EDITORIAL

Dear BAR Readers,

I am glad to announce three important steps that BAR has recently taken in order to increase the visibility of Brazilian academia and to continuously improve the quality of the review process and of editorial decisions:

1. In mid-July, BAR started using ScholarOne (http://scholarone.com/) - a well-known submission and review platform employed by several top journals. This new platform surely will make life easier for submitting Authors, Reviewers and Editors. Manuscripts submitted before July 15th will continue their process in the traditional SciELO platform, while newly submitted articles will enter the new platform at http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/bar-scielo

2. With ScholarOne, I now have more freedom to invite Associate Editors and ad hoc Editors from the best business schools around the world, since they will be using a platform with which they are already familiar. In fact, I have recently invited new Associate Editors, some of them from emerging markets.

3. BAR has applied for indexation in Thomson Reuters (formerly ISI) Web of Knowledge. This is a necessary step in a long process (more than three years) until BAR can eventually have its JCR's impact factor published. Although we agree that the impact factor should not be regarded as the only (or even the best) metric by which to judge journal quality and visibility, we contend that the impact factor is still a widely used metric.

BAR thanks SciELO for making the ScholarOne platform available to Brazilian journals and for SciELO's continued effort to improve the visibility of Brazilian publications.

Now, let me present the six good articles that compose this issue to you. The first three of them followed a fast track process, since they were pre-selected among those best evaluated in ANPAD's conferences. As you will recall, under the fast track fashion, articles go straight to the blind review phase (thus, skipping desk review) and, if eventually accepted, are published in the very next issue.

The first paper ("Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace? An Essay on Whistleblowing and its Interfaces with the Brazilian Culture", by Diego Sampaio and Filipe Sobral) investigates the influence of cultural traits on the practice of whistleblowing (i.e., the disclosure to the public or to authorities, usually by an employee, of some wrongdoing in a company) and integrates organizational, individual and situational influences.

The next article ("Rhetorical Strategies of Consumer Activists: Reframing Market Offers to Promote Change", by Daiane Scaraboto and Severino Pereira) is a netnographic study that takes a seldom-researched path, by examining how consumers' identity projects influence the marketplace and general culture.

The third piece ("The Role of Home Country Political Resources for Brazilian Multinational Companies", by Karina Bazuchi, Suelen Zacharias, Laurent Broering, Maria Fernanda Arreola and Rodrigo Bandeira-de-Mello) analyzes interactions between home country governments and Developing Country Multinational Companies (DMNCs). Findings indicate that home country governments use a series of formal and informal mechanisms in order to drive the international expansion of DMNCs.

The next article ("The Impact of Credit Rating Changes in Latin American Stock Markets", by Abner Freitas and Andrea Minardi) investigates whether a rating change or Credit Watch announcement has a significant impact on Latin American stock prices. The authors found different impacts for rating downgrades as compared to rating upgrades. They also found that the absolute change in the number of notches for downgrades would help explain the impact rating change announcements have on stock prices.

The fifth paper ("Multilatinas and Value Creation from Cross-Border Acquisitions: An Event Study Approach", by Leon Dakessian and Paulo Roberto Feldmann) assesses the performance of cross-border acquisitions made by Multilatinas. In particular, the study investigated the impact announcements of acquisitions have on short-term returns to acquiring companies' shareholders, the impact of deal size and the effects of institutional and cultural distances.

The sixth study ("Transformational Leaders and Work Performance: The Mediating Roles of Identification and Self-efficacy", by Flavia Cavazotte, Valter Moreno and Jane Bernardo) investigates the connections between transformational leadership and subordinate formal and contextual performance among Brazilian employees. Results suggest that perceived transformational leadership is associated with higher levels of task performance and helping behaviors.

I would like to point out that the third article in this issue was co-authored by a Director of ANPAD - Rodrigo Bandeira-de-Mello. However, when the article was submitted, Prof. Rodrigo had not yet been elected. If he had already been a Director at the time, I would have chosen an Action Editor to run the review process and issue his/her editorial recommendation to me. BAR values transparency and avoids situations that might be considered ethically suspicious.

I am sure you will enjoy these six articles. Also, let me invite all of our readers to submit articles to BAR. You will surely profit form the rigorous yet contributive spirit that drives our Reviewers and Associate Editors. BAR is gaining ever more international visibility, which makes it an attractive venue for researchers.

Best regards,

Jorge Carneiro

Editor-in-Chief

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  18 Oct 2013
• Date of issue
  Dec 2013