IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/oropre/v42y1994i4p577-588.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Devolution of OR/MS: Implications from a Statistical Content Analysis of Papers in Flagship Journals

Author

Listed:
  • Arnold Reisman

    (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio)

  • Frank Kirschnick

    (The Siemens Co., Munich, Germany)

Abstract

Ackoff has decried the “devolution” of OR/MS, Corbett and Van Wassenhove have spoken of its “natural drift,” and a sociologist has described its “regression” as typifying that of other learned professions. To shed light on these views, we undertook a detailed survey of a segment of the OR/MS literature, with particular focus on the space in flagship journals devoted to theory on the one hand and applications on the other. While the literature of OR/MS contains many articles and texts with the word application in the title and the word data in the text, the definitions and uses of these terms are not precise. The claimed applications differ in degree and the actual data differ in kind. To encompass these different meanings we used a five-point scale to classify articles in the 1962 and 1992 volumes of Operations Research and Management Science and the 1972 and 1992 volumes of Interfaces . The resulting statistical analyses shed considerable light on the direction that OR/MS is taking and raise questions about its appropriateness. Finally, the paper raises fundamental questions about the direction that OR/MS should take and the roles that its journals should play in pursuing this direction.

Suggested Citation

  • Arnold Reisman & Frank Kirschnick, 1994. "The Devolution of OR/MS: Implications from a Statistical Content Analysis of Papers in Flagship Journals," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 42(4), pages 577-588, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:42:y:1994:i:4:p:577-588
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.42.4.577
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.42.4.577
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/opre.42.4.577?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. ManMohan S. Sodhi & Christopher S. Tang, 2008. "The OR/MS Ecosystem: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(2), pages 267-277, April.
    2. Chiang Kao, 2009. "The authorship and country spread of Operation Research journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 78(3), pages 397-407, March.
    3. S J E Taylor & T Eldabi & G Riley & R J Paul & M Pidd, 2009. "Simulation modelling is 50! Do we need a reality check?," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(1), pages 69-82, May.
    4. Merigó, José M. & Yang, Jian-Bo, 2017. "A bibliometric analysis of operations research and management science," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 37-48.
    5. Majdi Argoubi & Emna Ammari & Hatem Masri, 2021. "A scientometric analysis of Operations Research and Management Science research in Africa," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 1827-1843, September.
    6. Hajime Eto, 2002. "Authorship and citation patterns in Management Science in comparison with operational research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(3), pages 337-349, March.
    7. Arnold Reisman & Muhittin Oral, 2005. "Soft Systems Methodology: A Context Within a 50-Year Retrospective of OR/MS," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 164-178, April.
    8. Iszan Hana Kaharudin & Mohammad Syuhaimi Ab-Rahman & Roslan Abd-Shukor & Azamin Zaharim & Mohd Jailani Mohd Nor & Ahmad Kamal Ariffin Mohd Ihsan & Shahrom Md Zain & Afiq Hipni & Kamisah Osman & Ruszym, 2022. "How Does Supervision Technique Affect Research? Towards Sustainable Performance: Publications and Students from Pure and Social Sciences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-18, May.
    9. Sigifredo Laengle & José M. Merigó & Nikunja Mohan Modak & Jian-Bo Yang, 2020. "Bibliometrics in operations research and management science: a university analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 294(1), pages 769-813, November.
    10. Romero-Silva, Rodrigo & de Leeuw, Sander, 2021. "Learning from the past to shape the future: A comprehensive text mining analysis of OR/MS reviews," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    11. Maurice W. Kirby, 2007. "Paradigm Change in Operations Research: Thirty Years of Debate," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(1), pages 1-13, February.
    12. R J Ormerod, 2010. "Research contribution: Citation and content analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(4), pages 705-707, April.
    13. Hajime Eto, 2000. "Authorship and Citation Patterns in Operational Research Journals in Relation to Competition and Reform," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 47(1), pages 25-42, January.
    14. S Gattoufi & M Oral & A Kumar & A Reisman, 2004. "Content analysis of data envelopment analysis literature and its comparison with that of other OR/MS fields," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 55(9), pages 911-935, September.
    15. Meltem Denizel & Behlul Usdiken & Deniz Tuncalp, 2003. "Drift or Shift? Continuity, Change, and International Variation in Knowledge Production in OR/MS," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 51(5), pages 711-720, October.
    16. Richard Ormerod & Panagiota Delibassi & Clare Morris, 2000. "Research Strategies Used by OR/MS Workers: Extension of the Analysis of U.S. Flagship Journals to the United Kingdom," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 48(4), pages 527-534, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:42:y:1994:i:4:p:577-588. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.