From the editor.

Walter Wriston, retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Citicorp, opens our winter issue. Mr. Wriston is an American management titan who foresaw that the commodity of banking was information rather than money and helped create the universe of digitized capital. Through an interview conducted by William D. Resiel, Assistant Professor of Management at St. John's University, Mr. Wriston shares his unique perspective on business leadership. In this informative and informal interview, readers will gain insight from Mr. Wriston's rich experiences concerning topics such as motivating talented young professionals, ensuring continuous organizational improvement, incorporating social responsibility into business decision-making, shaping public opinion through media relationships and managing organizational crises and failures.

Next, Dan T. Dunn, Jr. and Sidney C. Probstein offer suggestions for meeting the formidable challenges related to marketing high tech services. Their "funneling approach" provides down-to-earth, practical advice that addresses the unique problems faced by organizations trying to sell high tech services. If your firm has ever wondered how to coordinate activities among marketing managers, sales representatives, technical managers and senior-level managers as they fry to navigate their way through thousands of initial prospects to the final step of closing a deal for high tech services, you will benefit from the ideas presented here.

Leon B. Crosby, Raffaele DeVito and J. Michael Pearson contend that most dimensions of quality, and pursuant customer satisfaction, are not established permanently at the time of a sales transaction. Rather, many dimensions of quality can be managed by the seller over time. In their article, ideas are presented for influencing customers' perceptions of quality and value received after a sale.

E-businesses have developed to the point where they are moving beyond a cursory view of their customers and attempting to engage in rich customer relationships. Edna Johnson Ragins and Alan J. Greco offer an article focusing on strategic customer relationship management and its application to e-business. Discussed are techniques for using customer management relationship software to foster dialogs between marketers and their customers.

Robert J. Paul helps readers explore the pervasive and costly problem of managing employee depression in the workplace. Recent findings are presented from this rapidly developing field of medical and psychological research. The author discusses myths, causes, impacts, costs and legal issues related to depression. Finally, recommendations for managing employee depression in the workplace are offered.

Over the last few years, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has implemented a more effective and efficient process for mediating employment discrimination claims. For employers and employees, mediation provides more predictable outcomes, saves time and money and insures confidentiality and privacy. Mark J. Keppler describes the Alternative Dispute Resolution program and offers advice for preparing for and participating in an EEOC mediation.

Finally, this winter issue offers the opportunity to sample a very successful simulation game for teaching concepts of insurance company management James Barrese, Nicos Scordis and Carolin Schelhorn have developed a simulation that permits students to integrate topics of accounting, finance, risk management and insurance, asset management and investment as they compete against each other as insurance company executive decision-makers. In this article the simulation game itself is described as well as learning objectives and outcomes. Teachers, trainers and consultants in the risk management and insurance field will appreciate the interactive approach presented by these authors to improve learning -- and make it fun at the same time.