The development of management sciences/operational research discourses: surveying the trends in the US and the UK

Abstract

This paper explores the trends in American and British management science/operational research (MS/OR) during the last 25 years. We argue that British MS/OR has developed a soft and systemic approach to MS/OR practice, which has resulted in the emergence of a number of interpretive and critical-oriented methodologies. American MS/OR practice has remained closed to the positivistic discourse. Using a set of keywords and authors’ names associated with the main features of the interpretive and critical MS discourses, we surveyed articles published in three major US MS/OR journals. We compare these results with trends in the UK MS/OR scene. Findings appear to confirm the different directions taken by the MS/OR practice across the Atlantic. The paper posits possible reasons underpinning these differences: firstly, the particular methodological path followed by the British MS/OR, from early ‘soft systems’ applications in the early 1970s to the now well-established ‘Problem Structuring Methods’; and secondly, continuous engagement between the systems and MS/OR British communities (a dialogue that seems not to have occurred in the US). The paper contributes to a reflection on the MS/OR historical developments and contrasts these developments in both countries, two areas of OR significantly under-researched.

Keywords:

• systems thinking
• soft OR
• problem structuring methods
• history of OR
• management sciences methodologies
• philosophy of OR

Notes

1 To differentiate journals from the discipline, we use italics when referring to journals.

2 The two professional societies dealing with management science in the US were established as follows: (1) in May 1952, The Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) and, (2) in December 1953, The Institute of Management Science (TIMS). In January 1995, TIMS and ORSA merged to form the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) (http://www.informs.org/index.php?c=1&kat=HOME&p=1)

3 Omega's first editor, Professor Samuel Eilon, was based in the Department of Management Science at Imperial College London, from 1973 to 1994 (Eilon).

4 Sampling frame of a total of 9000 articles based on 3 journals × 6 issues × 10 articles × 25 years=4500 articles; 1 journal × 12 issues × 10 articles × 25 years=4500 articles.

5 Ackoff, 1967; listed as one of ‘50 most influential papers published in MS’.