Michael A. Hitt is a Distinguished Professor and holds the Joseph Foster Chair in Business Leadership and the C.W. and Dorothy Conn Chair in New Ventures at Texas A&M University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. He has authored or coauthored several books and book chapters and numerous articles in such journals as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies and Journal of Management, among others. His recent publications include three books, Mergers and Acquisitions: A Guide to Creating Value for Stakeholders (2001) (Oxford University Press) and Strategic Management: Competitiveness and Globalization, 5th Edition (2003) and Competing for Advantage (2004) (SouthWestern Publishing Co.). He is Coeditor of several recent books, Managing Strategically in an Interconnected World (1998); New Managerial Mindsets: Organizational Transformation and Strategy Implementation (1998); Dynamic Strategic Resources: Development, Diffusion and Integration (1999); Winning Strategies in a Deconstructing World (2000) (John Wiley & Sons) Handbook of Strategic Management (2001), Strategic Entrepreneurship: Creating a New Integrated Mindset (2002), Creating Value: Winners in the New Business Environment (2002) (Blackwell Publishers) and Managing Knowledge for Sustained Competitive Advantage (2003) (Jossey Bass). He has served on the editorial review boards of multiple journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of World Business and Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences. Furthermore, he has served as Consulting Editor (1988-90) and Editor (1991-1993) of the Academy of Management Journal. He has been a Coeditor for special issues of the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management and the Academy of Management Executive. He serves on the Board of the Strategic Management Society and is a Past President of the Academy of Management, a 13,000+ member international organization dedicated to the advancement of management knowledge and practice. He received the 1996 Award for Outstanding Academic Contributions to Competitiveness and the 1999 Award for Outstanding Intellectual Contributions to Competitiveness Research from the American Society for Competitiveness. He is a Fellow in the Academy of Management, a Research Fellow in the National Entrepreneurship Consortium and received an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid for his contributions to the field. He is a member of the Academy of Management Journals' Hall of Fame. He received awards for the best article published in the Academy of Management Executive (1999) and Academy of Management Journal (2000). In 2001, he received the Irwin Outstanding Educator Award and the Distinguished Service Award from the Academy of Management. R. Duane Ireland holds the Foreman R. and Ruby S. Bennett Chair in Business Administration in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. Previously, he held the W. David Robbins Chair in Strategic Management at the University of Richmond and the Curtis Hankamer Chair in Entrepreneurship in the Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University. His teaching responsibilities center on strategic management and entrepreneurship courses at the Executive MBA, MBA and undergraduate levels. Following terms as the Chair of the Management Department and as the Associate Dean for Research in Baylor's Hankamer School of Business, Duane served as the Director of the Entrepreneurship Studies Program at Baylor. Interested in research questions related to both the entrepreneurship and strategic management disciplines, Dr. Ireland's work has been published in an array of journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Decision Sciences, Human Relations, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice, Business Horizons, British Journal of Management, Journal of Small Business Management, and American Journal of Small Business. Dr. Ireland has also served in various editorial capacities. He has been or is serving as a member of the Editorial Review Boards for Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Management, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice and Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies. Additionally, he previously completed terms as an Associate Editor for Academy of Management Executive and as Consulting Editor for Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice. He is an in-coming Associate Editor for Academy of Management Journal. He is the co-author of more than 10 books, including the sixth edition of Strategic Management: Competitiveness and Globalization and Mergers and Acquisitions: A Guide to Creating Value for Stakeholders (Oxford University Press). Dr. Ireland is a Consulting Editor for a series of graduate level books on strategic management (Oxford University Press). Recently, he has served as a Guest Co-Editor for special issues of Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and Journal of Business Venturing (forthcoming). One of his co-authored papers was selected as the Best Paper in 1999's volume of Academy of Management Executive while another of his publications received the Best Paper award in 2000 from Academy of Management Journal.