Enhancing the Practical Relevance of Research

Production and Operations Management

Volumn 25, Issue 9, 2016, Pages 1493-1505

  Toffel, Michael W ^a  

^a HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL   (United States)

Author keywords

communication; practice based research; relevance; research questions; rigor

Indexed keywords

EID: 84963973460     PISSN: 10591478     EISSN: 19375956     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/poms.12558     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. Academy of Management. 2016. Academy of Management Perspectives. Available at http://aom.org/amp/ (accessed date January 7, 2016).
2. Ackoff, R. L. 1979. Resurrecting the future of operational research. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 30(3): 189–199.
3. Augier, M., J. G. March. 2011. The Roots, Rituals, and Rhetorics of Change: North American Business Schools after the Second World War. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
4. Beyer, J. M. 1982. Introduction to the special issue on the utilization of organizational research. Adm. Sci. Q. 27(4): 588–590.
5. Blanding, M. 2015. Business research that makes for smarter public policy. HBS Working Knowledge, October 19. Available at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/business-research-that-makes-for-smarter-public-policy (accessed date January 7, 2016).
6. Brooks, D. 2014. Professors, we need you! New York Times, February 16: SR11.
7. Buchbinder, R., C. Maher, I. A. Harris. 2015. Setting the research agenda for improving health care in musculoskeletal disorders. Nat. Rev. Rheumatol. 11(10): 597–605.
8. Cachon, G. P. 2012. What is interesting in operations management? Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manag. 14(2): 166–169.
9. Camm, J. D. 2015. In memoriam—Robert E. D. (Gene) Woolsey. Interfaces 45(4): 369.
10. Caro, F., C. S. Tang. 2015. The 1st POMS applied research challenge 2014 awards. Prod. Oper. Manag. 24(3): 359–368.
11. Cohen, D. J. 2007. The very separate worlds of academic and practitioner publications in human resource management: Reasons for the divide and concrete solutions for bridging the gap. Acad. Manag. J. 50(5): 1013–1019.
12. Cohen, M. A. 2015. Wharton service supply chain thought leaders forum. Available at http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/fd/forum (accessed date July 1, 2015).
13. Consortium for Operational Excellence in Retailing (COER). 2015a. 2015 COER conference agenda. Available at http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2015-coer/Pages/default.aspx (accessed date July 15, 2015).
14. Consortium for Operational Excellence in Retailing (COER). 2015b. The Fishman-Davidson Center for Service and Operations Management at The Wharton School. Available at http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/fd/partnerships.php#coer (accessed date August 30, 2015).
15. Corbett, C. J., L. N. Van Wassenhove. 1993. The natural drift: What happened to operations research? Oper. Res. 41(4): 625–640.
16. Daft, R. L., A. Y. Lewin. 1990. Can organizational studies begin to break out of the normal science straitjacket? An editorial essay. Organ. Sci. 1(1): 1–9.
17. Denisi, A. S. 2010. Challenges and opportunities for the academy in the next decade. Acad. Manag. Rev. 35(2): 190–201.
18. Emerald Group. 2014. How to… write for a practitioner audience. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Available at http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/authors/guides/write/practitioner.htm (accessed date January 7, 2016).
19. Fisher, M. L. 2007a. Bob Hayes: Forty years of leading operations management into uncharted waters. Prod. Oper. Manag. 16(2): 159–168.
20. Fisher, M. L. 2007b. Strengthening the empirical base of operations management. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manag. 9(4): 368–382.
21. Gallien, J., A. Scheller-Wolf. 2013. Call for papers—Proposal for an M&SOM special issue on practice-focused research. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manag. 15(2): 1–2.
22. Gallien, J., S. C. Graves, A. Scheller-Wolf. 2016. Practice-based research in operations management: What it is, why do it, related challenges, and how to overcome them. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manag. 18(1): 5–14.
23. Graves, S. C. 2009. A letter from the editor. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manag. 11(1): 1–3.
24. Gulati, R. 2007. Tent poles, tribalism, and boundary spanning: The rigor-relevance debate in management. Acad. Manag. J. 50(4): 775–782.
25. Hall, J. R., S. W. Hess. 1978. OR/MS: Dead or dying? RX for survival Interfaces 8(3): 42–44.
26. Hambrick, D. C. 1994. 1993 presidential address: What if the academy actually mattered? Acad. Manag. Rev. 19(1): 11–16.
27. Harvard Business School (HBS). 2008. Transparency and Accountability: The role of information disclosure workshop. Available at http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2008-transparency-and-accountability/Pages/agenda.aspx (accessed date January 7, 2016).
28. Harvard Business School (HBS). 2015. Research on effective government: Inspection and compliance workshop. Available at http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2015-research-on-effective-government/Pages/default.aspx (accessed January 7, 2016).
29. Hayes, R. H. 1998. Developing POM faculty for the 21st century. Prod. Oper. Manag. 7(2): 94–98.
30. Hayes, R. H. 2000. Towards a “new architecture” for POM. Prod. Oper. Manag. 9(2): 105–110.
31. Hoffman, A. J. 2015. Isolated scholars: Making bricks, not shaping policy. Chronicle of Higher Education, February 9.
32. Hoffman, A. J. 2016. Reflections: Academia's emerging crisis of relevance and the consequent role of the engaged scholar. J. Change Manag. 16(2): 77–96.
33. Hoffman, A. J., K. Ashworth, C. Dwelle, P. Goldberg, A. Henderson, L. Merlin, Y. Muzyrya, N.-J. Simon, V. Taylor, C. Weisheit, S. Wilson. 2015. Academic Engagement in Public and Political Discourse: Proceedings of the Michigan Meeting. Michigan Publishing, Ann Arbor, MI.
34. Khurana, R. 2007. From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
35. Leopold Leadership Program. 2016. Fellowship overview. Available at http://leopoldleadership.stanford.edu/fellowship-information (accessed date January 7, 2016).
36. M&SOM. 2016. The M&SOM practice-based research competition: A biannual practice-based paper competition for the M&SOM journal. Available at http://pubsonline.informs.org/page/msom/practice-based-research-competition (accessed date March 2, 2016).
37. Maryland Center for Economics and Policy (MCEP). 2015. Research on effective government: inspection and compliance workshop. Available at http://mcep.umd.edu/event/research-effective-government-inspection-and-compliance-workshop/ (accessed date January 7, 2016).
38. Mowday, R. T. 1997. Reaffirming our scholarly values. Acad. Manag. Rev. 22(2): 335–345.
39. Nicolai, A., D. Seidl. 2010. That's relevant! Different forms of practical relevance in management science. Organ. Stud. 31(09–10): 1257–1285.
40. Norden, P. V. 1970. A message from the president. Interfaces 1(1): 1.
41. O'Hara, C. 2014. How to improve your business writing. Harvard Business Review digital article, November 20. Available at https://hbr.org/2014/11/how-to-improve-your-business-writing (accessed date January 7, 2016).
42. Panda, A., R. K. Gupta. 2014. Making academic research more relevant: A few suggestions. IIMB Manage. Rev. 26(3): 156–169.
43. Pinker, S. 2014. Why academics stink at writing. Chronicle of Higher Education, September 26.
44. Semadeni, M., M. C. Withers, S. T. Certo. 2014. The perils of endogeneity and instrumental variables in strategy research: Understanding through simulations. Strateg. Manag. J. 35(7): 1070–1079.
45. Singhal, K., M. S. Sodhi, C. S. Tang. 2014. POMS initiatives for promoting practice-driven research and research-influenced practice. Prod. Oper. Manag. 23(5): 725–727.
46. Smith, B., N. Baron, C. English, H. Galindo, E. Goldman, K. McLeod, M. Miner, E. Neeley. 2013. COMPASS: Navigating the rules of scientific engagement. PLoS Biol. 11(4): e1001552.
47. SupplyChainOpz. 2014. SCM Global 100: Best supply chain blogs in the world. Available at http://www.supplychainopz.com/2014/03/scm.html (accessed date January 7, 2016).
48. SupplyChainOpz. 2016. Blogroll. Available at http://www.supplychainopz.com/p/blogroll_6.html (accessed January 7, 2016).
49. Tang, C. 2014. Welcome to MSOM review. Available at https://www.informs.org/Blogs/M-SOM-Blogs/M-SOM-Review/Welcome-to-MSOM-Review (accessed date January 7, 2016).
50. Thomas, K. W., W. G. Tymon, Jr. 1982. Necessary properties of relevant research: Lessons from recent criticisms of the organizational sciences. Acad. Manag. Rev. 7(3): 345–352.
51. Tushman, M. L., C. A. I. O'Reilly. 2007. Research and relevance: Implications of Pasteur's quadrant for doctoral programs and faculty development. Acad. Manag. J. 50(4): 769–774.
52. Van Mieghem, J. A. 2013. Three Rs of operations management: Research, relevance, and rewards. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manag. 15(1): 2–5.
53. Vermeulen, F. 2005. On rigor and relevance: Fostering dialectic progress in management research. Acad. Manag. J. 48(6): 978–982.
54. Vizecky, K., O. El-Gayar. 2011. Increasing research relevance in DSS: Looking forward by reflecting on 40 years of progress. Ralph H. Sprague, ed. Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. IEEE Computer Society, Kauai, HI, 1–9.
55. Walsh, J. P. 2011. 2010. Embracing the sacred in our secular scholarly world. Acad. Manag. Rev. 36(2): 215–234.
56. Wein, L. M. 2009. Homeland security: From mathematical models to policy implementation: The 2008 Philip McCord Morse lecture. Oper. Res. 57(4): 801–811.
57. Woolsey, R. E. D. 2003. Real World Operations Research: The Woolsey Papers. Lionheart Publishing, Marietta, GA.