana Paula Diniz, Eloisio Moulin de Souza and Raquel Soares Menezes), analyzed social representations of femininity and masculinity and the related contradictions that may emerge from being a woman and a business executive in Brazil.
The fourth article, "From Garment to Fashion Production: An Analysis of the Evolution of the Apparel Industry in Brazil" (by Marcelo Pinto and Yeda Swirski de Souza), addressed the impact of cultural and creative know-how on the apparel industry dynamics and investigated whether global sourcing explains the value upgrading process in the apparel production chains; also it discussed whether there are new sources of value upgrading to be considered. The authors claim that their findings are particularly relevant in the context of apparel manufacturing clusters and also the emergence of a unique and local fashion apparel chain.
Two articles on Finance close this issue. The fifth article "The Role of Bond Covenants and Short-Term Debt: Evidence from Brazil" (by Vinícius Brunassi Silva, Richard Saito and Fernando Barbi), examined the role of financial covenants as substitutes for short-term debt and a possible trade-off between short- and long-term debt. The study also investigated the related impact of growth opportunities.
The sixth article, "Determinants of the Capital Structure of Small and Medium Sized Brazilian Enterprises" (by Denis Forte, Lucas Barros and Wilson Nakamura), investigated determinants of capital structure of small and medium Brazilian firms and concluded that leverage is negatively related to profitability and positively related to asset growth. Such findings are consistent with the pecking order theory of capital structure and suggest that such firms tend to finance their expansion with debt only after exhausting their internal resources. Firm size, firm age and business risk were also found to be associated with leverage.
I hope you will enjoy the reading. Best wishes,
Jorge Carneiro
Editor-in-Chief
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
12 July 2013 -
Date of issue
Sept 2013
