J PROD INNOV MANAG 2013;30(1):2
© 2012 Product Development & Management Association
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5885.2012.01007.x
From the Editor
I
am honored and excited to be the new editor of Editorial Board and have been active within the Product
JPIM. I was introduced to JPIM at its inception in Development and Management Association (PDMA) for
1984 during my doctoral program, and I never a number of years. I want to thank Shikhar and Helen for
dreamed then of being in the position I now hold. being willing to take on this responsibility and be part of
For those of you who also “grew up” professionally the editorial team.
with JPIM as well as those who may be newcomers, JPIM This new structure necessitates a change in the review
is the most prestigious journal in the product development process, which will work as follows. As editor, I will
and management arena. One reason for this is the care and review all submissions and be responsible for desk rejec-
nurturing the journal has received from its past editors, tions. Papers deemed acceptable for the review process
Thomas Hustad, Abbie Griffin, and Tony Di Benedetto. will be split relatively evenly among the three of us with
As the founder of JPIM, Tom laid out the vision and each responsible for identifying reviewers and keeping
foundation for the journal. He recognized from the begin- them to the time schedule. In addition to the comments of
ning the need for the journal to be international in scope the reviewers, Helen and Shikhar will provide their own
and so he affiliated JPIM with the International Product evaluation of each paper directed to them. I will make the
Development and Management Conference in Europe. He final decision regarding all papers.
also made strong efforts to include practitioner perspec- The second immediate change you will see to JPIM is
tives on new product development issues through the that the manuscript submission and review process is now
“From Experience” section. Abbie changed publishers to automated and online using ScholarOne. To submit your
Wiley-Blackwell so that papers could be electronically manuscript, please go to the JPIM website available
available and increased the functional diversity of papers through the PDMA member site or directly to the Wiley
published through several special issues. Tony further Online Library ([Link] At the
expanded the diversity of the journal by publishing special journal page, under “For Contributors,” click on “Submit
issues in a number of areas including design, supply an Article” and proceed.
chain, entrepreneurship, and global product launch. He Also worthy of mention is that Wiley-Blackwell will
attracted many international scholars to publish in JPIM, be increasing the number of pages in JPIM starting with
thereby increasing the global reach and impact of the this volume. This substantial increase should help to
journal. This also helped to enlarge the methodological reduce the backlog of articles waiting to be published.
nature of papers published to include case studies and Beyond these changes, I plan to maintain the efforts of
other qualitative methods. I am grateful to each of them Tom, Abbie, and Tony, to expand the international reach
and will do my best to build upon their efforts and to of the journal, particularly in Asia. I will continue to work
maintain the vision of the journal. to increase the breadth of disciplines published in the
Not surprisingly, a new editor often brings changes to journal. Finally, I plan to reinstate on a more regular basis
a journal. I would like to take this opportunity to inform “From Experience” articles written by practitioners. As
you of two important modifications to JPIM, effective as noted earlier, Tom initiated this section of the journal to
of January 1, which should help to streamline the review support and enhance the link between academic research
process. and practice. I believe that publication of such articles is
First, as many of you know, the number of submis- important to JPIM readers and authors and to the jour-
sions to JPIM has more than doubled during Tony’s nal’s position in the field.
tenure as editor. Amazingly, Tony has handled all of these As Tony mentioned in the last issue, he will continue
submissions by himself without the help of associate to serve as editor for any manuscripts submitted through
editors. In recent years, many involved with the journal December 31, 2012. I will handle all manuscript submis-
argued that the journal’s maturity required an enhanced sions beginning on January 1, 2013. I look forward to
editorial structure. Thus, I am happy to announce Shikhar receiving your papers and to working with all of you.
Sarin from Boise State University and Helen Perks from
Manchester Business School as the first associate editors Gloria Barczak
for JPIM. Both Shikhar and Helen are members of the Northeastern University
