Title: Introduction to the special issue: case study and field research
Abstract: Case studies and field research can be extremely useful in the development or exploratory, “hypothesis generating” stage of research, and in answering questions about ‘why’ phenomena or relationships between variables are observed in operations management. While there has been solid growth in operations management of studies that statistically relate various elements of operations practice to performance, there has not been similar growth in rigorous case and field research. This methodology is typically aimed at generating hypotheses and deeper insights about operations management issues and problems through direct observation and on-the-spot data collection. This issue aims to focus on case and field research studies that generate the type of knowledge that cannot be gleaned purely from the statistical analysis of pre-formatted questionnaires, or are at the hypothesis generating rather than hypothesis testing stages of development. Development of operations theory such as operations strategy, quality management, purchasing, scheduling, environmental issues, product and process selection, supply chain management, facility location, technology selection and transfer, capacity, logistics, plant management and other elements of operations system design. Relating operations to other functional areas such as matching market opportunities to operations capabilities, assessing the cross-impacts between operations and finance, determining the demands on human resource management placed by the operations function, aligning processes with market needs, or assessing the impact of operations on enterprise strategy, systems, or practices. The implementation of operations change initiatives or business improvement strategies. The topics of process design, reengineering, ERP, e-operations, and other such contemporary issues are encouraged. Global issues concerning the use of operations systems and practices in various parts of the world. Service sector considerations involving any of the various aspects of operations theory mentioned earlier in application to services, or combined service/product organizations. Performance analyses of operations policies and practices on competitive performance, core capabilities and market advantage. Information technology impacts on operations and operations effects on information transfer and use. Moreover, applications of information technology to execute operations functions more efficiently or effectively, as well as the integration of information technology into the operations function itself are welcomed. In total, over three dozen papers were submitted for the special issue and the quality of the submissions was generally very high, particularly for a research paradigm that is often not well understood or conducted rigorously. We thank all the authors who submitted papers for this special issue. We would also like to thank our associate editors for the special issue, Rob Handfield of North Carolina State University, Ron McLachlin of The University of Manitoba, David McCutcheon of Victoria University (BC, Canada), and Ian Stuart, also of Victoria University. They did an excellent job of getting rigorous reviews for a large number of papers in a short time and identifying the most promising papers. Their recommendations for changes and corrections in the revision stage made the task of identifying the final papers much easier for us. All the papers submitted for this special issue were focused on some specific aspect of operations management theory except for one that concerned the methodology of conducting case and field research itself. Eleven papers were eventually selected for publication in this special issue. They are presented here in the following order. We initiate the papers with the more academic methodology paper and then group the remaining 10 in three categories: strategic operations, tactical operations and culture/team operations. The methodology paper, “Effective case research in operations management: a process perspective,” by Ian Stuart and his colleagues offers a five-step case-based research and dissemination process to achieve success in this still poorly understood methodology. The paper ends with a list of research questions and topical areas deemed ripe for case-based investigation. Next are three strategically oriented papers. The first, “An exploratory analysis of new competencies: a resource based view perspective,” by Theresa Taylor Coates and Christopher McDermott explores analog devices’ development and exploitation of new competencies through an emerging technology. The authors use a resource based view to explore how firms develop and leverage new capabilities and in the process, they illustrate how complex and intertwined these capabilities can be. The next paper, “Toward a theory of project interdependencies in high tech R&D environments,” by Devesh Verma and K.K. Sinha examines why some projects consume less resources but still achieve superior outcomes. Seven projects were selected by a data envelopment analysis (DEA) metric from the corporate R&D center of a Fortune 500 high technology manufacturing firm for detailed analysis. From these seven cases, a theoretical framework for understanding project interdependencies and their relationship to project performance in a multiple-concurrent R&D environment is developed. The final paper in the strategic group is “Unveiling the structure of supply networks: case studies in Honda, Acura and DaimlerChrysler,” by Thomas Choi and Yunsook Hong. In this study, the authors have mapped the supply networks for one common major automobile part in these three firms and thereby offer propositions concerning how the structure of supply networks operates. They frame structure, based on the literature, in the three dimensions of formalization, centralization, and complexity, and then through within-case analysis and cross-case analysis determine how the dimensions progressively affect each other. They conclude that cost appears to be the overarching driver that shapes the supply network structure. The next four papers take a more tactical perspective of their topics. The first paper in this set, “Grapling with a gusher! Manufacturing’s response to business success in small and medium enterprises,” by Lawrie Corbett and C. Campbell-Hunt examined how six New Zealand firms responded to turbulence in their business environment brought on by sudden and dramatic success of their products. The authors found that these smallish firms need to quickly exploit the success of their products, developing manufacturing capabilities closely related to market requirements. The next paper in this group, “Sources of volume flexibility and their impact on performance,” by Eric Jack and Amit Raturi identifies the avenues that firms employ for establishing a volume flexible response and the resulting improvement in their performance. The choice of an effective approach to achieving volume flexibility is dependent on the availability of firm resources and systems. The third paper in this group, “Modularity, product variety, production volume, and component sourcing: theorizing beyond generic prescriptions,” by F. Salvador, C. Forza and M. Rungtusanatham examines the types of modularity frequently used to achieve manufacturing flexibility. Six product families belonging to different European firms are studied, empirical generalizations are formed and two propositions are advanced explaining when these generalizations will hold. Last, conclusions are made about the extent to which modularity can mitigate the variety-performance trade-off. The final paper in the tactical group, “A case study of batching in a mass service operation,” by Jake Simons and Greg Russell investigates the transferability of findings concerning batching in manufacturing to a court scheduling service system. They conclude that while the factors that affect batching in manufacturing still apply, so do some other factors. They conclude with testable hypotheses concerning when batching is desirable in mass services and how big the batches should be. The final group of papers investigate issues concerning culture and teams in operations contexts. The first paper, “Cellular manufacturing for small businesses: key cultural factors that impact the conversion process,” by Charlene Yauch and Harold Steudel explores the impact of culture on the implementation of cellular manufacturing in two small firms. Through in-depth analysis, they identify eight key cultural factors that affect the implementation of cellular manufacturing. The next paper, “Multiple case studies of team effectiveness in manufacturing organizations,” by Mark Pagell and Jeffrey LePine aimed to identify the primary factors in production systems that influence team effectiveness. As compared to those factors previously studied that managers can easily control (e.g. empowerment, team composition) when considering the use of teams, production system factors are relatively fixed and hence may have an important role to play in deciding whether or not to organize work around a team process. The paper identifies four production system characteristics the appear to strongly influence a team’s effectiveness. The last paper, “Work team performance over time: three case studies of South African manufacturers,” by Anton Grütter, Joy Field and Norman Faull studied the timing and sustainability of performance gains following the implementation of ongoing performance improvement teams. The case study approach allowed the researchers to delve deeper than other studies into the actions of teams and management to better understand how and why successful performance improvement teams evolve as they do. The two main findings are presented as hypotheses in a time-phased framework for work team implementation.