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The aim of this review and of the papers in this special issue is to critically examine different approaches to teaching operations management (OM) in order to provoke and stimulate educators within the discipline.

The papers within this special issue include empirical assessments of a problem‐based learning enterprise resource planning (ERP) simulation; a computer‐based learning tool for material requirements planning (MRP); a simulation of assembly operations; an operations strategy innovation game; an extension of the production dice game; an experiential teaching method in different class settings; and problem‐based assessment methods in OM. A variety of data are used to support these empirical studies, including survey, interview, and observational data.

The papers within the special issue support the argument that OM is well‐suited to more applied methods of teaching focusing on the application of subject knowledge to real‐life situations through a variety of techniques.

It is hoped that this review and the papers within this special issue act to stimulate educators to re‐evaluate their approaches to teaching OM and encourage them to consider adopting experiential teaching methods, business simulations, role‐plays, group exercises, live cases, and virtual learning environments, instead of, or in addition to, the more conventional lectures that typically dominate many OM modules around the world.

A special issue on teaching OM appears timely given the significant changes to both the university landscape and to the nature of the discipline that we have witnessed over the last quarter of a century.

Joint investment plans (JIPs) are becoming an important mechanism for progressing the Government's modernisation agenda. Their emphasis on partnership working and greater transparency of resources and investment, which involves key agencies making decisions together, offers a potentially much stronger brew than previous attempts at joint planning. The Community Care Division of the Nuffield Institute for Health has been involved with the JIP process since its inception, and has undertaken an evaluation of the first round of JIPs for older people's services, as well as being involved in the development of the current Welfare to Work documents. This article draws on our experience from these two pieces of work.

THIS IS AN ACCOUNT of two projects initiated by Anchor Trust and funded by the Department of Health Community Care Development Programme for a period of two years ‐ 1996 to 1998. The projects, in Brighton and Hartlepool, were supported by the local authorities, health agencies and the voluntary sector, and worked in close collaboration with them to establish local service networks with older people. The projects were evaluated by the Nuffield Institute for Health, and this article is based on a forthcoming evaluation report.

Involvement of local housing authorities in commissioning of community care services is recognised as an important objective. This paper describes how two housing and community care projects in Leeds and Dudley have worked successfully to achieve it.