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Wharton Launches Electronic Publication With Mukul Pandya As Editor

For more than 200 faculty members at Wharton the frustration of looking for good outlets for their scholarly papers could be over. They will not have to wait for six to eight months to see their work in print. On May 26, the school, considered by many as the best business school in the United States, launched a new electronic publication, Knowledge@Wharton.

Bombay-born Mukul Pandya, former editor of a business publication in New Jersey, and whose articles have appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, is the editor of the new publication. "We will offer not only interesting stories by our professors and students but also the alumni," Pandya said.

The site was launched during an online briefing and audio news conference. Wharton is part of the University of Pennsylvania.

"We had people from than 30 countries participating in the conference," Pandya said. "I know the Internet is global, but even then we were overwhelmed by the response."

The free, interactive websource provides worldwide access to the thinking of some of the top business minds on issues ranging from finance and marketing to human resources and business ethics, he added.

"Today, we are unveiling a comprehensive online business websource — instant access to a virtual think tank designed to help users make better, more informed business decisions," said Robert Mittelstaedt, vice dean, Executive Education and External Affairs at the Wharton School, who hosted launching news conference.

"Wharton is dedicated to creating the highest value and impact on the understanding of business and practice of management worldwide. The site is consistent with the school's educational mission."

Knowledge@Wharton includes analyses of business trends, interviews with industry leaders and the Wharton faculty, articles on recent business research, book reviews, conference reports and hyperlinks to related web sites.

Mittelstaedt said the Web site was unique to a business school. "This is a way for us to answer our alumni who often ask how to keep up in a world that's changing so rapidly," Mittelstaedt said. "It relates to our mission to disseminate knowledge. It's difficult to get all the knowledge produced here out in a form that's easily accessible. This will provide greater value to a wider community."

By early next year, Wharton hopes to have an archive of more than 2,000 research papers available on the site, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. It will be free, and Wharton is seeking corporate sponsors to underwrite the project, which cost more than $ 1 million to create. (Wharton said it had no firm figure on total cost.)

The Web site touts the fact that Wharton's 70,000 alumni -- one of the expected audiences -- are scattered through 130 countries, earned a median base salary of $ 80,000 in 1998, and become leaders in their fields, with 35 percent at consulting firms and 29 per cent at investment banking or brokerage firms.

Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton currently has approximately 4,700 undergraduate, MBA and doctoral students, more than 10,000 participants in its executive education programs each year Wharton's existing Web site, even without the new publication, averaged six million hits per month last year.

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