This paper is concerned with the discipline of Operations Management. The paper looks at the convergence and divergence of research in OM in Scandinavia, the US, and the UK. The three different research traditions are described and analysed separately and then compared and contrasted. A short...

This paper is concerned with the issues of developing the competencies of the firm and, in particular, how such a development can be measured in order to manage the learning processes of the development. The relevance of this work is based on the conclusion that competencies are dynamic, rather...

Explores the reorganization of a sales and distribution operation. Describes a case study in which an integrated yet flexible organization was created by focusing strongly on identifying and re‐engineering the core business process. Presents a structured approach which was developed in the...

Increasing competition at product, firm, and industry level makes it more and more important to be able to develop new products and – at the same time – develop the necessary new technologies for producing those new products. In this paper we shall take a look at how four firms go about...

The need for firms to become more innovative has probably never been greater. Today concepts such as the new economy, new technologies, hyper‐competition and clock speed are used to explain that the dynamics of competition and markets has never been greater. Thus, there is a large focus on the...

Purpose – The textiles, clothing, and footwear (TCF) industry has struggled in Australia since the government commenced dismantling tariffs. By sourcing from Asia, middlemen undercut established suppliers, and retail chains set benchmark low prices with their imported “house” labels. The...

Purpose – This study aims to understand how small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) can build a dynamic capability for new‐to‐market product development. Design/methodology/approach – Five innovative and ambitious case firms were selected and studied longitudinally over the course...

Purpose – Research on best practices suffers from some fundamental problems. The problem addressed in the article is that authors tend to postulate, rather than show, the practices they address to be best – whether these practices do indeed produce best performance is often not investigated....