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The theory of constraints (TOC) is a multi‐faceted systems methodology that has been developed to assist people and organisations to think about their problems, develop breakthrough solutions and implement those solutions successfully. This paper describes a literature‐based research project examining the results of TOC applications reported in the literature. In particular, it presents here the results of a meta‐analysis of over 80 successful TOC applications, based on available quantitative data, which showed that significant improvements in both operational and financial performance were achieved as a result of applying TOC. Despite extensive searches, the research found no reports of failures. While reports are mainly from manufacturing organisations, the findings may be generalisable to other types of organisations, particularly to their operational aspects. The paper concludes with an agenda for future research on the use of TOC in operations and production management.

Re‐examines traditional views on change management, in particular the resistance to change, and to suggest alternative views and a practical approach for better managing change. The literature on change management contains numerous prerequisites for successful change, with a predominantly negative view on the issue of resistance to change. Some authors have argued for the positive utility of resistance, but have lamented a lack of management theories which support this view. Describes a management methodology called the theory of constraints (TOC) which views resistance as a necessary and positive force, and we demonstrate how it was applied in a case study involving a bank merger. Reviews how TOC handles the various types of resistance identified in the change management literature, and posit that the TOC framework helps lead and manage change by providing practical guidance on, inter alia, situational assessment, assumption surfacing, conflict resolution, planning and implementation of successful change.

This paper seeks to provide a timely review of developments to the theory of constraints (TOC) body of knowledge, particularly the TOC thinking processes as reported in the public domain peer‐reviewed literature, and to present an analysis of the nature of the thinking processes (TPs), and their methodological and applicatory evolution.

Research reported in the public domain from 1994 to early 2006, as peer‐reviewed journal articles or as papers published in refereed conference proceedings, was reviewed to summarize key research issues that have been studied and to suggest future research. The literature is categorized along several dimensions and according to several emergent and self‐defined clusters that relate to application area, methodology and epistemology.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the TP literature, identifies specific publication and research gaps as they relate to the defined classification and also provides some future research topics.

The review addresses only the peer‐reviewed literature spanning a limited period from 1994 to the time of the current work in early 2006 – that is the period since the publication of Goldratt's It's Not Luck. In doing so, the review complements the work of others for the period to 2000, extends previous reviews beyond 2000, whilst providing an additional focus on the TPs.

This paper provides useful insights about the development of the TOC body of knowledge, especially as it relates to the development and reported use of the TPs as stand‐alone tools or in tandem with other tools or methods. It provides a valuable summary, for academics and practitioners, of the developing TOC body of knowledge that has been reported in the peer‐reviewed literature.

The development of the TOC body of knowledge has been largely practice‐led, manifested not only in the diverse nature of application areas and in the diverse use of TOC tools, but also in the broader evolution of TOC methodology, methods and tools. Earlier reviews of the literature in this journal preceded many of the developments documented here. This paper will help position the many TOC methods and tools in relation to one another, as well as capturing developments in multi‐methodological usage across several domains.

This chapter, by virtue of a generalized specification, examines the equilibrium growth paths under two distinct scenarios, namely, a small open economy and a small semiopen economy in a two-sector, endogenous growth model of money. We show that these two scenarios end up with very different characteristics of equilibrium and the steady-state effects of inflation targeting (IT). In a small open economy, there is a nonbalanced-growth path equilibrium (hence, great ratios are nonstationary), while in a small semiopen economy there is a balanced-growth path equilibrium (great ratios are stationary). This provides a convincing reconciliation of the discrepancy in the empirical literature on great ratios. In addition, our steady-state analysis implicitly suggests that a lower inflation target gives rise to a positive GDP growth effect only for those IT countries which are more open to international trade. This enables us to explain why IT countries are relatively open to the international market and why some IT countries with a high degree of trade openness continuously lowered their inflation targets in the 1990s.

Change receptivity is recognised as an important factor in successfully implementing organizational change strategies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of change in the initial stages of a change agenda within a public sector organization and analyze the communication of change. It traces the resultant receptivity to organizational change. The paper investigates whether organizational change communication is a crucial element in employees' receptivity to change.

A case study design is employed and the multiple methods employed include surveys, focus groups, archival data and participant observation.

The findings indicate that the initial change communication is problematic. The employees respond to a lack of instrumental change communication with a constructivist communication approach in order to manage the implications of continuous change.

This research provides an overview of the first 100 days of change in a public sector organization only, and so the limitations of single case studies apply. However, the close investigation of this phase provides further research directions to be addressed.

The findings suggest managers need to align employees' expectations of the change communication with understanding of the change goal.

The primary value of the paper is in using a communicative lens to study the change process.

This paper signals departure from a theoretical perspective on organizational culture in mergers and acquisitions based on a binary opposition between coherence and pluralism. The paper aims to outline another, dialogic perspective on cultural transformations in mergers and acquisitions, based on an assumption that individuals occupy temporary positions in dynamic dialogue, negotiating equally transitory, but temporarily cohesive allegiances.

The dialogic perspective derives from a constructionist approach and involves ethnographic research methodology. It is developed to track the complex contests of interests in post‐merger pluralist cultures and to reconstruct their dynamics. While some events in the merger process contribute to cultural pluralism and contest of interest, others appear to render allegiance to cohesive cultural elements seductively appropriable.

Two situations are presented. The first poses a view of culture during mergers in which contest over meaning is central and whereby the representation of a cohesive organizational culture is appropriated for political purposes. The second situation illustrates cross‐cutting cultures in action, presenting the development of a “working culture” a notion based on flitting cross‐organizational allegiances in the interest of confronting a central team.

The paper contributes to critical work on organizational culture in merger integration. It points to the inseparability of binaries, the limits of cultural attribution and the tension instigated by the conflation of culture's “differences”. In closing, it points to a future direction with a relational emphasis to merger integration.

It is worth mentioning that in supply chain management (SCM), managerial decisions are often based on optimization of resources. Till the early 2000s, supply chain optimization problems were being addressed by conventional programming approaches such as Linear Programming, Mixed-Integer Linear Programming and Branch-and-Bound methods. However, the solution convergence in such approaches was slow. But with the advent of Swarm Intelligence (SI)-based algorithms like particle swarm optimization and ant colony optimization, a significant improvement in solution of these problems has been observed. The purpose of this paper is to present and analyze the application of SI algorithms in SCM. The analysis will eventually lead to development of a generalized SI implementation framework for optimization problems in SCM.

A structured state-of-the-art literature review is presented, which explores the applications of SI algorithms in SCM. It reviews 56 articles published in peer-reviewed journals since 1999 and uses several classification schemes which are critical in designing and solving a supply chain optimization problem using SI algorithms.

The paper revels growth of swarm-based algorithms and seems to be dominant among all nature-inspired algorithms. The SI algorithms have been used extensively in most of the realms of supply chain network design because of the flexibility in their design and rapid convergence. Large size problems, difficult to manage using exact algorithms could be efficiently handled using SI algorithms. A generalized framework for SI implementation in SCM is proposed which is beneficial to industry practitioners and researchers.

The paper proposes a generic formulation of optimization problems in distribution network design, vehicle routing, resource allocation, inventory management and supplier management areas of SCM which could be solved using SI algorithms. This review also provides a generic framework for SI implementation in supply chain network design and identifies promising emerging issues for further study in this area.