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Aims and criteria for advancing technology management research at the Journal of Operations Management

2021; Wiley; Volume: 67; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/joom.1164

1873-1317

Gregory R. Heim, Anand Nair, Elliot Bendoly,

Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

The Technology Management (TM) department was created as part of a 2016 restructuring of the Journal of Operations Management (JOM). Presently, the TM department is undergoing its first leadership transition—from the last founding Department Editor (Greg Heim) to the next stewards—providing an opportunity to refine the department's vision. The department's intended calling has been to focus on TM research of particular relevance to operations management and supply chain management (OM/SCM). By no means is TM research a recent development for JOM. The TM department focuses on manuscripts concerning the impact, development, implementation, use, and maintenance of technology in manufacturing and service operations and supply chains. OM/SCM technology today exists in many forms, including general information technology (IT), enterprise information systems, supply chain coordination systems and devices, internal and outsourced e-service delivery infrastructure and software modules, emerging manufacturing technologies (e.g., additive manufacturing, IoT, Industry 4.0), logistics technologies (e.g., drones, driverless vehicles, electric and hybrid powered vehicles, transportation management systems, warehouse management systems, and multimodal tracking), product and process development technology, electronic marketplaces and crowdsourcing, and automated data analytic technologies enabling the sensing of and rapid response to demand. We want to emphasize that we in JOM's TM department are less interested in the details regarding the mechanics of, or the code embedded within, these technologies. Rather, we are interested in how the technologies affect operational processes and decisions. Beyond the OM/SCM technology artifacts, TM research also concerns the decision "knowledgeware" of technology managers, consultants, and other stakeholders. By knowledgeware, we are referring to the practices, planning processes, rubrics, checklists, heuristics, rules-of-thumb, and other means through which key stakeholders interact with and decide to use (or not use) technology for an OM/SCM task. For example, consultants tend to follow so-called consulting "best practices" to evaluate operational process requirements, identify technologies to satisfy such needs, install those technologies, and roll them out for stakeholders to use. Nevertheless, many consultant-led technology-transformation projects fail dramatically. How does extant consulting knowledgeware drive good or bad OM/SCM outcomes? As another example, IT users (e.g., machine operators in a plant, or transportation managers using a transportation-management system) may follow—or choose not to follow—the guidance from standard processes programmed into a technology (see e.g., the discussion of technology circumvention by Bendoly & Cotteleer, 2008). More generally, these users are expected to follow best practices, whether hard-coded into IT or soft-coded into their own personal heuristics. Why and where do deviations occur in use? What is the impact on OM/SCM? As with empirical evaluations of OM/SCM technology artifacts, the TM literature must carefully evaluate knowledgeware decisions and consequences across all stakeholders. The TM department encourages submission of methodologically diverse research having the potential to stimulate future research and enhance TM theory and practices. Yet, the ongoing evolution and proliferation of the wide range of technologies impacting OM/SCM, as well as the expanding interests of OM/SCM researchers, warrants renewed clarity on the identity of the TM domain for authors submitting manuscripts to JOM. To that end, this editorial outlines the TM department's aims for advancing research concerning the impact of TM on OM/SCM, along with the criteria by which an appropriate fit is determined by department editors for contributions to the TM research area. Critically, our objective is to provide authors and reviewers with guidance to identify and demonstrate alignment between their own TM research interests and efforts, and those of the TM department of JOM. Discussions of and around technology are present across all management disciplines: The fingerprints left by technology are as pervasive in contemporary management as are those left by human behavior or corporate regulation. What, then, makes a discussion of technology and TM particularly fitting to any given discipline? To be sure, it is not the inherently "technological" nature of these contributions: The mere description of a technology in a management context should not be enough to signify a paper as making a TM contribution to a management discipline. Rather, TM contributions emerge from the authors' discussion of how the presence and management of that technology specifically impacts issues critical to the management discipline in question. The Technology Management (TM) department seeks submissions that contribute to theory by advancing our understanding of (1) how TM affects the context and nature of operational performance and management, (2) how technology is developed in support of operational capabilities, (3) how technology is implemented in or integrated into a given operation, (4) the different modes and processes that govern how technology is used, and (5) how such technology is maintained. In this statement, we use the term "operational" in a diverse and inclusive sense, rather than focusing on any specific sub-discipline of OM/SCM (Browning, 2020). Studies that consider technology as (a) defining an industry context (e.g., "We study high-tech firms (but do not study how firms' managers manage their own technology, or how that new technology has impacted them)"), (b) only a data source (e.g., "We get our data from mobile apps (but do not study the management of the technological app)"), or (c) a theoretical bridge (e.g., "We think technology makes a given tactic affect outcomes (but we do not actually study specific technology details or that mediation)") will not fit well in the TM department at JOM. These types of papers may or may not fit other departments at JOM or other TM outlets. We encourage authors to carefully consider fit with a given outlet when designing the research, and we hope that this editorial will give authors a clear idea of the expectations for the TM department at JOM. Technologies deployed in managing operations or supply networks portend both potential benefits and risks, particularly for technology stakeholders, that is, technology developers and vendors, technology users or clients, consultants and advisors for technology selection and implementation, technology maintenance providers, and tech support. Salient TM research questions concern sensemaking, selection, innovation, design, adoption, user rejection, implementation, adaptation, and improvement of technology-enabled operations and supply chains. Compounding such issues is that technology decisions can interact, play out, and be evaluated within dynamic organizational and environmental technology portfolios and across uncertain lifecycles. Varied stakeholder challenges are driven by idiosyncratic industry issues, national and regional geography, national technology cultures, country governance, desires for sustainable technology and processes, emerging developing markets, and challenges of applying technology to products and processes in a manner that recognizes needs of underserved communities. Managers want to implement a new technology in operations if it will increase the firm's net value, yet value is perceived very differently by various stakeholder groups. Different perceptions of the value of technology-enabled process automation by executives, shareholders, and employees leads to different evaluations of the outcome of a specific technology tactic or project. As a result, the scope of potential opportunities for TM research is quite broad. In addition to traditional TM themes, TM editors encourage exploratory research delving into new TM questions that contribute to theory development as well as theory-driven empirical studies. Implemented technology applications, even within the same class of technology, often differ substantially across the globe (e.g., Skype/Zoom in the United States vs. WeChat in China). Editors thus encourage expanding research inquiries to examine differential global impacts of technology features and local TM practices. Given the rapidly changing nature of modern technology, the TM department also encourages insightful reexaminations of existing TM issues within contemporary OM contexts, such as the sharing economy. Moreover, researchers might analyze stakeholder diversity at various levels of an observational unit to generate predictive insights about how technology might be managed to satisfy stakeholder needs. Submissions to the TM department are evaluated with respect to a manuscript's fit, the manuscript's positioning in the TM and OM/SCM literature, and the manuscript's contribution. Manuscripts are assigned to a TM Department Editor, who then selects Reviewers and an Associate Editor, taking into consideration the manuscript's content. To assess manuscript fit, we use keyword searches and our own first read of the manuscript to select review teams that will be well positioned to evaluate the manuscript with respect to topic and methods. From an exposition perspective, manuscripts must be written well and enable reviewer auditing of data and methods. We also encourage authors to check the similarity score of manuscripts before submission and ensure less than one percent overlaps with any other particular source. It is often helpful to department editors when authors suggest reviewers that are well positioned to evaluate the manuscript. These suggestions should fit well with the research topic or methods. We may not use the names provided, but we do give these suggestions serious consideration. We may also assign supplemental reviewers to provide feedback on whether a manuscript is readable, understandable, and of value to the broad JOM readership. TM article fit generally is assessed using the following criteria. First, the paper must involve an OM/SCM use of a technology artifact. Next, the paper should not solely motivate the need for the research topic using prior literature. The paper indeed should be grounded on prior, related papers from JOM and other OM/SCM journals. Yet, an acceptable TM paper also should be grounded in real-world technology developments taking place across the globe. Finally, papers should carefully identify prior literature findings and areas where further inquiry would be of value to theory and practice, the manuscript's own contributions, and actionable levers pertaining to the use and management of the technology artifact studied. Department editors also assess a paper's methodology fit with JOM. We hope to nourish a wide variety of pertinent articles. Conceptual articles often help with sense-making about technology and TM, providing context and motivation for future, theory-based, empirical research. Empirical research today comes in many forms, ranging from case studies, very small samples, to huge datasets. While the hurdle for publishing research using case studies and survey data has clearly increased (Guide & Ketokivi, 2015; Ketokivi, 2019), TM editors are open to such methods. Primary data collected from technology user experiments also are of interest. Secondary data sets and archival corporate data sets on organizational uses of technology may be useful in establishing real-world relevance. For developing world inquiries, field or multi-method studies may be useful. Rich use of empirics to develop TM decision models or predictive analytics tools may provide insight. We are also open to submissions whose theory development emerges via mathematical analysis, followed by empirical examination of the mathematically derived propositions. Alternately, studies might involve empirically grounded analytical models where an empirical investigation suggests the existence of a TM phenomenon, an analytical model is used to capture the causal mechanisms at work, taking steps to ensure that the underlying assumptions are consistent with the empirical data. Authors with questions regarding the appropriateness of TM research using a given data set should contact the Department editors and also consult recent editorials (e.g., Browning & de Treville, 2018). Finally, authors sometimes are unsure as to whether their research fits better in the TM department or in JOM's Innovation and Project Management (IPM) department. The IPM department focuses on new-product development and innovation-related issues (Mishra & Browning, 2020). Manuscripts that explicitly study development of supporting manufacturing/technical infrastructure used to make such new products could fit well in either department. Authors are welcome to make their case about the manuscript's fit with the TM department. Manuscripts submitted to the TM department must be positioned well in existing TM literature, from within JOM and from other top OM/SCM journals. A key failing of many submitted manuscripts is to neither describe TM as central to their paper, nor review appropriate TM literature to position the paper relative to prior work. This failing will typically lead to a paper's rejection. As such, before submitting a manuscript to the TM department, we ask authors to carefully ground each manuscript in the previously published TM literature in OM/SCM journals that publish TM related work. While the bullet points presented in related editorials may prove insightful (cf., Gaimon (2008) or Gaimon et al. (2017)), authors should keep in mind that alternative journal departments and special issues do have somewhat distinct orientations. TM articles should combine academic rigor and practical relevance for managers. Contributions to TM should be clearly explained and easily accessible to the reader. Looking back on the past six years of manuscript submissions, the founding department editors observed many instances where authors who submitted manuscripts to the TM department failed to demonstrate a clear and substantial contribution to the TM literature about OM/SCM. Thus, in preparing manuscripts for review, we ask all authors to carefully lay out the manuscript's contribution to the TM literature on OM/SCM and convince us that this contribution is useful. Authors should also be prepared to answer the question, "What is the TM lever in this paper that appears actionable for a practicing manager?", carefully and clearly delineating the insights and actionable contributions. Many TM contributions are of importance to enterprise technology consultants, technology developers, or other specific stakeholder groups. When authors can provide interesting insights and concrete guidance in terms of actionable levers for a specific stakeholder group, TM Editors are more likely to find the article to be of greater interest. Having said the above, as department editors, we also recognize that some technologies today are indeed developing in a manner—and at a speed—that presents true challenges to both practitioners and scholars. This challenge limits both the scope and depth of data available for academic examination, and also the associated historical literature in OM/SCM journals from which to draw arguments. We sympathize with this challenge, having ourselves struggled to convince reviewers about the importance to OM/SCM of e-commerce, enterprise resource planning systems, and advanced manufacturing technologies. Yet, efforts to advance OM/SCM research in these domains were critical precisely due to the paucity of understanding surrounding their early management. Today, the role these technologies have in OM/SCM is clear to most in our field, in part due to this intrepid, early research work. These early research efforts succeeded largely due to the fact that most of the managerial challenges at the core of these studies (e.g., matching supply and demand, sharing information among supply chain partners and innovation collaborators, resource scheduling, etc.) were not new in themselves. Rather, it was the long research history of these core challenges that made the inquiry into the role of an emerging technology, and the means through which it could be managed, meaningful and novel. Overall, in cases where it may be difficult to ground a manuscript in literature that does not yet address an emerging technology, we have sometimes found a way forward by linking the new research issue to generic archetypal OM/SCM problem(s). We thus recommend formulating the emerging OM/SCM problems generically, leveraging the rich extant literature about core operational challenges, and then explaining new technologies in terms of their advantages of efficiency and/or effectiveness (i.e., collectively, value). The purpose of this editorial is to offer constructive guidance to help authors conceive, plan, and execute their research to maximize the fit with, and publishability through, the TM department of JOM. The note should also serve reviewers and Associate Editors, providing clear guidelines for evaluating the contribution of submissions and offering directions for strengthening their research and exposition. Benefitting from the wide range of possibilities in terms of research topics as well as methodologies to inform theory and practice in this fast-evolving domain requires that authors be deliberate in positioning their work as a TM submission. Authors that run into situations not covered here are welcome to reach out to the TM department editors for guidance. We are here to help you with better positioning your paper for success. Indeed, that is our job as department editors.