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The world is changing – economically, technologically, politically, and socially. As an academic discipline, operations management (OM) is, almost by definition, close to practice. Are our OM research methods fit for purpose for the new age? This paper reflects on and develops the principal themes discussed in the “OM Methodology” Special Session at the 2011 EurOMA Conference in Cambridge, UK. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The emerging landscape in which future OM research will be conducted is discussed. The paper provides a range of perspectives on the research challenges facing the discipline with respect to what the authors research and how the authors research it. The range of methods open to us and their relative merits and challenges are debated.

The traditional research divide between quantitative modelling, often normative in outlook, and the more reflective modes of qualitative enquiry, with a wide spectrum of empirical work in between, is reflected in the different academic traditions, groupings, conferences, and publications across the discipline. Research should not be driven by methodological convenience but by the needs of a changing world. Rather than a sterile “quants versus qual” debate, the paper argues that a rich diversity of approaches can provide a reinforcing cycle to generate relevant, interesting and exciting research underpinned by robust and valid theory.

The paper presents detailed reflections from leading researchers on contemporary and future OM research, arguing that research approaches must evolve that reflect the new realities to further enhance OM as a theoretically sound and practically relevant discipline.

While international and even national brand owners may be more concerned with tailoring their brands for local markets, local and regional brand owners are still keen to expand to national level. Examines the elements of the decision‐making process for brand owners expanding beyond their home region, and compares this process with the internationalisation of national brands. Case study research in five companies from the UK food and drink sector provides examples, and a checklist for decision making is proposed.

Branding is a key element in marketing, especially for those products whose limited opportunities for differentiation mean that they could be viewed as commodities. Branding is normally considered to be more developed in countries where marketing has been established for a longer period, such as the UK, than in new market economies such as the Czech Republic. Presents empirical evidence from UK and Czech companies to challenge this view. In spite of consumer resistance to branding in the Czech Republic, and differing competitive environments, the contrast between national and smaller breweries in terms of brand development was found to be similar in both countries. Though ensuring distribution is critical, it is argued that smaller breweries in both countries have much to gain from a clearer understanding of customers’ perceptions of their brands.

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence on the additional costs of dealing with staff fraud, beyond the initial fraud loss, based on 45 cases of staff fraud.

The research began with a “brainstorming” session with counter fraud professionals to map all potential costs in a staff fraud. It then utilised a twin-track approach of a survey and interviews. A survey was distributed using a number of methods yielding 28 usable cases. Interviews were also sought with organisations willing to discuss staff fraud, which secured a further 17 cases. Both the survey and interview used the same questionnaire, although the latter enabled a deeper questioning of participants.

This study examined 45 cases of staff fraud from a wide range of sectors drawn predominantly from larger organisations. From each of these cases detailed, estimates of the costs of dealing with the fraud were identified. Major additional costs included the costs of investigation, staff suspensions, internal disciplinary costs, external sanctions, permanent staff replacement, miscellaneous costs as well as intangible costs. The findings identified significant costs which are significantly above the initial value of the fraud, particularly on initial frauds under £25,000.

Staff fraud is a very sensitive subject with many organisations unwilling to reveal what happens when it occurs. The approach was therefore to secure as much data as possible and as such this might not be representative of the broader economy.

The paper highlights the need for greater investment in prevention given the substantial costs of staff fraud to deal with.

This is the first attempt to gauge the full costs of staff fraud to an organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which contemporary organisations are imposing their own private sanctions on fraudsters.

The research draws on primary data from interviews with counter fraud practitioners in the UK, secondary sources and case examples.

Such developments have been stimulated, at least in part, by the broader limitations of the criminal justice system and in particular a “fraud bottleneck”. Alongside criminal sanctions, many examples are provided of organisations employing private prosecutions innovative forms of civil sanction and “pseudo state” sanctions, most commonly civil penalties comparable to fines.

Such changes could mark the beginning of the “rebirth of private prosecution” and the further expansion of private punishment. Growing private involvement in state sanctions and the development of private sanctions represents a risk to traditional guarantees of justice. There are differences in which comparable frauds are dealt with by corporate bodies and thus considerable inconsistency in sanctions imposed. In contrast with criminal justice measures, there is no rehabilitative element to private sanctions. More research is needed to assess the extent of such measures, and establish what is happening, the wider social implications, and whether greater state regulation is needed.

Private sanctions for fraud are likely to continue to grow, as organisations pursue their own measures rather than relying on increasingly over-stretched criminal justice systems. Their emergence, extent and implications are not fully understood by researchers and therefore need much more research, consideration and debate. These private measures need to be more actively recognised by criminal justice policy-makers and analysts alongside the already substantial formal involvement of the private sector in punishment through prisons, electronic tagging and probation, for example. Such measures lack the checks and balances, and greater degree of consistency as laid out in sentencing guidelines, of the criminal justice system. In light of this, consideration needs to be given to greater state regulation of private sanctions for fraud. More also needs to be done to help fraudsters suffering problems such as debt or addiction to rebuild their lives. There is a strong case for measures beyond the criminal justice system to support such fraudsters to be created and publicly promoted.

The findings are of relevance to criminal justice policy-makers, academics and counter fraud practitioners in the public and private sectors.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges of measuring fraud in overseas aid.

The research is based on 21 semi-structured interviews with key persons working in the delivery of aid in both the public and voluntary sectors. It uses the UK Department for International Development as a case study to applying more accurate measures of fraud.

This paper shows there are significant challenges to using fraud loss measurement to gauge fraud in overseas aid. However, it argues that, along with other types of measures, it could be used in areas of expenditure in overseas governments and charities to measure aid. Given the high risk of such aid to fraud, it argues helping to develop capacity to reduce aid, of which measuring the size of the problem is an important part; this could be considered as aid in its own right.

The researchers were not able to visit high-risk countries for fraud to examine in the local context views on the challenges of measuring fraud.

The paper offers insights on the challenges to accurately measuring fraud in an overseas context, which will be useful to policy-makers in this context.

Given the importance of as much aid as possible reaching recipients, it offers an important contribution to helping to reduce losses in this important area.

There has been very little consideration of how to measure fraud in the overseas aid context, with most effort aimed at corruption, which poses some of the same challenges, as well as some very different challenges.