The balance for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) was not good. The
first quarter in 2009 has been the most harmful period
for economic activity since 1960. The greatest descent
was presented in exporting economies, being reflected
in the collapse of world trade: Japan's GNP became contracted
by 4%, the German economy fell by 3.8%, the
European Unión went back by -2.5% and the USA by
-1.6%. Within the Latin-American setting, México fell
back by 5.9%.

Crises represent moments forcing us to see problems in a
different way and propose new options for resolving them,
meaning that reflection is needed about how responsible
each one of us is and how we can help. Responding to
this auspicious period for reflection, the journal has decided
to issue a special edition on finance, dedicated to
the effects of the worldwide financial crisis. Professors
Ismael Moya Clemente from the Universidad Politécnica
de Valencia (Spain) and José David Cabedo Semper
from the Universidad Jaume I (Spain) will be the invited
editors for this issue.

This is also the opportunity for announcing that the
editorial committee and the Universidad Nacional de
Colombia's Economics Faculty (the journal's sponsor)
have authorised an increase in our periodicity, initially
to three issues per year, beginning in 2009. This is due
to the notable increase in demand for being published in
the journal. We also have good news in the Colombian
context; Innovar has received the highest classification
in the Índice Bibliográfico Nacional (IBN, Publindex),
positioning it as the only Colombian journal in the administrative
science area to reach COLCIENCIAS' category
A1.

This issue has four sections: Organisations and culture,
Marketing, Finances and Contributions towards research
and teaching.

It leads off with work on social investigation focusing on
a little explored area in Latin-America from an academic
perspective: journalism. It reviews the literature from
the beginnings of investigation into journalism in the
USA and Europe and then analyses its place and evolution
on the Latin-American agenda throughout the last
few decades, focusing on productivity. It is interesting for
those who do not know much about this discipline and
applies the concept of productivity from a different point
of view.

It continues with a study of the content and structure
of entrepreneurship networks and their contribution to
the success of being an entrepreneur. In my opinion,
it is interesting to study the context within which entrepreneurs
operate. This work is complemented by an
analysis of learning's importance for a modern firm's
competitiveness. It is centred on the complexity of measuring
such concept and analysing its effects on key variables
in entrepreneurial competitiveness, designing a
scale which tries to reflect the different sub-constructs
of learning which are recognised in the literature.

The Marketing section presents an analysis of companies'
client-based proactive orientation and the strategic
implications regarding developing external cooperation
and using information and communications technology
(ICT). This work is accompanied by a study of how close
and long-lasting relationships are established between
firms and suppliers, trying to establish the value of such
relationship regarding investment in such information
technologies.

On the other hand, the Finance section presents three
articles using financial models for analysing problems
arising form social security systems. The first one studies
the Spanish individual pension plan system's beta risk
whilst the second one analyses the existence and extent
of disincentives for taking retirement (apart from the ordinary
one) from a financial-actuarial approach. This
section closes with an application of the Black-Scholes'
method for evaluating options for calculating high-cost
illness reinsurance premiums in the Colombian health
system.

Finally, the Contributions to research and teaching section
deals with reflection on multinational firms and whether
they contribute towards attaining Millennium Development
Goals.

This issue thus deals with social and academic topics and
technical models which will, without doubt, satisfy many
of our readers.

Edison Jair Duque Oliva

Editor in Chief

Fulltime profesor Universidad Nacional de Colombia