Does co-authorship advance research in operations literature? Evidence from bibliographic analysis of performance measurement studies dating from 2005 to 2020

Academic research in operations research has been advancing over the past several decades and attracting a research community from a broad spectrum of academic disciplines. With a focus on the field of performance measurement within operations research, several structured literature reviews have been conducted to assess the field’s maturity. However, more attention needs to be paid to evaluating the effectiveness of scholarly collaboration and co-authorship in advancing academic theory in this space. Based on an examination of bibliographic-based data for performance measurement research published from 2005 to 2020, this paper reports on key themes. It suggests that while the field continues to be multidisciplinary, more progress has yet to be seen relative to its academic professionalism. One possible contributing factor is the enduring pressure to publish within the academic community. This manifests itself in an overwhelming portion of the research being published by authors with only one publication, as well as an increase in the number of authors per publication. This paper informs the research community by providing additional insight into the extent of scholarly collaboration and its role in advancing research in the field, particularly as it relates to the need to adopt novel theoretical perspectives. Despite the increasing trend in publishing activities, the general need for more consensus on the theoretical foundation among authors informs the need for a more purposeful and meaningful scholarly collaboration.