Research in Operations and Supply Chain Management

Fundamental standpoints are that research aims at the creation and development of knowledge and that research must be of a high quality in terms of validity and reliability, Research contributions consist of additions to pre-existing knowledge, deal with phenomena not previously observed, or may contradict earlier knowledge. Research can be explorative, descriptive, analytical, causal, and normative relative to the state of existing knowledge. A general research process contains Identification of a problem or issue, Literature review, Aim, objective, or purpose of the research, Research question, Research approach and methods, Conceptual framework, Data collection, Analysing and interpreting data, Synthesizing and concluding, Evaluating the research and suggesting further research, Reporting and communicating. Researcher roles include observer, surveyor, analyst, communicator, sounding board, actor, consultant, and clinician. Depending on how knowledge is created the three perspectives of deductive, inductive, and abductive argument are applied. Demonstrate the contribution by relating results to earlier existing knowledge, make claims for generalizability and discuss forms of generalization. The key issue in research quality is credibility or trustworthiness, which request validity and reliability. The research must be done rigorously (which is not rigid). For many researchers, it is ‘publish or perish’. Plan for publication early during the research process.