By Bianor S. Cavalcanti

Professor Marcelo Milano Falcão Vieira, the Editor of EBAPE's Electronic Review, decided to give it the suggestive title "Cadernos EBAPE.BR". The name chosen could hardly be more symbolic, as the earlier 'Cadernos' played a pioneering role in the history of the study of Administration in Brazil. 

The School was founded in 1952, and as early as April 1954 Benedicto Silva inaugurated the series entitled CADERNOS DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO PÚBLICA, which continued until 1971, by which time it was in its 82nd issue. This series of books of texts, dissertations and case studies specially elaborated for the research program on Brazilian Public Administration, a tribute to the accord between FGV and the Ford Foundation, was to a great extent responsible for the standard of material taught in this academic field, as it was then being established in the country. The purpose of the program was to enhance existing specialized bibliography with works that reflected the Brazilian experience and contains studies of the administrative scenario and problems of the time, thereby contributing to the development of a genuinely Brazilian doctrine and literature in the field of Administration. Many leading exponents and students contributed to the original series, as will be seen below. 

Publication of Cadernos resumed in 1980, in a new series entitled CADERNOS EBAP, of which there were 127 issues, the last being in 2002. This series which was more modest in graphic and editorial terms sought to stimulate the circulation of ideas between professors and students of the School, as well as among members of the academic community in the area of administration and disseminate, on a preliminary basis and in a more restricted manner, academic works and others derived from consultancy work with public institutions and companies. 

In any discussion of EBAPE's editorial programming, it is important to remember how the CADERNOS series was complemented by the Revista de Administração Pública (RAP), issued since 1967 and consolidated today among the academic and professional communities, as well as with the Revista Portuguesa e Brasileira de Gestão (RPBG), issued in partnership with INDEG/ISCTE of Lisbon since 2002. 

Changing times and new technologies oblige us to accept a commitment to innovation in the context of the contemporary world, building a guaranteed stepping-stone to the future. Cadernos EBAPE.BR will undoubtedly affect notions of time and space, as well as terminology acquired in our past editorial experience. However, it is worth remembering that the spirit of Cadernos remains the same, namely to share our knowledge and remain involved in a silent, albeit valuable dialogue with the greatest possible number of readers dedicated to the topic of Administration.

By Marcelo Milano Falcão Vieira (editor-in-chief, 2003-2009)

In 2003, I received from the then Director of the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (EBAPE/FGV), Professor Bianor Scelza Cavalcanti, and the Head of the Academic Training and Research Center, Professor Deborah Moraes Zouain, the mission of creating a new journal. It wouldn’t start from scratch. The intent was to revitalize the long-lasting Cadernos EBAPE, published in print edition and, although narrowly distributed, very useful for disseminating the School’s scientific production.

This mission wasn’t easy to accomplish. EBAPE already published Revista de Administração Pública (RAP) and, in partnership with ISCTE, in Lisbon, Revista Portuguesa e Brasileira de Gestão (RPBG). On the one hand, the new journal should have an editorial policy of its own, quite different from the then current EBAPE journals; on the other, it should provide the academic community within the field of administration in Brazil with something innovative. Thus, we decided to adopt a policy which clearly and explicitly gives privilege to theoretical essays and qualitative studies, since at that time our community was still heavily influenced by positivist and quantitative traditions, and, specifically with regard to the Organizational Studies, it was grounded on the Structural Contingency Theory.

The initiative was very well received in the academic community. The journal started with a few issues a year (three), but, from the very beginning, it published provocative papers, produced not only by Brazilian professors, but also by renowned foreign ones, both from the North and South. The journal’s impact and acceptance in the academic community were soon realized by the small team of Cadernos EBAPE, constituted only by me, the Executive Secretary Vânia Mattos da Silva, and the Editorial Assistant Leonardo Darbilly, besides, of course, the Editorial Board, with whom I could always count on. In the beginnings of the journal, institutional support received from EBAPE and, later on, from CNPq was decisive. This support enabled the journal to go on, and it soon started to publish five issues a year.

In the subsequent years, with the increasing regulation and classification of Brazilian journals, we made efforts to include Cadernos EBAPE in indexing and classification bases, such as SciELO. In 2009, after six years as editor-in-chief, when the journal was fully consolidated and recognized by the academic community within the area, I passed the editorship to Ana Lucia Guedes, who continued the work done earlier and brought, as it should be, her own style as editor-in-chief, extending the Editorial Board, in a smooth and balanced transition.

It must be made clear that the journal has always been devoted to publish an autonomous knowledge production, with strong sociocultural relevance, and that, more than an EBAPE journal, it’s a scientific journal belonging to the academic community within the area which is ruled by the accuracy and impartiality in the review and publication of the texts it receives.

By Profa. Ana Lucia Guedes (2010-2012)

In June 2009, I was asked by the editor-in-chief of Cadernos EBAPE.BR, Marcelo Milano Falcão, about my interest and readiness to take the journal editorship, in order to continue the work developed by him and his competent team, then in charge of Vânia Mattos da Silva.

I followed for a period of six months the allocation of agenda and prepared the editorials along with him, to ensure “a smooth and balanced transition”. Our commitment was keeping intact the editorial policy, something which I think I was able to fulfill during the term effectively exercised, between January 2010 and December 2012. The journal maintained its interdisciplinary and critical scope, merely adopting a thematic broadening in the contributions with a qualitative design, by publishing articles and essays with this nature addressing other realms and/or dimensions of Administration.

Throughout this term, however, Cadernos EBAPE.BR underwent deep changes in its editorial practices, aiming to increase the visibility and reputation of the journal within the academic community of Administration. Among the many dramatic moments, due to the transition to the online submission system of SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), on May 20, 2010, which aimed to provide the editorial process with transparency, and to the fact that the editorial team consisted of only one assistant, who worked part-time, I highlight the adoption of the controversial desk review procedure as the first step after submission. However, this measure enabled an increase in the quality of the editorial letters sent to authors.

In parallel, efforts aimed at the journal internationalization were intensified, with the renewal of the editorial board and the call for submission of articles in other languages. The review of the journal submission guidelines according to the Best Practices of ANPAD resulted in numerous manifestations, against and favorable, on the part of authors and members of the editorial board. Throughout this change process, the page which hosted Cadernos EBAPE.BR in Portal EBAPE/FGV was reviewed numerous times, guidelines were adopted for language and format reviewers and we adopted a new layout at the article pagination phase, in order to improve the electronic and printed versions. Another major challenge was the project for scanning, converting, and marking up 25 retrospective volumes of Cadernos EBAPE.BR, published between 2003 and 2009, for inclusion into the indexing basis of SciELO, attributing a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) to them.

At the end of the term, we run the project for including the journal in a new host page (Digital Library of Portal FGV), aiming to use new tools in the process of submission, review, and publication of articles, provide readers and authors with easy access and registration, as well as to meet the specific requirements for further indexation. These commitments were fulfilled with institutional support received from Fundação Getulio Vargas and the publishing proposals funded by CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development).

The pleasurable side of the publishing activities is recorded in the supportive messages from authors, reviewers, and editors (associated and guests), but, also, in the preparation and publication of calls for papers for the thematic issues Echoes of LAEMOS (Latin American and European Meeting on Organization Studies) and Interfaces Público-Privado no Contexto Luso-Brasileiro, in 2010; Gestão Social: Ensino, Pesquisa e Prática and the special issue Ensino e Pesquisa em Administração, in 2011. The thematic issue Rio+20, in 2012, and the calls for the thematic issues Development-Management/Development&Management, , in 2013, and Management Industry, with publication scheduled for March 2014. As part of the collective efforts, we encouraged contributions to the Opinion Section, in order to keep the privileged space for debate on themes relevant to the academic community of Administration.

It is important to record the creation of the positions of associate editors for the following areas: Alexandre Faria (Critical Studies); Alketa Peci (Organizational Studies); Francisco Giovanni Vieira (Marketing Studies); and Janann Joslin Medeiros (Strategy Studies). I am very grateful to all for sharing the editorial responsibility of Cadernos EBAPE.BR.

Finally, I record the support, collaboration, and patience of the associate and guest editors, the reviewers, the revisers (Angela Cristina da Silva, Evandro Lisboa Freire, Leila Seabra, Newmar Pereira, and Robert Stewart), and visual designers (Patrícia Gonçalves and Maristela Carneiro de Souza), with a special emphasis on Fabiana Braga Leal, hired, at last, as editorial assistant, in April 2012.