Operations management themes, concepts and relationships: a forward retrospective of IJOPM

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper to investigate the major themes of operations management by analysing citations in IJOPM. It aims to discuss changes in the discipline's sub‐fields and identifies emerging topics.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is an empirical analysis of citations and co‐citations from IJOPM. Network and factor analysis are used to analyse and group the data.

Findings

The study demonstrates that the persistent central ideas of operations management concern manufacturing strategy, with specific interests in strategy typologies, best practices, and the resource‐based view. Other central themes are performance measurement, the case study method, and process management. The plotting of subfield trajectories shows that recent studies are seeking a more subtle understanding of operations management by considering its practice in relation to strategy, context and resources. Emerging subjects within the field include supply chain management, lean management systems, theory building from quantitative data and sustainable resource limits to capability.

Originality/value

The study is unique in performing the analysis at the individual publication level rather than following the normal aggregated author co‐citation analysis (ACA) method. The potential problems with citation/co‐citation studies are discussed.

Citation

Pilkington, A. and Fitzgerald, R. (2006), "Operations management themes, concepts and relationships: a forward retrospective of IJOPM", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 26 No. 11, pp. 1255-1275. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443570610705854