OPPapers.com

Fabrication Of Labor

THE NEED FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT IN OPERATIONS RESEARCH
Manish Agarwal

ABSTRACT
The current paradigm in the field of Production and Operations Management (POM) is of mathematical modeling, with competition from empirically based theories. Empirical studies have been the basis for theory generation in marketing and organizational behavior. However, POM remains relatively poor in theoretical developments, resulting in a trend of devaluation of the field. This paper will discuss how adapting the competing paradigm may arrest such a downward trend.

INTRODUCTION
Swamidass (1991) states, "Operations Management research has a very distinctive focus; it is the application of operations research, statistical theory, and computer simulation experiments to operations management problems in order to retrieve prescriptive solutions."
Meredith (2001) mentions predictions from the 1970s and 1980s, relating to contractions in the field of Operations Management/Management Science (OR/MS). Similarly, Horner (1997) notes that operations research courses are under attack at more and more business schools to the degree that tenure-track positions for OR professors remain difficult to find.
Moreover, this is apparently not just an academic phenomenon. Samuelson's (1996) job data indicate a decline of 20 to 50% in OR/MS industrial positions during the early 1990s, with a decline in every major industrial sector as well as the service sector. This, he states, is indicative of the "devaluing of this kind of work."
In the following sections, we will detail the reasons for the mentioned devaluation and how this trend can be corrected.

REASONS FOR THE DEVALUATION
Westbrook (1995) enumerated four main issues with the way POM research is conducted. These help provide some reasoning for the reduction in the valuation of OR/MS research. The issues listed by Westbrook (1995) (p.6) were:
1. POM research has been traditionally based on modelling techniques. Although...