Survey Research in Production/Operations Management: Historical Analyses and Opportunities for Improvement

Our paper provides a comprehensive assessment of 285 survey research articles in operations management (OM), published between 1980 and 2000. Six OM journals are included in this study; they are, in alphabetical order: Decision Sciences (DS), International Journal of Operations & Production Management (IJOPM), International Journal of Production Research (IJPR), Journal of Operations Management (JOM), Management Science (MS), and Production and Operations Management (POM). In this paper, we reflect upon the state and evolution of survey research in the OM discipline across a 21-year time span and the contribution of OM journals that have published these studies. Major changes have occurred in the last 5 years of our sampling period, and two topics stood out as showing fastest ascendancy to prominence—operations strategy and supply chain management. Furthermore, over the years, the Journal of Operations Management appears to have been publishing more survey research articles and a greater variety of OM topics compared to the other five journals in our study.