Journal of Operations Management最新文献

We investigate the impact of Typhoon Lekima, a source of environmental uncertainty, on delivery performance, utilizing data from RiRiShun Logistics. We apply a staggered difference-in-differences model across low-complexity and high-complexity supply chains. The analysis uncovers distinct dynamics throughout the typhoon's forecast, active, and recovery phases. Notably, the active phase experiences less disruption in delivery performance compared to the forecast phase, owing to RiRiShun's wait-and-see policy. This approach leads to order accumulation but subsequently enables more effective resource allocation. In the recovery phase, high-complexity supply chains demonstrate significant improvements, surpassing pre-disaster performance levels. The study further emphasizes the critical role of two response mechanisms in managing high-complexity supply chains. Increasing throughput efficiencies at destination centers and implementing transfer centers prove effective in enhancing delivery performance during both the forecast and active phases. However, the simultaneous application of these response mechanisms during the forecast phase unexpectedly reduces performance.

We focus on two of the many sources of uncertainty in healthcare operations, mix uncertainty – the variation in the complexity of care required by the patient mix, and volume uncertainty – the variation in the volume of care demanded by the patient population. Using an interdisciplinary perspective, we study the impact of mix and volume uncertainties on two important healthcare outcomes, length of stay and number of procedures, along with the mitigation impacts of the operational concepts of related focus and utilization levels. Based on large dataset of 830,853 patient discharges in 26 clinical departments across 731 hospitals in five U.S. Midwest states, our results indicate that mix and volume uncertainties each have a significant impact on patient care. We also find that related focus and department utilization levels have a mitigating effect on uncertainty in healthcare settings. Lastly, we find considerable heterogeneity in the effects of uncertainty across hospital types and departments. We discuss key research and managerial implications of our findings.

As the world becomes increasingly reliant on open-source software (OSS) development platforms, collaborative communication networks are becoming more complex, resulting in non-trivial effects on project performance. This study examines the impact of communication network characteristics on project performance, measured in terms of the number of issues closed within OSS projects. Additionally, this research examines how this project outcome is affected by project managers' active participation in these communication networks. Using a panel dataset of 1599 projects spanning 104 weeks, with a total of 120,243 observations, we find that the density of communication network has an inverted U-shaped relationship with project performance, that is, as the density of the communication network formed by team member interactions increases, project performance initially increases but then starts to decrease. Meanwhile, a project manager's participation in the communication network has no direct positive impact on project performance, but it flattens the inverted U-shaped relationship, that is, it reduces the rate of decrease in project performance after the density of the communication network formed by project team members crosses the inflection point. These results provide valuable insights into the dynamics of communication networks in OSS projects and can help develop strategies for improving project performance.

Brand retailers are increasingly offering product personalization to accommodate the requests of individual customers. While prior research has examined product personalization from a customer's or a manufacturer's perspective, this study focuses on product personalization from a brand retailer's perspective. Under product personalization, brand retailers that outsource production to upstream suppliers face two significant challenges: product returns from downstream customers, and personalization costs charged by upstream suppliers. Employing an analysis of transaction data from an online women's wedding dress firm, this study finds that as product requests increase (i.e., more product features must be modified), personalization costs increase, but the likelihood of product returns decreases. Additionally, as time requests increase (i.e., delivery is more urgent), the likelihood of product returns increases. Furthermore, relationship-specific process control exacerbates (i) the effect of product requests on personalization costs, and (ii) the effect of time requests on the likelihood of product returns. Finally, relationship-specific outcome control and transaction-specific control alleviate the impact of time requests on the likelihood of product returns while exacerbating the effect of product requests on personalization costs. The findings suggest that retailers can realize greater benefits from product personalization by selecting control mechanisms tailored to personalization requests.

Operational challenges arising from public utility obstacles are widespread globally, leading to production disruptions, decreased sales, and escalated logistics costs, ultimately contributing to a decline in firm labor productivity growth. Despite the criticality of this issue, there is a scarcity of studies in the field of operations management that investigate factors capable of mitigating these adverse impacts. Taking power outages and transportation obstacles as pivotal examples, our study aims to examine whether national culture can moderate the impact of public utility obstacles on firm labor productivity growth. To achieve this objective, we conduct an empirical analysis using a multi-country dataset from the World Bank Enterprises Survey, which covers detailed firm-level information across 28 industries in 41 countries, with a total of 17,227 firm-year observations. Our findings indicate that the detrimental effects of power outages and transportation obstacles on firm labor productivity growth are contingent on various dimensions of national culture. Specifically, cultural power distance and uncertainty avoidance would amplify the negative impact of power outages, whereas long-term orientation would alleviate this impact. Meanwhile, individualism and masculinity can help mitigate the adverse effects of transportation obstacles. Our results provide valuable insights for managers.

Millions of mom-and-pop nanostores dominate the grocery retail landscape in emerging markets. As nanostores are cash and storage space constrained, their suppliers tend to visit them with a high frequency, causing high operational costs. It is unclear if credit could mitigate such costs by allowing for a lower visit frequency. To investigate this, we conduct a randomized field experiment on nanostores that have not made recent use of supplier credit, with the objective to uncover how trade credits interact with the visit frequency and with the available storage space to shape shopkeepers' ordering behavior. We find that trade credits moderate the positive relationship between visit frequency and bi-weekly order size, with credit effects being salient under low frequency visits. Storage space, by contrast, does not directionally shape shopkeepers' ordering behavior. While trade credits may more than offset the negative effect of low frequency visits among adopting nanostores, credit adoption remains challenging, with only 24% of nanostores assigned to the credit condition actually adopting the credit. Remarkably, not a single credit line was defaulted over the entire duration of the intervention. In terms of assortment, trade credit is mostly used to acquire nanostores' core assortment of popular, low-price items with low physical volume. We contribute to the extant literature by showing that the gesture by the supplier to extend trade credit may only partly legitimize a reduction of the visit frequency.

The operations management community has recognized operational excellence as a contemporary arena comprising a full spectrum of research paradigms. However, there is a dearth of theoretical development aimed at understanding and unpacking operational excellence and its strategic implications for competitiveness. Much of the existing research focuses on siloed operational improvement practices rather than on inherent capabilities. In this paper, we conceptualize operational excellence from a capabilities perspective. We derive our findings from within- and cross-case analyses based on data gathered from four global banks with varying competitive positions. We posit the microfoundations of operational excellence in services by demonstrating how the cumulative aggregation of constituent capabilities leads to higher competitiveness in firms. We enhance the external validity of the emergent theory by showing its applicability in another service setting (healthcare). Our study demonstrates the importance of shifting managerial thinking from individual operational improvement practices to long-term capability building through the microfoundations of operational excellence.

Field experiments involve the practice of conducting controlled interventions wherein researchers collaborate with practicing managers to study the effects of such interventions on a subset of subjects, processes or entities (Ibañez & Staats, 2019). In recent years, Operations Management (OM) as a field has seen significant interest to conducting field experiments as evidenced by studies in healthcare delivery (Anand et al., 2021; Staats et al., 2017), retail operations (Chuang et al., 2016; Craig et al., 2016) and recycling (McKie et al., 2024). While there are several benefits to conducting field experiment such as improved external validity, reduced observer bias and improved causal inference, field experiments require considerable relational investments, often require substantial time in data collection, and carry significant risks such as loss of access to participant sites through attrition. Given these points, OM researchers often shy away from field experiments as primary research method. By doing so, however, they miss an opportunity to ask and answer bold questions that can challenge existing OM theories and offer richer insights.

As an illustrative example, consider the age-old question on why operational excellence initiatives (e.g., Lean/Six Sigma, Process Management) fail to sustain themselves over time. There have been many studies exploring the factors that influence the adoption and use of operational excellence in a variety of industry contexts (e.g., Anand et al., 2021; Anderson & Chandrasekaran, 2024; Shah & Ward, 2003; Sterman et al., 2002). These studies have capitalized on several research methods including case studies, surveys, analytical models, and econometric methods. Yet, the explanations delivered from these studies leave important questions unanswered. One way to address this gap would involve the use of carefully constructed field experiments, with specific sets of interventions supporting operational excellence initiatives adopted by organizations or their units, with some controls for otherwise confounding factors, and with monitoring in place to observe their impacts over time. Unfortunately, the challenges of recruiting enough firms to secure an adequate sample size, controlling for potential spillover effects and attrition, and ensuring compliance in the experimental protocol, renders a potential research project with lead time that could run into years and with significant risk and uncertainty. Accordingly, given time pressures on faculty publishing, the paucity of such rich studies into these complex settings is far from surprising. Instead, we continue to make incremental knowledge creation through alternative research designs.

For this special issue, we were particularly motivated by the prospect of supporting authors interested in questions that requi

Health promotion and disease prevention requires health systems address the patients' social needs using new care delivery models. Yet, research in this area has stalled for several reasons. We study a partnership model of care that couples clinical care delivered by primary care providers and social services delivered by community-based organizations, and its impact on patients' preventive health outcomes and behaviors. We use data from the Mid-Ohio Farmacy, which is a collaboration across the Mid-Ohio Food Collective (MOFC), a network of 650+ affiliated food pantries, and a large federally qualified health center (FQHC). The FQHC offers primary and preventative healthcare services across eight free clinics, which are co-located with the MOFC-affiliated food pantries. Patients were screened for food insecurity during their clinic visit and, if positive, were referred to the Farmacy. Compliers made at least one visit to the food pantry after referral, while noncompliers did not. Using difference-in-differences, we find that compliers had no discernible change in their body mass index (BMI, kg/m²), which we refer to as a BMI stabilization effect. Noncompliers' BMI increased after referral. High comorbid and high pantry use compliers experienced a significant reduction in their BMI and a marginally significant reduction in glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c, %). These patients had unique compliance behaviors, including greater search, frequency, and consistency of food pantry use. Travel costs suggests that high comorbid patients ascribed a greater value to the Farmacy program. In terms of primary care utilization, we find that compliers' clinic visit patterns after referral were consistent with the visit patterns observed in the food secure cohort, suggesting that the Farmacy program may have helped compliers address competing demands that are known to inhibit health behaviors.