International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management

Emerald Article: Considering connectivity in operations journals Niall Piercy, Nigel Caldwell, Nick Rich

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To cite this document: Niall Piercy, Nigel Caldwell, Nick Rich, (2009),"Considering connectivity in operations journals", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 58 Iss: 7 pp. 607 - 631 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17410400910989449 Downloaded on: 13-04-2012 References: This document contains references to 106 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 926 times.

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Considering connectivity in operations journals

Niall Piercy and Nigel Caldwell
School of Management, University of Bath, Bath, UK, and

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Received January 2008 Revised July 2008 January 2009 Accepted February 2009

Nick Rich
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the coverage of identied topics that represent three key themes of change in management practice. These themes, focused on the new interconnected modern business operation, consist of: cross-functional or process-based working, supply networks, and systems thinking. The paper seeks to examine the coverage of these themes in operations journals as a proxy to determine how well the academic operations community is adapting to the interconnected business world. Design/methodology/approach Two separate lists compiled to rank the quality of operations journals (one based in the UK, the other in the USA) are used to structure a search for keywords representing the identied connectivity themes in the identied top leading operations journals to determine how well the different topics are covered. The term operations is intended to refer to the related specialities of both operations management and operations research. Findings Findings indicate overall very weak coverage of the three connectivity topics. Systems thinking was best represented. However, this representation was not in operations management journals but predominantly operations research sources. Both supply network and cross-functional working were poorly represented as topics more generally. The implication of the ndings is that the operations literature has yet to embrace key issues of connectivity and greater attention should therefore be paid to these areas to better inform business practice. Originality/value To the best of ones knowledge no such study of this type or breadth has been previously conducted. Keywords Cross-functional integration, Systems theory, Supply Paper type Research paper

Introduction The performance and productivity of business organisations is in part guided by the research produced and published by the academic community. For operations management, the changes in business over the last 20 years revolve around topics such as globalisation, internet commerce and Japanese competition. These issues have created fundamental changes in the way in which management operates, most notably around the issue of connectivity. The contemporary practices of the rm cross over traditional boundaries inside and outside of the business. Internally, working across functional divisions has become necessary to deliver products and services; at the interface of the rm, the customer-supplier relationship has become more closely connected; while both practically and philosophically, the place of the organisation in the wider societal context has become intertwined. Leading thinkers within the eld of operations management since the 1960s have been calling for a reassessment of the narrow role of operations management in

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management Vol. 58 No. 7, 2009 pp. 607-631 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1741-0401 DOI 10.1108/17410400910989449

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practice and in research (Skinner, 1969, 1974; Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984). Contemporary management is increasingly focusing on the interconnections across the academic disciplines and practical, industrial activity. Such calls for reconguration have crossed traditional functional boundaries, encompassing marketing, operations and organisational literatures (Lummus and Vokurka, 1999; Brown, 1995, 1997; Rayport and Jaworski, 2001). After considering the broad trends towards integration, we assess these issues under three key headings. First, cross-functional organisation, such as: process thinking (Davenport, 1993; Holmberg, 2000) or post-bureaucratic organisation (Clegg, 1990) or integrated marketing (Webster, 1992). Second, management across the boundary of the organisation, such as: the deconstruction of vertical integration (Lummus and Vokurka, 1999) or supply network approaches (Novack et al., 1993; Cagliano et al., 2006). Third, systems thinking and holism (Checkland, 2002) as well as world-class systems models for operations management (Womack and Jones, 2003). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how well these issues of operational connectivity are being researched and practiced in the academic community. We conduct an analysis of leading operations management and operations research journals to assess the coverage these topics have received and as a result the impact on the productivity and performance of modern business organisations. Our research indicates a signicant absence of research addressing these issues in the mainstream academic operations literature. We discuss the implications for research and practice of this nding. Integrated management practice Across a wide range of topics, the connections between operational activities and the broader internal and external business environments have been discussed. The importance of connectivity was summarised by Luke (1997, p. 4):
We live in a world of complex interconnections. . . problems are interconnected crossing jurisdictional, organisational, functional and generational boundaries. . . No single person, agency or jurisdiction has sufcient power to develop and implement solutions unilaterally.

At the business level, it has been suggested that ultimately, organisational effectiveness is determined by the connection and combination of all organisational resources (Groler, 2007). The importance of connecting operations to a broader focus has been noted. In operations management there have been sporadic calls for operations departments in organisations to play a more strategic role in the organisation, better linking with other areas of the corporation (Skinner, 1969, 1974, 1986; Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984; Schonberger, 1986; Schroeder and Flynn, 2001). Schmenner (1986) highlighted the danger of an isolationary focus in business, proposing that unless businesses invested in strategies to connect internal operations management to other, external businesses, they would be at a signicant competitive disadvantage. Considering the needs of operations management, Rao (1989, p. 65) reports on a meeting of 50 academics and practitioners in operations management that identied key themes for the future. These explicitly focused on the connected nature of operations as the newest challenge for companies that wish to compete in the world market place. Taking a similar perspective, Novack et al. (1993, p. 31) prescribed:

The 1990s are the second decade of managerial recognition of the need to integrate the business functions which directly add value and impact competitiveness via physical and transaction activities.

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Further that there is a need for: the elimination of the narrow functional focus that has become the standard in todays academic and business environments (Novack et al., 1993, p. 32). Practical business is often concerned more with tactical re-ghting than strategic thinking on activities such as restructuring business, and on the connected forces underlying immediate issues of concern. Seminal research such as The Nature of Managerial Work (Mintzberg, 1973) very explicitly highlighted the frenetic nature of business practice with managers constantly active and focusing on many different problems. In such a role, management is concerned, with the immediate impact of time and decisions on the organisational bottom line, with those issues not of immediate concern or impact often delegated or dismissed. One consequence of these time constraints has been a lack of strategically connected thinking Skinner (1986) highlighted a productivity paradox of efciency focus over effectiveness strategy while McDonald and Wilson (2002, p. 27 ) comment:
Most boards are spending too much of their valuable time on internal operational efciency (doing things right) at the expense of external operational effectiveness (doing the right thing).

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The linkages between specic operational tasks is noted by Montoya-Torres (2006), who highlights that even issues that would be theoretically considered as interconnected and inseparable (such as facility layout and material handling systems), are often isolated in practice. Novack et al. (1993) highlighted the benets in practice pursuing cross-functional integration across areas (such as operations and logistics) as these activities are interconnected in the delivery of products and services to the customer. Key issues revolve around facility design and layout, distribution network design, inventory and capacity management. However, they note that in practice, most activities remain compartmentalised and managed independently and there is a need to rethink the conceptual foundation of these activities so they may be better connected. Beyond these basic tasks, to achieve the benets of world class concepts such as exible manufacturing, Boer and Krabbendam (1992/1993) identied there was still a need for a much better connection between separated areas of operational production, such as material handling, storage, information systems, operational processes, people and organisational context. A continuing body of research has focused on aspects of world class concepts. A key part of such approaches has been a focus on connecting together the internal and external parts of the organisation (Womack and Jones, 1994, 1996). Issues have included alignment of the external supply chain, external operating environment, internal strategy, technological and human resources together in a single analysis (Hui, 2004) as well as specic tools to assist in integrating different viewpoints, such as quality-function-deployment (Partovi, 1999, 2001). The implementation of world class approaches in the West have been investigated by several researchers. They have observed that implementations have tended to proceed with an isolationary or partial focus on improvement, changing parts of the system rather than moving towards system-wide change, precluding the real step-change necessary for world class performance (Vuppalapati et al., 1995; Cua et al., 2001, 2006).

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The current interest in corporate social responsibility and environmental aspects of production also resonates the theme of connectedness across operations. For instance, Klassen (1993) highlighted an urgent need to link operations management and environmental issues to try to better connect internal manufacturing, external environmental, market and government based interactions, and proposed signicant nancial benets for companies that could better connect across these areas. Klassen and Vachon (2003) extended this work, highlighting the opportunity to share information and new technologies for environmental benet by connecting operations to the supply base. When considering the decision-making process for environmental investments, researchers have noted the need to take decisions not in isolation but in the context of connections to other investments, technologies and operational systems, thus achieving nancial benets of integrated decision making (Klassen, 2000; Kocabasoglu et al., 2007). Industrial practices may not aid or support better connection in reality. Considering the range and variety of national and international standards for operational performance, Fabbe-Costes et al. (2006) highlighted that the many different standards that had developed independently were creating conicts, with a clear need for the evolution of interconnected standards to better support operational effectiveness. At the global level, Fraering and Prasad (1999) noted a need to integrate operations, international business, marketing and purchasing together, arguing that better connection across business areas could improve the effectiveness and cost of decisions such as facility placement, supplier selection, diversication or divesture by multi-national business. The academic inuence The role of the academic community in supporting connectivity, or indeed in shaping industrial practice more generally, is unclear. Pettigrew (2001, p. 61) proposed:
If the duty of the intellectual in society is to make a difference, the management research community has a long way to go to realize its potential.

The ability of business schools to focus on connected practice may be impaired by their own functional structures, Deshpande (1999, p. 166) comments:
It is ironic that universities have become the last bastion of intellectual siloism. . . business problems know no functional parent.

The notion of operations connectivity is not inherently new, however, both early and contemporary commentators have noted a failure to address this issue. For instance, Cummings (1977) highlighted that despite common interests in improvement across operations management and behavioural sciences, seldom do they join forces in stimulating one another in collaborative research or even in intellectual interchange (Cummings, 1977, p. 501). Cummings (1977) continues by highlighting the different perspectives of operations management and behavioural scientists specifying that while the former may view the production system as a key focus (with behavioural and motivational issues as sources of minimal importance in improvement), the reverse view is true from the behaviouralist perspective. Three decades later, contemporary improvement perspectives such as lean thinking (Womack and Jones, 1996) continue to be criticised for a similar failure to consider humanistic areas of design (Delbridge et al., 2000). More generally, Das et al. (2008) noted the inexplicable overlooking of the issue of humanistic elements of employee management in the operations management literature.

In the marketplace, changing requirements and increasingly variety-seeking customers have created a need to connect external market requirements to internal operational capability (Lowson, 2003; Klassen and Vachon, 2003). The connection between internal operations and supply partners has often not been made in both directions up and downstream from the focal organisation (Vandaele and Gemmel, 2007; Zsidisin and Ellram, 2001). Indeed, Cagliano et al. (2006) note that despite attention on the supply chain within the operations management eld, two separate schools of research have become established one focusing on improving the organisations interface with other businesses (through the supply chain) with the other, focusing on internal operational improvement activities (through operations management). They highlight that the vital connection between these areas remains absent in the literature, noting that a deep investigation of the linkages between these two areas is still missing (Cagliano et al., 2006, p. 282). Information technology systems have been proposed as a key way of connecting both across internal organisational boundaries and also outwards to customers and suppliers (Hitt et al. 1998). Considering the role of technology, Gates (1999, p. xx) prioritises a key feature of the digital age as the speed of business and of information within and across companies, describing a digital nervous system as processes that enable a company to perceive and react to its environment. Such inter-organisational interconnectivity, where fully implemented, has been proposed as a major assistance in information sharing (Hitt et al., 1998), capable of generating new ideas and cost savings (Malhotra et al., 2005), and creating a key barrier to market entry (Clark et al., 2001). Despite these potential benets, a fragmented approach to information systems has been noted, both in practice (Hong et al., 2001) and also in academia where Padman and Zhu (2006, p. 134) describe a disparate range of knowledge sources in the operations management literature on the subject, with a need to integrate research to better understand organisational priorities and constraints. While the focus of this paper is on academic output, measured in terms of journal publication as a proxy for research impact, it is worth noting the role of education in supporting connected thinking. The general failures of business education have been noted for some time. As early as the late 1960s commentators described that business education was generally perceived in the wrong way at the top, managed in the wrong way . . . and taught in the wrong way in the business schools. (Skinner, 1969, p. 137). Recent research has echoed these views: Ulrich (2005, p. 269) notes long standing criticism about the business curriculum and its pedagogy with little evidence that curricula and pedagogy have changed over time while Davis and Botkin (1994, p. 90) note that course materials have been upgraded and some class offerings have changed, but the 1960s product is still quite recognisable in the 1990s. More apocryphally, leading scholar Henry Mintzberg has derided the state of business education, declaring that new MBA graduates should come with warnings that they are not t to manage on their foreheads (Mintzberg, 2004). In education, the specic need for greater connection between operations management and other areas of the organisation and business practice has been repeatedly highlighted (Piercy, 2008; Piercy and Brandon-Jones, 2008). For instance, Rao (1989) described a fundamental need for operations educators to focus more on the cross-functional and integrative nature of operational work to better prepare students for jobs in the operations eld.

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Research in operations Several researchers have considered the coverage of different topics within operations over time to set a research agenda for the subject. An early review by Chase (1980) found that operations research had tended to focus on micro-problems (such as scheduling or inventory control) and did not take an integrative approach. At the same period Miller and Graham (1981) called for a greater need to engage with scholars in other elds and to take a more holistic approach. Nearly a decade later, Amoako-Gympah and Meredith (1989, p. 250) found that although the topics being considered within operations were changing (such as greater attention to services or technology innovation): the overall emphasis and orientation appear to be the same. Expanding on this, the research team called for a new research agenda for operations, with a greater emphasis on integrative and cross-disciplinary research (Meredith et al., 1989). Recent examination of research in operations management has demonstrated some progress in this area. Pannirselvam et al. (1999) found some evidence of greater integration of research with operations management when surveying research topic coverage in major journals. However, they noted the very slow progress made in this area and the dominance of a traditional focus, both in terms of topic coverage and methodology within operations publications. Despite the importance of integration and connection noted above and in some areas of the literature, such a focus would appear to represent the exception rather than the rule. If there is a failure to focus research and published outputs on connected themes, then this would severely limit business ability to realise improvement. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how well issues of operations connectivity are being researched and practiced in the academic community. Academic business journals should be key sources for managers needing to address the challenges of connectivity, presenting new approaches and ideas formed and honed within the new connected business environment. To achieve our aim of investigating connectivity in the operations academic community, an analysis of leading operations journals has been performed. This analysis is based around three key topics for connectivity. These specic topics are now identied and discussed. Research focus The broad analysis of literature covered above has suggested connectivity or interconnectivity as an important theme for the contemporary management of operations. To assess how well operations academics have covered this theme it is necessary to clarify specic interconnected activities that are relevant for practical operations. To conduct a broad analysis of connectivity, three topics were chosen: interconnectivity within the rm (cross-functional or process based working); interconnectivity at the interface of the rm with other businesses (the supply network); and, interconnectivity with the wider context or environment (systems thinking). These three topics cover a wide range of issues across a broad focus of activity, intra-organisationally, inter-organisationally and at the macro-organisation level. Before analysing the coverage that these topics have received in the operations literature, we outline the background, relevance and importance of these concepts. We then seek to address the question: Have operations academics reected the

contemporary transition to an interconnected organisational reality in terms of: supply networks, systems thinking and process or cross-functional working? 1. Systems thinking The origins of systems thinking are well outside the boundaries of management theory or practice, being grounded in the work of the German physicist Koehler (1924), and the biologist von Bertalanffy. Ackoff (1969), expanding the work of von Bertalanffy in applying systems thinking to the organisational setting, saw this approach as a means for holistically conceptualising the organisation. Contemporary management commentator Peter Senge has described systems thinking as the fth vital discipline for building learning organisations (in addition to personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning) (Senge, 1990; Senge et al., 1999). Continuing this sentiment, Wolak (1993, p. 19) comments that Every organisation is a system. For systems theorists, the system is greater than the sum of its parts and the role of management is to design the most effective form of system with which to compete. The term system concerns a unitary whole, such as an organisation, which is comprised of parts (departments or teams), and which works within a supra-system which in the case of modern business is the supply network or chain (Kast and Rosenzweig, 1981). The importance of systems thinking for operations was highlighted in the late 1960s when Skinner (1969) called for an integrated approach with the alignment of the operations (management) sub-system to meet the corporate needs of the rm. This view stood in opposition to traditional corporate approaches which had focused managerial attention on micro-level activities such as the design of work tasks, production lines or modelled material ows, each task treated as independent of each other. Isolating these tasks from each other and from the business in which the sub-systems were nested prevents optimizing the business system as a whole. Only when all areas of operation are considered within a single system design can the entire operation be designed and managed in the most effective manner. The systems-wide approaches of Skinner (1969) have proven popular in theory but difcult to operate in practice. Studying systems applications, Holweg (2002, p. 40 ) concludes:
The underlying systems thinking in applied management and organisational research is hardly questioned, most criticism centres around the fact, that systems concepts have not been applied successfully.

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For operations, systems thinking has predominantly been applied in the areas of computational and quantitative operational research rather than operations management. Applications of systems thinking have included modelling decision making (Simon, 1960), systems analysis (Krippendorf, 1971), systems dynamics (Forrester, 1961) and soft systems methodology (Checkland, 2002). In an era of global competition and increasingly value-demanding customers, the need to operate in the most efcient and effective manner is essential (Womack and Jones, 2005). Seeking efciency gains through improvements in specic sub-system level activities (such as improving the speed of a machine press or making store clerks greet customers with a smile) will always fall short of the possibilities available from optimizing the operational system as a whole.

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2. Process and cross-functional thinking In common with systems thinking, process research and analysis is concerned with holistic approaches to management. Emerging in the 1970s and gaining prominence in the 1980s, process thinking has been proposed as the antithesis of functional compartmentalization (Davenport, 1993). The contemporary business structure still reects the ideals of bureaucratic and compartmentalised management identifying and breaking down tasks into like-groups such as marketing, operations, human-resources or nance. Bringing together individuals into common groups is a valuable method of improving efciency, however, the delivery of products or services to the end customer will always cut across functional boundaries. Co-operation, collaboration and partnership across functions is therefore necessary to ensure products and services are delivered in the right way, at the right time and in the right place (Hausman et al., 2002; Fitzsimmons et al., 1991; Davenport, 1993; Deshpande, 1999; Min and Mentzer, 2000; Christopher, 1992; Ellinger, 2000; Ruekert and Walker, 1987; Chopra et al., 2004). There is a need to focus on the whole process of delivery, across functions, in seeking to manage and improve customer fullment:
The process of satisfying customer demand begins with inbound supply and continues through manufacturing or assembly operations and onwards by way of distribution to the customer. Logically the way to manage this process is as a complete system, not by fragmenting it into watertight sections (Christopher, 1998, p. 220).

Cross-functional collaboration has been identied as vital to ensure customer service (Ruekert and Walker, 1987); necessary for quality improvement (Kano, 1993); a key enabler for communication sharing in the organisation (Chopra et al., 2004); needed to ensure resources are correctly dispersed around the organisation (Hausman et al., 2002); and a key part of the new product development process (Fitzsimmons et al., 1991). Linkages between operations and other areas of the organisation are a vital interface in companies (Berry et al., 1991 p296/7). Where companies continue to manage functionally separated units in isolation from each other, conict, political in-ghting, poor communication and ultimately failures in product and service delivery will remain inevitable (Voss, 1989; Holmberg, 2000). To generate real improvements in the business, the entire business must be working together (Porter, 1985). Research has highlighted that relationships between operations management and other functional areas are in practice very poor, and in academic work under-examined (Shapiro, 1977; Berry et al., 1991, 1995; Hausman et al., 2002). A failure to engage with other functional groups and departments at the strategic level, when product and service delivery cut across all functions, is a major short-coming for the organisation and for the management of operations. 3. Supply networks In dening supply networks as the connected transformation processes of multiple companies from raw materials to end product we describe a specic form of network, that is, the supply or (industrial) network. Other networks include: social networks (Brass and Burkhardt, 1992), innovation networks (Oliver and Blakeborough, 1998), or learning networks (Knight, 2002). The concept of supply has been dened at a strategic level in terms of networks as:

. . . an holistic approach to managing operations within collaborative inter-organisation networks, allowing the formulation and implementation of rational strategies for creating, stimulating, capturing and satisfying end customer demand through innovation of products, services, supply network structures and infrastructures, in a global, dynamic environment (Harland et al., 1999).

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The critical theme that links supply networks to connectivity is that the real locus of value creation in the network approach is not inside the individual rm, but across the relationships and nodes in the rms supply network (Harland et al., 1999). The interest in the importance of the network of suppliers grew from the 1980s due to the forces of increased dependence on third party suppliers (as corporations sought to reverse previous trends of vertical integration), increases in competition on a global scale (especially with the growth of just-in-time approaches) and a realization of the value of optimizing the whole (supply network) rather than just the single business (Lummus and Vokurka, 1999). Across the body of supply literature, by focusing on the creation of value we can trace the development of supply networks from two distinct starting points. First, work that originated broadly in the logistical area and which adopts a supply chain management approach, focused on the supply chain as a network of organisations involved in processes and activities through upstream and downstream linkages (Oliver and Webber, 1982; Christopher, 1992). Second, a stream of supply network literature originates from a marketing perspective which investigates the social interactions in buyer-seller relationships, where both parties to a relationship change through interaction over time (Hakansson, 1982; Ford, 1990). The heritages of the two schools have distinct effects on their contribution. Consideration of the marketing led perspectives on supply networks is outside the general scope of operations literature and this paper (nevertheless the arguments that operations should consider these issues remains valid). Closer to operations management is the focus on supply networks as a series of inter-organisational physical logistical and informational exchanges. Operations management has tended to view the development of supply chain management as a separate area outside the consideration of mainstream operations literature or research (Harland et al., 2006). This extends the criticisms of operations literature for taking too narrow a view of operations as a functional sub-system within the rm (see above) with the need to view a single rm system as part of a broader supply network, value chain or system of value creators. Research methodology To assess how well the general ideas and ideals of the three topics of connectivity have been covered in the academic eld of operations, an assessment of research published in leading operations journals was conducted. Owing to the presence of research on the management of operations in both the distinct operations management and operations research communities, this assessment included journals in both the areas of operations management and operations research. It was necessary to identify a pool of journals to investigate. The lack of consensus in the academic community on the ranking of academic journals posed a problem in identifying a representative sample of high quality journals for investigation. In academia such determinations have historically proven contentious both in content (with academic disagreements over journal scores) and even in construct (Baty, 2005).

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Despite this, many sources of journal rankings are available, for instance the List of lists available from Harzing.com or the Association of Business Schools Journal Quality Ranking. To ensure a comprehensive sampling of journals when there is no single determination on which journals represent good quality research, two separate sources of journal rankings were obtained. One list was drawn from the researchers own UK based university and the other from a research study constructed by a survey of faculty at a top US based schools. The use of two different lists, one from the USA and one from the UK, both of which are based on the opinions and rankings from senior academics in multiple institutions, should provide a relatively reliable basis of journal quality assessment. Our aim was not to generate a consolidated or denitive measure of journal quality, it was to sample a broad range of operations journals that are generally considered to be of good quality. The use of two reputable lists from the UK and USA was therefore considered a robust enough process to achieve this aim. 1. The American list The American list was constructed by The Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business in the University of Pittsburgh in 2000 (Olson, 2000). The list was obtained from the web site of Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society (www.mgmt.purdue.edu/centers/msom/home.htm). This association is acknowledged as a leading society for the study and practice of operations management (Agrawal, 2002). Such an identication validates MSOM as a credible source of operations knowledge and would support the use of their ndings to evaluate the quality of operations journals. This list contained a selection 28 operations journals proven through research to be considered of high quality. Olson (2000) reports on this research process: members of operations management and research areas at the Katz Business School developed a list of 100 journals which were then assessed by faculty. Those journals that were highly rated by three or more members of the faculty were included in a new list which contained 28 titles. This list was used as the basis for a postal survey of faculty at 24 top American business schools (ranked by the US News and World Report: Best Graduate Schools 2002 Edition (US News, 2002)). This survey asked academics in the general areas associated with operations management to rank journal quality. Academic specialties represented included operations and technology management, decision sciences, quantitative statistics, operations research, management science, information and operations management, operations and manufacturing, technology and innovation; and, manufacturing. Over two thirds of respondents were from the general area of operations management. The end list represents the comprehensive views of American academics as to the standing of operations journals. The ranking of journals from the Olson (2000) study are provided in Table I with an explanation of the grading system shown in Table II. The numerical ranking exercise was translated into letter based grading which we have aligned with the comparable equivalent grade in the second ranking list used. From the nal total of 28 journals in the Olson (2000) list, seven were excluded from further study as they were unavailable in the research archives available to the researchers (indicated with a star in Table I). 2. The British list The British list was constructed by the research administrators at University of Bath School of Management by compiling lists of academics rankings of journal quality from

Olson (2000) rank American Journal of Mathematical and Management Sciences a Annals of Operations Research Computers and Industrial Engineering Computers and Operations Research Decision Sciences Decision Support Systems European Journal of Operational Research IEEE Transactions a INFORMS Journal on Computing Interfaces a International Journal of Production Economics International Journal of Production Research Journal of Operations Management Journal of the American Statistical Association a Journal of the Operational Research Society Management Science Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Mathematical and Computer Modeling Mathematical Programming Mathematics of Operations Research Naval Research Logistics a Networks a Omega Operations Research Operations Research Letters Production and Operations Management SIAM Review a Transportation Science International Journal of Logistics Management International Journal of Operations & Production Management International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management Journal of Business Logistics Journal of International Supply and Purchasing a Journal of Manufacturing Systems Journal of Production Planning and Control a Transport Planning and Technology a Transport Policy Transportation a Transportation Journal Transportation Research a B2 B B B B B B B B B B B B A2 B A A2 B A2 A A2 B B2 A B B A2 B Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed Not placed

Bath School of Management (2004) rank Not placed 4 Not placed 4 5 4 4 5 Not placed 4 3 5 4 5 4 5 2 Not placed 4 4 2 4 4 5 3 3 Not placed 3 4 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

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Note: a Indicates a journal excluded from the nal research due to limited or non-availability to the research team

Table I. Journals selected and cross-list ranking

leading Universities (Bath School of Management, 2004) This list incorporates rankings from the Association of Business Schools and Harzing.com lists (such as rankings by Warwick, Imperial, Craneld, Aston Business Schools and Citation Impact Factors) while also adding input from London Business School and data on RAE submissions in

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Olson (2000) Numerical rank To 1.49 1.5 to 2.49 2.5 to 3.49 B 3.5 to 4.49 B 4.5 to 5.49 B 2 5.5 to 6.49 C 6.5 C or lower

Assigned grade Very top journals A Grade A 2 Grade B Grade B Grade B 2 Grade C Grade C Grade

Bath School of Management (2004) list Assigned gradea Grade explanationa 5 5 4 4 4 3 2/1 Top international Top international High international High international High international National Sub-national

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Table II. Ranking key approximate alignment or ranking scales

Note: a Grade attributions and explanations based on the UK Research Assessment Exercise 2001 grading system

2001. These source schools represent those highly rated in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise in 2001 (which measures the quality of academic output to determine subject area status). The Bath list also included Social Science Citation Impact Factors and Financial Times rankings for their list of the top 40 journals. The list had been compiled to provide a guide of journal quality and covers some 1,142 journals across all management areas. Considering only those journals covering operations management or research, the list included 23 out of 28 on the Olson (2000). It also contained 12 journals identied as of high international quality that did not appear on the Olson (2000) list. Five journals from this list of 12 were excluded from study as they were unavailable in the research archives available to the researchers. There were differences in the quality ranks of different journals across the two lists, however, there was no identiable pattern in the discrepancies of journals considered of top quality. The differences observed in the two lists validate the decision to rely on multiple sources of journal rankings for this research. An alignment of the ranking systems used in each list is provided in Table II. Search process Having determined a representative group of highly ranked operations journals, a keyword search was conducted across a convenience sample of those journals readily accessible electronically by the researchers. Due to the academic overlap between publications in general operations management and operations research, as well as the presence of both operations management and research publications in the journal lists used, the search process encompassed both of these areas. The term operations journals is used within this paper to describe both journals in operations management and operations research. To search for the three topics under investigation (systems thinking, cross functional or process working and supply networks), for each topic two sets of representative phrases were identied to form the basis of keyword searches across the research archive. The use of two phrases for each topic helps to allow for any variation in phrasing that may occur in scholarly work. Even where the rst direct phrase is slightly mis-matched (resulting in no results being reported by the database), a second phrase, identied for its general use to represent the same construct is present. These phrases were selected by the researchers based on the previous review of the literature on each topic. The search phrases used are described in Table III.

The set of journals identied represented a convenience sample comprising those journals accessible electronically in three leading business databases: ProQuest ABI Inform, Science Direct and Ingenta. Searches were performed for these phrases for each journal identied in the ranking lists. Searches looked for each phrase in article titles, abstracts, article keywords (to discover if the topic was the main focus of a paper) and citations (to determine if any source material or underlying notion of the connected construct was referenced) across the range of dates for which access was available. Full text searches were not conducted for several reasons: we were only interested in papers using one of the research areas as a key theme, as such it would be mentioned in the abstract or title, rather than making a passing reference in the full text (which could result in a false-report in the search process). Second, full text access was inconsistent both across the comparative range of journals as a whole and across the full date range within a single journal availability. Where journals were present in ABI Inform the total number of articles available was calculated. For those present in the other two databases an estimate was made based on number of articles per volume, volumes per year and years of availability. To search for coverage of all three topics in a single article, or for any two of the three topics, a second search process was conducted using all possible combinations of the six keyword phrases. This secondary search processed yielded no articles at all covering all three topics together. The results and ndings discussed here, therefore relate to the primary search process which identied coverage of the each of the three topics in isolation. Results and ndings The results are presented in Table IV. This provides a breakdown of the number of article searches, absolute number containing the relevant research topic and a relative per cent of articles covering the topic compared to the sample searched. The total percentages of each topic have been summed to give a total percent of articles in the journal covering all three research themes, with the table listed in order from most (i.e. best coverage) to least (i.e. worst coverage). Systems thinking coverage There was greater coverage of systems thinking in the operations research journals than of the other two topics investigated. Around three times the number of articles were reported for systems thinking compared to process or cross functional thinking or supply networks. Examining the type of sources covering systems thinking, a clear pattern emerges - the highest number of articles are present in the those journals specializing in quantitative, mathematical modelling subjects (Journal of the
Construct Systems thinking Cross-functional and process-based working Supply network Search phrases Systems thinking Systems theory Cross-functional Process thinking Supply network Network theory

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Table III. Connectivity constructs and search phrases

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Int. J. of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 2 Int. J. of Operations & Production Management 2 International Journal of Logistics Management 2 Journal of Operations Management 1 Journal of the Operational Research Society 1 Computers and Industrial Engineering a Omega a Decision Support Systems 1 International Journal of Production Economics a European Journal of Operational Research a Journal of Business Logistics b Mathematical and Computer Modelling a Journal of Manufacturing Systems b Manufacturing and Service Operations Management a International Journal of Production Research a A A A S A S S S S S A S A A I 5 B 2 A2 4 1993-2006 1999-2006 1997-2006 B 1988-2006 4 1987-2006 602 2,500 587 206 1,500 4 B 1977-2006 6,000 32 2 14 2 0 4 3 B 1991-2006 1,500 3 0.200 0.533 0.332 0.560 0.341 0.000 0.267 4 4 B B2 B 1976-2006 1973-2006 1985-2006 1,000 1,500 1,000 3 9 8 0.300 0.600 0.800 4 B 1971-2006 4,027 45 1.117 1 11 4 2= 13 6 10 5 9 12 0 4 4 2 9 3 2 0 1 1 0 4 B 1980-2006 1,000 8 0.800 2= 3 4 1998-2002 138 0 0 2 1.449 0.300 0 0.400 0.267 0.200 0.600 0.050 0.332 0 0.170 0.485 0 5 1980-2006 1,433 5 0.349 8 12 0.837 3 1 8 6 9 10 4 14 7 13 5 4 1979-2006 792 4 0.505 7 7 0.884 2 6 6 0 2 5 5 3 0 0 10 0 1 0 0 2

Table IV. Major journal keyword search results

Origin rank Database 1 2 Date range Total articles Systems thinking Jnl No. % Rank Cross-functional or process Jnl No. % Rank Supply networks Jnl No. % Rank Total articles within journal No. % 0.758 0.419 0 0.200 0.124 0.500 0.200 0 0 0.167 0 0.040 0 0 0.133 1 3 5= 10 2 5= 7 14 8= 17 23 2 13 50 12 16 10 12 45 4 15 3 1 2.146 1.605 1.449 1.300 1.242 1.200 1.067 1.000 0.800 0.750 0.664 0.600 0.511 0.485 6 0.400 (continued)

Total articles within journal No. %

Journal A A S S A A A A A A A A S 4 3 4 A2 B 2002-2006 1999-2006 1993-2006 289 0 0 252 0 0 250 0 0 49,326 161 0.326 B 1999-2004 243 0 0 4 B 1999-2006 810 0 0 0 0 4 A 1976-2006 1373 1 0.073 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 60 0.122 3 4 5 5 B A A 1981-2006 1987-2006 1954-2006 1971-2006 1,500 572 15183 2,086 1 0 17 1 0.067 0 0.112 0.048 17 14 19 0 1 6 0 0 0.175 0.040 0 11 15 2 0 2 1 0 0 0 4 B 1974-2006 1,000 1 0.100 15 0 0 1 3 5 B B 1998-2006 1972-2006 256 1,727 0 1 0 0.058 18 0 3 0 0.174 12 1 1 0.391 0.058 0.100 0.133 0 0.013 0.048 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 48 0.097

Origin rank Database 1 2 Date range 4 12 11 8= 15 13 Total articles

Systems thinking Jnl No. % Rank

Cross-functional or process Jnl No. % Rank Supply networks Jnl No. % Rank 1 5 2 3 1 25 2 1 0 0

0.391 0.290 0.200 0.200 0.175 0.165 0.096 0.073 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 269 0.545

Production and Operations Management a Decision Sciences a Computers and Operations Research a Operations Research Letters a Transportation Journal b Management Science a Operations Research a Mathematics of Operations Research 1 Annals of Operations Research a INFORMS Journal on Computing a Mathematical Programming a Transportation Science a Transport Policy b Total articles Percent total articles on subject

Notes: a Olson listed journals; b Additional journals from Bath list; Journals presented in ranked order by total percent of articles on all three topics (highest rst). Source: A ABI Inform, I Ingenta, S Science Direct

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Operational Research Society, European Journal of Operational Research, Mathematical and Computer Modelling and Management Science). However, it should be noted that many journals specializing in quantitative, mathematical or modelling subjects provide little coverage of systems (Operations Research Letters, Computers and Operations Research, Operations Research, Mathematics of Operations Research) while others provide no coverage at all (Mathematical Programming, Annals of Operations Research). Moving from the operations research journals to the operations management mainstream, there is no consistent pattern of coverage. Some journals provide better coverage of systems thinking than other interconnected research themes (Journal of Operations Management, Omega, International Journal of Production Research). In others, systems thinking is less well covered than process thinking or supply networks (International Journal of Operations & Production Management and the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, International Journal of Production Economics). Cross-functional and process thinking coverage The results for process or cross functional thinking showed far less coverage than systems thinking and also far more journals which showed no coverage at all (13 from 28 journals reported no process/cross-functional articles within the samples taken). Many of the modelling or computational journals that demonstrated good results for systems coverage reported poor coverage for process and cross functional thinking. Whereas the Journal of the Operational Research Society had the best coverage of systems, it had none at all of process and cross functional thinking. Similarly, Mathematical and Computer Modelling, with good systems coverage had no process coverage. Those journals with the best coverage, were three of the four journals with the best coverage of all topics combined the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, the International Journal of Operations & Production Management and the International Journal of Logistics Management. Highly regarded journals such as the Journal of Operations Management (the other journal with the coverage of all three topics), Management Science and Decision Sciences had lower levels of coverage. Supply network coverage The nal of the three connectivity-based topics represents the issue of supply chains or networks the interconnections between different organisations as they work together. The coverage of supply networks in the operations research journals reviewed shows supply network theory as the least well covered of the three connectivity themes. Despite this, the quantitative or modelling based journals report very good coverage of supply networks across journals such as the Journal of the Operational Research Society, European Journal of Operational Research, Operations Research Letters. Despite showing greater coverage of systems thinking overall, these journals demonstrated greater interest in supply networks than in process or cross functional thinking. Supply network research, focused on the interface between organisations, often involves consideration of issues such as logistics, transportation and distribution. Some logistics journals have shown very good coverage of supply networks (International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, International Journal of Logistics Management). Conversely, other logistics journals show no coverage at all

(Journal of Business Logistics). In fact transportation journals on the whole show no coverage of supply network approaches. Operations management journals such as the International Journal of Operations & Production Management and the Journal of Operations Management both provide some coverage of supply networks although not at the same levels as process or cross-functional or systems thinking approaches. Discussion For any analysis, consistency is key. In our data, taking the overall percentage of journal space dedicated to all three connectivity topics combined, the highest rated logistics journals (International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, International Journal of Logistics Management) and highest rated operations management journals (International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Journal of Operations Management) display the best overall coverage of the three topics. To reinforce this correlation between rank and coverage, the leading operations research journals (Journal of the Operational Research Society) sits just below these four, thus the top ve journals in terms of topic coverage include those ranked as top quality in their respective specialities. It is encouraging that those journals regarded as of the highest standing were those that offered best coverage of the three themes of connectivity when combined. More importantly for the eld of operations management this nding suggests these leading academic journals are making a contribution to leading the way into the new research area of connectivity despite the as yet relatively low percent of their space dedicated to this new area. In terms of distinct ndings by theme, one inuencing variable must be the length of time for which a topic has been studied. Here the greater coverage (by a factor of three) of systems thinking is perhaps unsurprising. The rst work specically investigating systems moved from science into management nearly half a century ago while the topics of process or cross-functional thinking and supply networks have only much more recently received attention in the literature. At the same time coverage in the more operations research focused journals was not ubiquitous, it was concentrated, since not all published on systems thinking. In the more mainstream operations management journals the analysis was similar, coverage was not universal across journals. Coverage of process and cross-functional issues was also very weak across the operations research journals as a whole. Our interpretation is that the focus of such journals on systems or models may be limited to consideration of systems within functions, or specic foci of research, rather than across the organisation as a whole. Overall the limited range of articles covering this topic, suggests that a broad acknowledgement of the importance of cross-functional or process related issues has yet to be realized. The lack of coverage of supply networks in the operations management literature may reect a combination of contributors preference for specialized supply journals, equally, operations management journals may not consider supply networks as a key part of the operations management agenda. Within each connectivity theme there were patterns of adoption that are worthy of note the dominance of operations research journals covering systems; the operations management journals best covering process or cross-functional literature; while within supply networks, operations research and logistics journals provided most insight. As previously noted the mathematical and modelling pedigree of systems thinking make it

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unsurprising that it is these journals which best cover the topic, however, the low levels of coverage within operations management journals suggest that systems thinking has yet to make it into the main-stream of operations. Conversely, the dominance of process thinking within the main operations management journals suggest that in this area operations management is leading the way. However, the topic itself has a long way to go to engage a wider audience within different areas of academic specialty such as operations research or logistics, both key areas when considering the whole process of cross-functional working. Finally, the dominance of operations research and logistics journals in covering supply networks is not unexpected given the inter-organisational nature of logistics managing (moving products from one company to another) and operations research (modelling the ows of these products) but the lower levels of coverage of supply within operations management journals does suggest a continuing lack of coverage in the general operations areas of supply approaches as opposed to coverage of internal organisational issues. The comparative level of coverage of each theme was different, with systems generating more coverage than processes while supply networks received less attention than both. The longest established of the three concepts, it is unsurprising that systems has received most attention, however, the dominance of modelling journals in covering this area provides a clear picture that systems thinking coverage has been about modelling applications specically rather than more general consideration of organisational or operations management systems as a whole, generally poor coverage in non-modelling journals of systems thinking. The nding that supply network thinking was the least covered of the three topics is more surprising with the concepts supply network management being discussed in industry and specialised supply journals for several decades their poor coverage in operations journals may highlight a triple problem of academic operations practice failing to keep up with industrial or practitioner trends, that supply chain research is being limited to presentation in specialised supply chain journals rather than the wider operations or managerial audiences and that operations specialists remain more internally orientated, looking within the organisation rather than in connections across organisations. The coverage of cross-functional thinking and process approaches being above the level of supply networks is an encouraging nding for operations academia, suggesting that the topic is receiving coverage in the literature with academia potentially leading a topic of research. The nding that no combination of two or the combination of all three topics in any journal demonstrates the broader lack of consideration of the issues of connectivity in the operations community. Work on systems, process or supply is all underpinned by a common, integrative perspective. It is disappointing that areas of research on connectivity, remain disconnected from each other. Conclusions The ndings from the survey of major operations journals provides several distinct points of interest. First, the research demonstrated a generally low level of coverage of the connectivity topics in the operations journals as a whole, with just over a half of one percent of all articles within the journals covering these themes. In considering some of the previously important developments in the management of operations (for instance, the rise of mass production, scientic management or more recently Japanese style management practice), the role of academia in these areas appears to have been to

describe and replicate industrially dened best practice rather than pioneering new ideas academically. The role of academia appears to have been limited to description and the proposal of replicating extension to new areas. On the one hand the low level of coverage of key connectivity topics within the academic journals would suggest that the academic literature is failing to lead new approaches in this area. If business looks to academia and research to generate new insights and new practices to allow the company to effectively compete in the highly competitive global marketplace, the absence of coverage of important topics such as supply network, cross-functional working and systems thinking, is troubling for the academic community. The importance of connectivity in the modern business world is well established. While there are some indications that the operations eld is addressing this issue in a limited way, with regards to the specic themes discussed here, there is a need to encourage greater research on connectivity within operations. For operations management and research to truly lead the practice of the management of operations in the industrial context, bridging the gap between disciplines, crossing functional and organisational divides and establishing new approaches that support holistic viewpoints will all be important. Sharing knowledge across academic boundaries may be key to this aim. Approaches to this end may include: special issues within existing journals to focus on inter-organisational or inter-environmental connectivity; the establishment of new journals to focus specically on the interconnectivity of management practice; special sessions within operations conferences to engage academics from non-operational backgrounds or conversely introducing more specic operations sessions within general management conferences.

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Limitations This research sought to investigate how well the general topic of connectivity was covered in operations journals by searching for three topics (systems, process and network approaches). Two phrases were identied to form the search parameters for each of these three topics across those journals available online. Overall we are condent that the results reported here meaningfully capture the coverage of connectivity in operations. The authors were, however, guided by practical constraints in limiting the search to two phrases. The use of a greater number of phrases may have yielded different results. Similarly, the research literatures reviewed in identifying these phrases were used to inform the choice of synonyms, however, different phrases may have provided for different insights. While the research reported here identies the coverage of the connectivity topics, the use of different time frames available from the academic journals online back catalogues makes it difcult to identify trends or changes in coverage over time. Unfortunately, the different speed with which journals are making their back-issues electronically available makes it difcult to establish a uniform time frame. The investigation sought to review leading operations journals. While two well-respected lists were used to frame this process, the many different lists of journal rankings means that different lists could have identied journals that were omitted in this study.

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Research directions The future of operations management and research is dependent on those who practice and research it their willingness and ability to engage will ultimately determine the progression of the discipline and determine whether the academic community in this area plays any useful role in shaping management practice to drive forward organisational performance and productivity in the twenty-rst century. The research reported here has focused on academic journals as a measure of academic output. Further research into the changing research agenda of the academic community may allow us to look forward over the next three to ve years. Investigation of the topics of doctoral and masters dissertations in operations elds, as well as the coverage of topics at academic operations conferences could provide some insight into the changes currently taking place in the operations eld. Further research into the change in coverage of topics over time might also yield understanding of the increases (or decreases) taking place in certain topic coverage. Greater research is needed across all areas of interconnectivity identied in this paper, as is research that crosses over all three areas. Encouraging this within the academic community will require overcoming the barriers between academic specialities. In parallel, operations journals will need to be receptive to work that bridges into areas outside their traditional focus.

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Womack, J. and Jones, D. (1996), From lean production to lean enterprise, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 72 No. 2, pp. 93-103. Womack, J. and Jones, D. (2003), Lean Thinking: Revised and Updated, Simon & Schuster, London. Womack, J. and Jones, D. (2005), Lean consumption, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 83 No. 3, pp. 58-68. Zsidisin, G. and Ellram, L. (2001), Activities related to purchasing and supply management involvement in supplier alliances, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 31 No. 9/10, pp. 617-35. Further reading Firat, A.F. and Venkatesh, A. (1995), Liberatory postmodernism and the re-enchantment of consumption, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, December, pp. 239-67. Hulbert, J., Capon, N. and Piercy, N. (2003), Total Integrated Marketing: Breaking the Bounds of the Function, Free Press, New York, NY. Kotler, P. (1977), From sales obsession to marketing effectiveness, Harvard Business Review, November-December, pp. 67-75. Smith, C. and Ward, G. (2000), Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver. About the authors Niall Piercy is a Lecturer in Management at the University of Bath School of Management. Before this he completed his PhD at the Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff Business School. His work focuses around a process- or systems-oriented approach to the delivery of customer value. This includes the capture of customer intelligence at the front-end of the organisation; the mechanisms by which this intelligence is transferred through the business from marketing to operational areas; and the operational approaches used to design fullment mechanisms. Niall Piercy is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: N.C.Piercy@bath.ac.uk Nick Rich is an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff Business School and Honorary Associate Professor of Warwick Medical School. He was a founding member of the Lean Enterprise Research Centre, later the Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre, at Cardiff and is a member of the Clinical Systems Improvement Faculty at Warwick. He holds a Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan Fellowship. His research interests involve socio-technical systems improvement and safety. He is an adviser to government and is a Shingo Prize Examiner for the UK. Nigel Caldwell is a Research Fellow within the Operations and Supply group at Bath School of Management, UK. He has a PhD from Bath and an MBA from Bradford University. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Purchasing and Supply and has published in a variety of international journals. He has been awarded nearly 500,000 of research council funding. From a general interest in how organisations manage their input requirements (supply) he is increasingly engaging with how complex bundles of products and services are contracted for, the risks inherent in such complex performance and the optimum incentives for such contracts. He is editing a book on procuring complex performance to be published in 2010.

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