WE RECENTLY EXPERIENCED the longest period of uninterrupted economic upturn in history. During that period, countless decisions were made by decision makers in all manner of organizations. In good economic times all decisions may look inspired. However, in uncertain times we scrutinize our decisions and our decision makers more carefully. Poor decisions may result in serious and costly consequences and may even jeopardize an organization's survival.

The Decision Sciences Institute's 2004 Annual Meeting theme focuses on facilitating quality decision making. The Annual Meeting especially welcomes original research papers exploring the quality of decision tools; the quality of information and information systems that support decision making; and the quality of technologies used to support, analyze, and communicate decisions.

The adoption of new technologies deserves a closer look. The emergence of handheld and tablet devices, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth means that decision makers are faced with great uncertainty in committing to a technology, not knowing whether it will support the decision maker or alienate the very workforce it is meant to motivate. Information technologies broadly interpreted include open source software, .NET, ASP outsourcing, and COTS software. In response to this growing assemblage of untested technologies for decision makers, we are adding a research track this year entitled, Emerging Information Technologies.

The DSI 2004 Annual Meeting will encourage creative research in the decision sciences and will offer multiple ways to disseminate and share knowledge among leading researchers, educators, and practitioners, all of whom share a universal interest in decision making. To ensure creativity, both full research papers and exploratory research abstracts will be included. In addition, you have the opportunity to participate by creating or attending workshops, panel discussions, tutorials, and symposia.

The track chairs are also inviting highly regarded researchers and practitioners to organize special invited sessions to stimulate discussion of key topics. We encourage research that extends across many academic disciplines. Consistent with the Institute's commitment to research and teaching innovations, we invite submissions that focus on new ideas in all areas of managerial decision making as they extend to research and pedagogical interests.