Editorial - A New Beginning – Ovidiu Nicolescu

Internationalization is undoubtedly one of the dominant characteristics of the present age. The birth and growth of international comparative management took place against the background of the intensification of the internationalization of activities and of awareness raising towards the major role which management has at all levels – macro, mezzo, micro – and in all fields – economic, social, political, scientific, educational etc. Naturally, in this context, education, research and journals of comparative management increase rapidly in the majority of countries.
The Academy of Economic Studies (AES), set up in 1913, the oldest tertiary higher education institution not only in the country, but also in the Balkans, makes important efforts to tune in to this contextual evolutions, especially through the Faculty of Management. The Journal of International Comparative Management published by the Center of Excellence for International Comparative Management is one of the main modalities to implement this process.
The publication of the Journal of International Comparative Management – which is based on a project financed by the World Bank?, within the programme for the upgrading of tertiary education in Romania – is a beginning on several plans:
• It is published by the Faculty of Management of the Academy of Economic Studies. The course of comparative management?? was first introduced in Romania at this faculty in the academic year 1990-1991 and later taken over by almost all the other management departments in Romania.
• It is the first specialized journal of comparative management published in Romania, which thus joins the group of countries with scientific publications in the field.
• It represents the first bilingual comparative management journal – English and Romanian – published not only in Romania, but also in Central and Eastern Europe which thus become tuned in to the international values circuit.
• It is the only project on international comparative management that the World Bank financed in the field in Romania.
We can therefore say that the publishing of the Journal Of International Comparative Management represents a new beginning. And any new beginning is essential at least from the following points of view:
• it marks the launch of an activity, usually of appreciable length, which ought to be signaled to those involved or interested in the respective field
• it greatly marks the subsequent evolution of the domain through the direction to which its evolution is oriented
• it offers, by the way the beginning is made, important indications on the orientations and content of the involved activities
• it may or may not generate the appreciation, interest and participation of those potentially interested in the evolution of the respective field, of the involved stakeholders
Without any shade of doubt the new beginning marked by the publication of the Journal of International Comparative Management presents importance on all the mentioned plans. The local rationale for the publication of this journal is the inception of a Romanian school of comparative management. The introduction of the first university course of comparative management at the Academy of Economic Studies was closely followed by the publishing of the first university textbook on New issues in international management . Later on, other books were published both by AES and other university teachers. In parallel numerous studies have been done on comparative management either only by Romanian specialists or in within international projects. The results of research have been presented in Romanian or international conferences and/or congresses. At present several research projects are being run in the Faculty of Management in the AES. Their focus is comparative management and an increasing number of students and teaching staff participate in them.
The international rationale for the publication of this journal is the ever increasing participation of Romanian specialists in international scientific and educational activities. Scientific and educational projects have been done with the New York University, the Cambridge Polytechnic Institute, the Stockholm Business School, IESE Barcelona, AES Chisinau, Chukyo University, Nagoya University, University of Amsterdam, Universidad de Gestion de la Empresa, Cartagena.
Participation in the international scientific events is more and more intense. For instance only in 2000 the members of the Center of Excellence for International Comparative Management, not to mention other academic staff, participated with contributions in the following international scientific events: the WASME Congress (Singapore), the Conference on the pact of stability and economic cooperation in the Balkans (Tokyo), the OECD Conference in Bologna, Rencontres de St. Gall (Lugano), the Romanian-Japanese Seminar (Nagoya), the conference on 10 years of transition to a market economy (Vienna), the OIM annual conference, the conference on management and the economy in the Balkans (Sofia), the seminar on the economic West-East relations (Koblenz).
We are convinced that these activities as well as their results, and they are only a beginning, ensure the prerequisites for the launch of a competitive specialized publication in international comparative management - the Journal of International Comparative Management. We have defined objectives both for the national and international levels. The first ones – the national objectives – can be summed up as follows:
• stimulating research in the field of comparative management and publishing the results
• better knowing the comparative management products of Romanian specialists from the main university and scientific centres in Romania
• encouraging communication, the debate of ideas and critical approaches among local specialists in the field
• promoting the valuable management concepts and methods from the most developed countries in Romania
• the speeding up of the international managerial know-how in Romania
The international objectives are the following:
• the contribution to adopt the aqui-communautaire in Romania and to accelerate its integration in the European Union
• the introduction in the international scientific circuit of the most valuable results of the research on comparative management in Romania
• facilitating the introduction in Romania of important management approaches and research of well-known specialists in international centres of comparative management
• developing relations in the areas of education, research and publishing among Romanian and foreign specialists in the field of comparative management
To help accomplish these objectives the Journal has the following structure:
• editorial, which presents a point of view on a major aspect of comparative management?
• 7 – 10 articles of both Romanian and foreign specialists which present their results on management studies in various national contexts and case studies with an international managerial relevance
• news from the field of comparative management in the scientific, didactic and publishing activities of the Centre of Excellence for International Comparative Management and other centres in Romania.
• reviews of books and publications of comparative management in Romania and abroad This is obviously only a first attempt to structure the Journal and we are aware of the possibilities for improvement.
The Journal will be published twice a year in 500 copies. The first issue is sent to 100 universities and research centres in over 40 countries well known for their high level of training and research in the field of management, in general, and of comparative management, in particular. This is meant as a contribution to a better mutual knowing and developing scientific and educational relations, an essential element in the present context of internationalization. A fist step in this process is the feedback of those who receive and read this journal on its objectives, content and approach. The second step will be proposals for publishing studies on comparative management in the journal. We are waiting for both the Romanian and foreign readers of our Journal to take these steps.
We are in front of a new beginning and we do need your feedback. We are looking forward to your becoming the readers and collaborators of the Journal of International Comparative Management.