In This Issue

You can obtain electronic access to the past issues of DSJIE at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/dsji

In this issue for Vol. 7, No. 1, Jan. 2009

I am delighted to see 90 papers submitted to the journal from January to October 2008. The associate editors and reviewers have worked very diligently to provide an average 53-day turnaround for the first decision after submission and an 85- day turnaround for the final decision. I thank Wiley Blackwell, editor of Decision Sciences, and the Board of Directors of the Decision Sciences Institute for considering allocating increased pages per issue of DSJIE, thereby allowing me to publish accepted articles within a year of acceptance.

This issue of DSJIE contains 8 research articles and 16 teaching briefs. I thank the associate editorial team and the set of reviewers for making it possible to publish these high-quality empirical articles complemented by well-written teaching briefs. In this issue, I have selected articles and teaching briefs that address different aspects of specific themes and assembled them into coherent groups, allowing readers to study empirical articles related to a theme and then discover how instructors have implemented the concepts associated with the theme
in their classrooms through the teaching briefs.

Theme 1: Emphasis on Analysis: Two article that serve as the foundation for this theme are “Decomposition as a Complex-Skill Acquisition Strategy in Management Education: A Case Study in Business Forecasting,” by Adya, Lusk, and Balhadjali and “Identification of Nonadaptive MBA Writers Through the Use of Linguistic Analysis,” by Divoky and Rothermel. The first article suggests that academics engaged in teaching complex domains can benefit from building their teaching environments on a decomposition framework. The second article found that students who are initially classified as report writers consistently produce documents of that quality throughout their programs. Moreover, it also found that, if memo writers do not quickly adapt their style of writing, they tend to produce documents using a memo style without regard to the type of document being requested. These empirical articles are complemented by a set of teaching briefs that discuss:

Decision analysis and the principal–agent problem.
A systematic method for teaching post hoc analysis of chi-square tests.
Analysis after output - payoff tables.
Winning hearts and minds: An argument for quantitative analysis in an
operations management course.
Verifying documentation standards in spreadsheet analysis.
Spreadsheet modeling of hotel room sales and demand distributions estimation.

Theme 2: Use of Innovative Information Technologies: Two empirical articles anchor the next theme. The article, “Computer Self-Efficacy and Motivation to Learn in a Self-Directed Online Course,” by Simmering, Posey, and Piccoli shows that computer and Internet usage prior to the start of class were positively related to individuals’ computer self-efficacy and to learning. The article, “Enhancing Knowledge Transfer in Classroom Versus Online Settings: The Interplay Among Instructor, Student, Content, and Context,” by Nemanich, Banks, and Vera shows that confidence in the instructor’s expertise, perceived content relevance, and the social richness of the classroom learning environment enhance student enjoyment of the course. These articles are complemented by teaching briefs that discuss:

Achieving learning goals with student-created podcasts.
Exploring business issues in high-tech fields using collaborative electronic
meeting tools.
An entrepreneurial application of a geographic information system.

Theme 3: Use of Innovative Pedagogies: The article that introduces this theme,“Weblog Technology for Instruction, Learning, and Information Delivery,” by Shim and Guo focuses on the role of Weblog combined with face-to-face instructions through a three-phase study that examines college students’ perceptions of Weblog use in class. The second article, “Investigating Business Schools’ Intentions About Offering E-Commerce Education Using an Extended Theory of Planned Behavior,” by Dodor and Rana shows that most business schools consider e-commerce education important for an adequate preparation of their students for today’s competitive labor market. These empirical articles are supplemented by a series of teaching briefs that discuss:

Recruiting the supply chain professionals of the future.
Poetry writing in quantitative courses.
Managing the intricacies of supply chain power and trust,
A spreadsheet-based, matrix formulation linear programming lesson,
An in-class demonstration of pull production concepts.
Improving students’ understanding of international trade.

Theme 4: Assessment Methodologies: This theme is composed of two articles, opening with “Proctored Versus Unproctored Online Exams: Studying the Impact of Exam Environment on Student Performance,” by Hollister and Berenson, which reveals that the group taking online exams in the unproctored environment has significantly more variation in their performance results. The next article, “Gaining Insight into Business Telecommunications Students Through the Assessment of Learning Styles,” by Sandman, reveals that, because there are many learning style profiles present in a class, the instructor can have confidence in using a mix of pedagogical techniques and activities in this course. These articles are supplemented by a teaching brief that discusses:

Assessment via WebCT quizzes: Offline grading process with customized feedback.

I anticipate that our readers, by implementing some of the practices described in these articles, will be able to develop the leadership skills of business students, with particular reference to areas such as communication skills; teamwork; handson experience; innovative capacity; inventiveness and drive; the ability to share, access, and interpret large volumes of information; and interdisciplinary focus. I also expect that the articles will motivate you to conduct new research studies on learning and pedagogy, thus furthering knowledge in the field, and I hope that you will continue to contribute to the literature by writing empirical articles, case study articles, conceptual articles, and teaching briefs for DSJIE. Please check the Web site www.DSJIE.org for information on submission information.

Chetan S. Sankar
Editor