For more than 70 years, the Ivey Business Journal has delivered incisive, practical articles about managing to our readers. We intend to sustain and strengthen that tradition in Ivey Business Journal Online.

There are a certain, few occasions when the phrase, “The more things change, the more they remain the same,” is meant to reassure and raise expectations. The launch of Ivey Business Journal Online is one of those occasions. For more than 70 years, the Ivey Business Journal has delivered incisive, practical articles about managing to our readers. We intend to sustain and strengthen that tradition in Ivey Business Journal Online. In going online, however, we also begin a new tradition; we are moving into new territory, cyberspace. For us, it is an exciting move, one that will enable us to reach not only a wider audience but a global one as well. And so with this move forward, we welcome you to the premiere issue of Ivey Business Journal Online.

Some time ago, as I began to plan the themes of the first four editions of Ivey Business Journal Online, I couldn’t help but notice a certain symmetry between this issue and another one. Almost four years ago, when I joined Ivey Business Journal as its Managing Editor, I decided that the theme of the first edition for which I’d be responsible would be one of the compelling issues of the day, corporate governance. Which is another way of saying that managing earnings, rather than the company, is not all that recent a phenomenon.

As recent history illustrates, it isn’t only directors and managers at Enron and WorldCom who have a long way to go to establish and institutionalize best practices. That is a point reinforced in articles by Ivey Dean Larry Tapp, Ivey professors Rick Robertson and Claude Lanfranconi, and other contributors. Even those corporations with relatively good governance practices will do well by reading about how they can make those practices even better. As for me, I cannot think of a subject that needs to be discussed or is more relevant today. Which is why it is the theme of our first issue of Ivey Business Journal Online.

Ivey Business Journal Online will come to you every second month, and the themes that I have planned for the next three issues are subjects that are important to managers everywhere: Innovation, Leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility. You will also read articles about e-business, managing uncertainty, knowledge management, marketing, strategy and other topics that managers need to know more about to steer their firms to success. These articles will be written by some of the world’s leading management thinkers, consultants and practitioners. And as always, they will deliver practical suggestions that you will be able to apply to your own organization or situation. I invite you to read all of these articles. I also invite you to tell me what you think of them, and of Ivey Business Journal Online. My goal is to put out an editorial product that engages, informs and delivers value. Please feel free to contact me: sbernhut@ivey.uwo.ca In the meantime, a warm welcome to the first issue of Ivey Business Journal Online.