Editorial

Dear RAUSP Management Journal readers,

It is with great joy that we end the year 2017 with this commemorative edition of the 70 years of RAUSP Management Journal. After all, seven decades of existence for a journal in the Management area is quite a rare event. Besides being the oldest journal, RAUSP Management Journal has also become one of the most renowned and prestigious publications in the field in Brazil.

By the time of its creation, in 1947, RAUSP Management Journal had as its main objective that of publishing the technical and scientific works of the researchers of the School of Economics, Business Administration and Accounting of the University of São Paulo. Over the years, however, RAUSP Management Journal has become an important outlet to disseminate the studies carried out at major Brazilian research centers to scholars and practitioners alike. RAUSP has been hence awarded the highest grade for a Brazilian journal¹ by the CAPES Qualis system by of Ministry of Education.

Nowadays, RAUSP Management Journal aims to reach an even higher level of quality by seeking greater international visibility. It aims to involve an increasing number of international researchers within its publications, as to obtain international distinction in its editions. The decision to publish all articles in the English language since 2016 is a clear step in this direction. All those changes, nevertheless, bring new and significant challenges.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary and discuss opportunities and challenges for both our and other Brazilian journals in the Management area, on July 10, we hosted a forum with the editors of the most important Brazilian management journals and honored RAUSP's former editors.

The forum began with a speech by Professor Maria José Tonelli, editor of Revista de Administração de Empresas of Fundação Getúlio Vargas (RAE-FGV). Tonelli, who had undertaken an intensive documental research on both RAUSP Management Journal and RAE-FGV, contextualized the historical importance of RAUSP Management Journal, highlighting its role in the delimitation of the Management field in Brazil. At the end of this editorial, there is a special article written by Tonelli, who kindly agreed to cooperate with our celebration. In her article, she analyzes the first editions of RAUSP Management Journal, reaffirming that "the first edition of RAUSP Management Journal in 1947 should be considered the foundational mark of the scientific field of Business Administration in Brazil."

In the next part, Professor Eduardo Diniz (EAESP-FGV) presented the lecture "The Brazilian Management journals in the context of the internationalization of scientific production." He launched a series of questions on the dilemma: if Brazilian journals do not seek internationalization they will "lose national relevance." Among the possible initiatives, he discussed the use of the English language for national journals. Diniz emphasized that, on the one hand, the adoption of the English language allows for greater international visibility because it is the hegemonic language in the main academic circles. But, on the other, publishing in English per se does not guarantee quality and can lead to the weakening of local traditions, turning the field into "monocultural" knowledge. He proposes a joint action so that Brazilian journals could gain scale, improve their editorial management and support each other to join the main international indexers.

Another speaker, Professor Luiz Mesquita, from the Arizona State University and a member of the editorial board of several Management journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, discussed the major trends of the international Management journals, pointing out the relevant topics that business journals are favoring. He noted that in addition to articles with sophisticated statistical methods and the use of big data, there is room for good qualitative studies and mixed methods, and for working on creative issues that challenge traditional theoretical approaches. He also underlined the growth of multidisciplinary approaches, as is the case in the Management area, whose body of knowledge imports concepts from other areas since its beginning.

By the end, a roundtable discussion was held with the editors of the national CAPES Qualis systems A2 journals: Maria José Tonelli (Revista de Administração de Empresas – RAE), Salomão Alencar de Farias (Brazilian Administration Review – BAR), Herbert Kimura (Revista de Administração Contemporânea – RAC), Fabio Frezatti (Revista de Contabilidade e Finanças), Sandro Cabral (Organizações & Sociedade – O&S), and João Maurício Boaventura (Revista Brasileira de Gestão e Negócios – RBGN). These editors agreed that there had been an overall improvement in editorial management processes, as well as on the quality of both articles and reviews over the last decade. However, they also concurred that there are many actions yet to be taken so that Brazilian journals can compete equally with top international journals. All have the same opinion that there is room for collective actions by national journals aiming at a greater international insertion. Between the actions suggested in that direction, better positioning the rules that reward scholars for their publications in foreign high impact journals and institutional evaluation processes that encourage researchers to invest in local journals as well, received greater attention.

More information on the history of our journal can be found in our special guest paper, written by Maria José Tonelli "The foundation of the academic field in Business and Administration in Brazil: The case of RAUSP Management Journal".

Congratulations RAUSP!

• 1
  The CAPES Qualis system aims to classify scientific production done by Brazilian researchers. All the scientific journals are listed according to the criteria A1 (the highest), A2, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 or C (not considered as valid in the list). In the Management area, currently there are no Brazilian journals listed as A1.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Oct-Dec 2017