The Study On Research Status Of The Field Of Western Operations Management

Based on the condition that the research methods of domestic operations management literatures most used a quantitative research method. This study presents a literature review of, and content analysis on883papers published in the three journals during the year of2006-2011, whichs are Jurnal of Operations Management, International Journal of the Operations and Productionthis, use Qualitative Research Methods which is based on Quantitative Data Analysis to go on this study.Combined with the use of the N Vivo8software analysis tools through frequency-time analysis and time sequence analysis and other mathematical analysis tools, we identify the status and trends on Western operations management research subjects and methods, present the cooperations and regional charadteristics of the researchers and point out the possible future trends.The subjects that Western operations management research focuses on more strategic themes,such as supply chain management, strategic management, service operations, performance management, quality management, products design and development, lean production, resource planning system and interdisciplinary themes, comparing with prior study topics, for exampal, inventory control, schudling, process design and comprehensive planning.The focus of the three journals are differences, Journal of Operations Management research focuses on supply chain management, strategic management, service operations and quality management, International Journal of the Operations and Management focuses on supply chain management, strategic management, performance management, and service operations, the most important topics of Production and Operations Management are supply chain management, service operations, interdisciplinary research and strategic management. Supply chain management research focused on supply chain relationship management, e-commerce supply chain management, environmental awareness type of supply chain management, supply chain risk management and supply chain logistics management. The theme of strategic management research Priorities focused on the content of the strategic management, but the strategic process relatively small. The main concerns of Performance management research are the performance influencing factors, lack of performance measurement. Service operations focus on customer satisfaction and service quality, for the new service development emerging topic. Studies of quality management focused on ISO9000series, total quality management and quality improvement. Lean production system focused on the understanding of its pattern and the relationship with the performance. The main topics of interdisciplinary research are marketing-operations management research, there are few studies focusd on the influens of financial and human resources management on operations management.The subject of Supply chain management, strategic management, service operations and performance management catch ongoing research enthusiasm because of its importance. Materials management, logistics and order fulfillment, flexible manufacturing systems, advanced manufacturing technology, project management, technology management and organizational change still important practical challenges faced by the field of operations management, it is worth the time and effort to study. Research scholars is interested by emerging topics, such as non-profit organizations, service and manufacturing boundaries blurring, products and services modular, resource-based view, radio frequency identification technology in operations management’s application. It also appears to us that there is increasing recognition of the benefit to be gained from exploring contemporary operations practice through alternative lenses and frameworks, by using for example, social capital theory and the theory of structural holes, complexity theory, institutional theory and stakeholder theory. In our view many more opportunities exist to draw upon relevant theories from adjacent disciplines such as Organisational Studies and Information Systems, not simply to offer alternative insights but also to enrich and even challenge the philosophical assumptions about the nature of the phenomena being investigated and what might constitute valid knowledge about those phenomena?There was a moving away from axiomatic mathematical modelling using artificial data sets, the two most frequently used methods were the questionnaire-based survey and the case study where each was used on its own. Given that the overriding focus of the three journals has always been on empirical research it is not surprising that the number of literature reviews and purely conceptual/theoretical papers is relatively low. It is surprising to find that survey methods is becoming a declining trend; second-hand data and research methods has been more widely used and been rising; behavior research, interviews, critical incident technique and experimental method is seldom used.As the distribution of research scholars, they are mainly concentrated in two regions:the United States and Canada formed the North American region,the European geographical including United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Italy. The authors from Australia, China, South Korea, and Singapore also published in these journals, but the number is relatively small.As analysis on operations managent scholars, diversified form of cooperation between the mainly internal cooperation,cooperation of scholars and transnational cooperation,and the proportion of schools and the transnational cooperation is increasing, which is very worthy of aeademic study in China. At the same time, scholars of different schools and areas should be more academic exchanges and cooperation.