Pilkington A, Fitzgerald R, "Operations management themes, concepts and relationships: a forward retrospective of IJOPM " International Journal of Operations and Production Management 26(11-12): 1255-1275 2006

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Addresses: a.pilkington at rhul.ac.uk

Title: Operations management themes, concepts and relationships: a forward 
retrospective of IJOPM 

Author(s): Pilkington A (Pilkington, Alan), Fitzgerald R (Fitzgerald, 
Robert) 

Source: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OPERATIONS & PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT 26 (11-
12): 1255-1275 2006 

Document Type: Review 
Language: English 

Cited References: 157      Times Cited: 0     
Abstract: Purpose-The purpose of this paper to investigate the major 
themes of operations management by analysing citations in IJOPM. It aims 
to discuss changes in the discipline's sub-fields and identifies emerging 
topics. 
Design/methodology/approach-The paper is an empirical analysis of 
citations and co-citations from IJOPM. Network and factor analysis are 
used to analyse and group the data.
Findings-The study demonstrates that the persistent central ideas of 
operations management concern manufacturing strategy, with specific 
interests in strategy typologies, best practices, and the resource-based 
view. Other central themes are performance measurement, the case study 
method, and process management. The plotting of subfield trajectories 
shows that recent studies are seeking a more subtle understanding of 
operations management by considering its practice in relation to strategy, 
context and resources. Emerging subjects within the field include supply 
chain management, lean management systems, theory building from 
quantitative data and sustainable resource limits to capability.

Originality/value-The study is unique in performing the analysis at the 
individual publication level rather than following the normal aggregated 
author co-citation analysis (ACA) method. The potential problems with 
citation/co-citation studies are discussed.


Addresses: Pilkington A (reprint author), Univ London Royal Holloway & 
Bedford New Coll, Sch Management, Egham TW20 0EX, Surrey England
Univ London Royal Holloway & Bedford New Coll, Sch Management, Egham TW20 
0EX, Surrey England

E-mail Addresses: a.pilkington at rhul.ac.uk 

Publisher: EMERALD GROUP PUBLISHING LIMITED, 60/62 TOLLER LANE, BRADFORD 
BD8 9BY, W YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND 

Subject Category: Management 

IDS Number: 104MU 
ISSN: 0144-3577