Editor’s introduction

Citation

Campos e Cunha, R. (2012), "Editor’s introduction", Management Research, Vol. 10 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/mrjiam.2012.50610caa.001

Editor’s introduction

Article Type: Editorial From: Management Research: The Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management, Volume 10, Issue 3

This issue of Management Research: The Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management has a clear predominance of Portuguese speaking authors, albeit diverse in approaches.

The first paper, by Zandra Balbinot and Rafael Borim-de-Souza, is a dense and thorough reflection on sustainable development and sustainability as objects of study in management. The authors propose the use of different “styles of reasoning” within the management studies of sustainability and sustainable development, according to the ontological postures, the epistemological perspectives or the conceptual amalgamation associated with dominant paradigms.

In a completely different mood, Anselmo Ferreira Vasconcelos, in the second paper, argues for the possible existence of ageism, discrimination of older workers, in reputable organizations, therefore raising some debate over corporate image and reputation.

The third article in this issue is authored by Sergio Lazzarini, Gazi Islam and Luiz Mesquita. The authors start from the views on self-serving behaviors in organizations and reconcile agency and justice theories, using survey data from 387 team-leaders from Brazil and the USA. Their results highlight that “incentivizing” practices that directly derive from agency theory are equally used by managers aligned with the principles of interactional justice theory, with positive results on organizational performance, whereas the “scrutinizing” practices, associated with monitoring and micromanagement, are associated with lower performance.

Finally, in the special section “To, from and beyond the margins”, Marta Coelho brings us a fresh perspective from economics on a psychological trait: “Unrealistic optimism”. She argues that unrealistic optimism may have been at play in the recent crisis situation in both Portugal and Spain and debates whether paternalistic policies should be adopted to mitigate this bias. The paper ends with a section that will suggest potential fruitful areas for future research, particularly in practical policy decisions.

I am sure the readers of MRJIAM will find this issue particularly rich in food for thought.

Finally, being the last issue of 2012, I want to inform that the rate of submissions is increasing, which I personally consider to be a great success for MRJIAM and a necessary condition to pursue our goal of increased quality. This means, of course, that the rate of rejection is also increasing! Authors and reviewers make the journal. I thank all submitting authors, who are key actors in this process, but I cannot miss this opportunity to send a heartfelt thank-you to all reviewers that contributed to Volume 10.

As usual, my last word is to motivate you to keep submitting to MRJIAM.

Rita Campos e Cunha