From the Editor

by Maling Ebrahimpour, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

ebrahimpour As the new editor of Decision Line, my first request is for your input on how we can make Decision Line the best publication of its kind. I want you to know that I am genuinely interested in hearing from you, and I encourage you to send me your ideas by e-mail to bizdean@usfsp.edu.

In this issue, Krishna Dhir writes about the success and progress of the Decision Sciences Institute during the past year. Under his leadership, several new initiatives began and some others successfully continued. Some of the highlights include the formation of Specific Interest Groups (SIGs), moving into a new conference-management system developed by All Academic, Inc., continued work on the World Congress, and appointment of an ad hoc committee to study the role of DSI in the evolution of a discipline in decision sciences. The committee has already made several recommendations that will make DSI a more efficient organization and more responsive to the needs of its membership.

James Evans, our guest feature writer for this issue, describes the not-so-new phenomenon of "Business Analytics." He defines business analytics and explains the similarities of transition from statistic to business analytics and the evolution from TQM to Six Sigma. He then explains the three perspectives of the business analytics: descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. Evans proposes that business analytics is the convergence of the three key disciplines that have been taught in classrooms for a long time: statistics, business intelligence and information systems, and modeling and optimization. You will enjoy reading this very interesting article.

In 1986 Wickham Skinner, in an article published in HBR, wrote about "The Productivity Paradox." Danny Samson and Tom Bevington, in their article titled "Solving the Productivity Paradox," present their views on solving this paradox using the idea of interface mapping. They conclude that interface mapping has the potential to provide a base which can help organizations "raise their productivity and break through what has been seen as a paradoxical limit on working harder to achieve more."

If you like case studies, be sure to read the article by John Anderson entitled "Corporate Culture and Employee Knowledge Can Positively Influence the Adoption of Software as a Service." In this case study, the author concludes that the power of teamwork and freedom to think helps employees to perform at a higher level which ultimately helps the bottom line.

One of the focuses that I would like to bring to Decision Line is writings about ethics, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility. In this issue, please read the article by Dean Pati from Rowan University. He eloquently describes the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), an initiative started in collaboration by several entities such as the UN Global Compact, Aspen Institute, AACSB, EFMD, and many others. I am sure you will enjoy reading this fine article.

Varun Grover, in his article "How to Publish While in the Doctoral Program? Managing Research Projects," identifies three strategies to help doctoral students succeed in publishing before graduating from their respective programs. The three strategies that he describes are Create Synergy, Research Incrementally, and Manage Portfolio. His recommendations after each of the three strategies are particularly noteworthy.

The last two articles are from the outgoing editor of Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, Chetan Sankar, and the incoming editor, Vijay Kannan. Sankar describes his experience and provides some valuable lessons for those who aspire to become editors of academic journals; Kannan explains his goals and what he would like to accomplish as the new editor. He plans to expand readership and to reduce the response time (decision time) for a submitted article to no more than 75 days. Good luck, Vijay!

I encourage you to read the additional features and enjoy them all. Once again, I look forward to your e-mailing me your ideas (bizdean@usfsp.edu) for an even better Decision Line.