This paper reviews the use of case study research in operations management for theory development and testing. It draws on the literature on case research in a number of disciplines and uses examples drawn from operations management research. It provides guidelines and a roadmap for operations management researchers wishing to design, develop and conduct case‐based research.

Case research in operations management

Social Psychology of Organizations

Sustainable competitive advantage has proved elusive for companies in the 1990s. While making enormous investments in technology, research, and state-of-the-art marketing, many of today9s managers continue to ignore the single most important factor in achieving and maintaining competitive success: people. Yet all evidence indicates that the source of competitive advantage is shifting from technology, patents, or strategic position to how a company manages its employees. In this excerpt from his newly published book, Competitive Advantage through People, Jeffrey Pfeffer describes how successful companies have overcome the barriers to change and offers a solid framework—with specific actions—for implementing these changes in any industry.

Competitive Advantage Through People

https://www.tlog.lth.se/fileadmin/tlog/Utbildning/Kurser/Logistik_i_foersoerjningskedjor/Artiklar/JOM-2004-Paulraj.pdf

Towards a theory of supply chain management: the constructs and measurements

Effective supply chain management (SCM) has become a potentially valuable way of securing competitive advantage and improving organizational performance since competition is no longer between organizations, but among supply chains. This research conceptualizes and develops five dimensions of SCM practice (strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship, level of information sharing, quality of information sharing, and postponement) and tests the relationships between SCM practices, competitive advantage, and organizational performance. Data for the study were collected from 196 organizations and the relationships proposed in the framework were tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that higher levels of SCM practice can lead to enhanced competitive advantage and improved organizational performance. Also, competitive advantage can have a direct, positive impact on organizational performance.

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The impact of supply chain management practices on competitive advantage and organizational performance

Process choice, a major part of operations strategy, is a key decision that links operations to business strategy. Hayes and Wheelwright, among others, argue that the emphasis given to product customization and other competitive priorities should agree with process choice. Our empirical study investigates whether firms actually link their process choice to product customization and other competitive priorities as hypothesized, and whether compatible decision patterns lead to better performance. Analysis of data collected from managers at 144 U.S. manufacturing plants shows a strong correlation between process choice, product customization, and competitive priorities. Process choice is highly related with the degree of product customization, and also with the emphasis placed on the quality and cost competitive priorities. Job shops and batch shops tend to have more product customization, higher costs, and higher quality. Some continuous flow shops use part commonality and flexible automation to achieve more customization than would otherwise be expected. Without these initiatives, customization in continuous flow shops results in weak performance.

An empirical analysis of the product-process matrix

Simulation is commonly used to find the best values of decision variables for problems which defy analytical solutions. This objective is similar to that of optimization problems and thus, mathematical programming techniques may be applied to simulation. However, the application of mathematical programming techniques, e.g., the gradient methods, to simulation is compounded by the random nature of simulation responses and by the complexity of the statistical issues involved. The literature relevant to optimization in simulation is scattered, and no comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of the subject is presently available. To that end, this article brings together numerous concepts related to t he problem of optimization in simulation. Specifically, it discusses the application of mathematical programming techniques to optimization in simulation, response surface methodology and designs, perturbation analysis, and frequency domain simulation experiments. The article provides a user with an overview of the available optimization techniues and identifies future research possibilities.

Optimization in simulation: Current issues and the future outlook

An empirical analysis of financial services processes with a front‐office or back‐office orientation

After many years of controversy and uncertainty, participative management and work design issues are becoming the focus of attention in the 1990s. There is ample evidence to suggest that the success of some foreign and domestic manufacturers may be attributed to the management of their human resources. This article discusses the trends that are encouraging the reassessment of the traditional and widely applied principles of job design, which makes the case for organizing manufacturing jobs into groups. Based on a normative model proposed by Hackman and on the workgroup activities in the United States, Japan, and Sweden, this article evaluates the feasibility of adopting groups in a manufacturing setting and identifies the potential obstacles to their adoption. Many of the conditions required for the success of groups can be created through deliberate managerial decisions.

M. Hossein Safizadeh

Papers

An empirical analysis of the product-process matrix

Optimization in simulation: Current issues and the future outlook

An empirical analysis of financial services processes with a front‐office or back‐office orientation

The Case of Workgroups in Manufacturing Operations

Linking performance drivers in production planning and inventory control to process choice