IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jorsoc/v53y2002i5d10.1057_palgrave.jors.2601343.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the nature of OR: taking stock

Author

Listed:
  • R J Ormerod

    (Warwick Business School, University of Warwick)

Abstract

This paper argues that OR, having reached its maturity, must now play to its strengths. In strategic terms this means competing in those areas where OR's core competences can be brought to bear. Using a competence model it is suggested that OR's core products are (i) the development and implementation of the quantitative, algorithmic ‘smart bits’ and (ii) the ‘helpful ways’ of managing intervention processes. These core products are supported and sustained by three core competences labelled process, analytic, and context. Individuals and small groups of practitioners develop ‘strands of practice’ and larger groups ‘webs of practice’ on the basis of their core competences. It is argued that this is giving rise to the emergence of three archetypes of OR service, namely the OR technical consultancy, the OR process consultancy, and the full service OR consultancy. Both the technical and process consulting are built around ‘strands of practice’ of individuals and find their natural home in small service providers. The full service OR consulting practice, in the past located in internal OR groups, will in the future be located within the large management consultancies, which are capable of managing ‘webs of practice’. The implications for the worlds of OR practice and academia are examined.

Suggested Citation

  • R J Ormerod, 2002. "On the nature of OR: taking stock," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 53(5), pages 475-491, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:53:y:2002:i:5:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2601343
    DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601343
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601343
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601343?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ranyard, J.C. & Fildes, R. & Hu, Tun-I, 2015. "Reassessing the scope of OR practice: The Influences of Problem Structuring Methods and the Analytics Movement," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 245(1), pages 1-13.
    2. Maurice W. Kirby, 2007. "Paradigm Change in Operations Research: Thirty Years of Debate," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(1), pages 1-13, February.
    3. R J Ormerod, 2010. "Research contribution: Citation and content analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(4), pages 705-707, April.
    4. Matthew Liberatore & Wenhong Luo, 2013. "ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: A Comparison of Technical and Soft Skill Requirements for Analytics and OR Professionals," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 43(2), pages 194-197, April.
    5. Ormerod, Richard J. & Ulrich, Werner, 2013. "Operational research and ethics: A literature review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 228(2), pages 291-307.
    6. Brocklesby, John, 2009. "Ethics beyond the model: How social dynamics can interfere with ethical practice in operational research/management science," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1073-1082, December.
    7. Ian G. McHale & Philip A. Scarf & David E. Folker, 2012. "On the Development of a Soccer Player Performance Rating System for the English Premier League," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 42(4), pages 339-351, August.
    8. R J Ormerod, 2010. "Justifying the methods of OR," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(12), pages 1694-1708, December.
    9. N J Curtis & P J Dortmans & J Ciuk, 2006. "‘Doing the right problem’ versus ‘doing the problem right’: problem structuring within a Land Force environment," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(11), pages 1300-1312, November.
    10. Frederic H. Murphy, 2005. "ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: Elements of a Theory of the Practice of Operations Research: Practice as a Business," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 35(6), pages 524-530, December.
    11. Frederic H. Murphy, 2005. "ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: Elements of a Theory of the Practice of Operations Research: A Framework," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 154-163, April.
    12. R J Ormerod, 2010. "Rational inference: deductive, inductive and probabilistic thinking," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(8), pages 1207-1223, August.
    13. M S Sodhi & B-G Son, 2010. "Content analysis of OR job advertisements to infer required skills," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(9), pages 1315-1327, September.
    14. ManMohan S. Sodhi & Christopher S. Tang, 2008. "The OR/MS Ecosystem: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(2), pages 267-277, April.
    15. Ormerod, R.J., 2014. "Critical rationalism in practice: Strategies to manage subjectivity in OR investigations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 235(3), pages 784-797.
    16. Matthew J. Drake, 2019. "Teaching OR/MS with Cases: A Review and New Suggestions," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 19(2), pages 57-66, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:53:y:2002:i:5:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2601343. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.