Guiding the next generation of doctoral students in operations management

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Abstract: This paper presents ways for senior researchers to help future doctoral students in Operations Management (OM) to overcome multiple challenges in: (a) conducting relevant research while demonstrating greater rigor, and (b) exploring multi-disciplinary research projects while mastering a single research method. PermanentRecognizing that knowledge is generally created in four broad stages ((I) awareness, (II) framing, (III) modeling and (IV) validation), we first argue that different research approaches (analytical, behavioral, case study, or empirical) serve different roles in each of these stages: (1) case study approach for awareness, (2) empirical methods for framing, (3) analytical modeling for modeling and analysis, and (4) behavioral for validation in the real world. Then we discuss ways to enable doctoral students to overcome the aforementioned challenges.

Multi‐Methodological Research in Operations Management

“…This highlights the versatile and dynamic nature of each method for achieving research outcomes in the multi‐methodological framework. This finding supplements the proposal made by Sodhi and Tang () (which describes the “stereotype” role of each method as “fixed and static”) and reveals that the same method can be used for different purposes. Furthermore, based on these examples and the reviewed literature, Table shows the MMA framework that provides a scenario‐guidance to OM researchers on probable employment of MMA in their research.…”

Organizational Communication and Individual Behavior: Implications for Supply Chain Risk Management

“…Research that uses a behavioral operations perspective to explore the relationship between disruptions and decision‐making has been identified as an important area for future study (Macdonald & Corsi, ). The perspective enables the testing of real‐world decision‐making in experimental settings that can isolate deviations from rational decision‐making behavior and that allows new dimensions of individual decision‐making to be explored (Gino & Pisano, ; Sodhi & Tang, ). Understanding human behavior, judgment, and decision‐making is an important step in advancing supply chain management theory (Tokar, ).…”

Qualitative methods for engineering systems: Why we need them and how to use them

“…Qualitative methods, when used well, can allow the researcher to deal with the messy complexity of human interactions directly and may be the only way to make sense of the human and contextual drivers of system design, development and operation. Despite their power, we do not in any way suggest that qualitative methods should replace traditional approaches; they are most effective when used in concert, as part of a “value chain” of research . Further, we caution against naïve uses of qualitative methods.…”