Editorial
ROMS is pleased to bring out volume 3 with papers that span behavioral, empirical and theoretical orientations. This clearly articulates the positioning of the journal as a broad based high quality outlet for speedy dissemination of the latest research in marketing.
THE THREE INITIAL ARTICLES all report new findings. The first, on the measurement of context effects, uses extant behavioral theories to draw implications for how surveys may be better designed when measuring consumer expectations. This is also of practical value. The second reports an innovative way to handle selectivity in analyzing household purchases in frequently purchased packaged goods categories. It exploits recent advances in techniques for count data by extending it to the current application. This makes the article novel and of value to other researchers. The third, on vertical control of wholesalers, draws on economic analysis of a model of spatial competition to provide an alternative way to minimize cross-hauling arising from shipments not going form the nearest location to the consumer. The alternative proposed is novel and may be better suited in some instances, making it of practical value.
THIS ISSUE WILL CONTAIN MORE ARTICLES as manuscripts currently under review find their way to the journal. I expect these to be interesting and novel. An important aspect of electronic publishing is that once a new issue has been opened, articles are published on the site as soon as they are accepted. There is no publication delay. The opening of volume 3 has been behind schedule for the obvious reason that we wanted to bring out a sufficient number of good articles. While manuscript flow has been good, the quality of many of the submissions has not. This resulted in a large fraction of manuscripts being rejected over the last six months. We are committed to ensuring that ROMS remains a high quality journal. The current pipeline looks promising.
THE POSITIONING OF ROMS should become clearer as more articles are published. Let me emphasize that we are interested in manuscripts that address marketing problems and report new findings. Manuscripts can be long or short, findings can be modest or controversial, and the content can be behavioral, statistical or economics oriented, as evidenced by the three initial manuscripts in this volume. I look forward to receiving your latest research and promise to provide an efficient review process and speedy publication upon acceptance.