Operations management

teaching
Establishing content and relevance to
practitioners

Desmond Doran, Alex Hill, Steve Brown, Emel Aktas and

Markku Kuula

Abstract: This paper explores the relevance to industry’s needs of

operations management (OM) teaching in higher education, by
researching the content of OM modules delivered by UK academics and
comparing the results of this research with the views of business
practitioners having had first-hand experience of OM teaching on MBA
programmes. To determine whether a gap exists in terms of the
importance placed on key content areas, the views of OM academics and
practitioners were empirically tested using an online survey instrument.
The findings indicate that although there is a broad degree of cohesion
among academics relating to module content there are gaps between
academics and practitioners in terms of the relative importance of key
content areas. Such differences are most evident with regard to supply
chain management, capacity management, inventory control and lean
production tools and techniques. In this regard, the results provide a
backdrop for the development of this important subject discipline to
ensure that what is taught in the lecture theatre is valued in the business
environment.

Keywords: practitioners; operations management; operations

management teaching; curriculum content

Desmond Doran (corresponding author) is with the Department of Business and

Management, Jubilee Building, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9SL, UK. E-mail:
d.doran@sussex.ac.uk. Alex Hill is with Kingston Business School, Kingston University,
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT2 7 LB, UK. Steve Brown is with the University of Exeter
Business School, Streatham Court, Streatham Campus, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4
4ST, UK. Emel Aktas is with Brunel Business School, Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8
3PH, UK. Markku Kuula is with the Department of Information and Service Economy,
School of Business, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.

This paper reports on an attempt to determine whether valued by practitioners studying on the programmes.
academics teaching operations management (OM) Given the applied nature of OM and the focus on the
modules on MBA programmes in the UK try to ensure development of tools and techniques designed to
that the content of their modules is applicable and address operational issues, it is important that the

INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION Vol 27, No 5, October 2013, pp 375–387, doi: 10.5367/ihe.2013.0172
OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners
content of OM modules reflects the needs of OM
practitioners, particularly on MBA programmes where
many of the students are likely to be in employment and
will expect to apply the tools and techniques of OM
directly to their workplace.
However, Berry et al (1978) found significant
differences between what was being taught on OM
programmes and what practitioners regarded as
important content. Similarly, Slack et al (2004) found
distinct variations between what students on MBA
programmes ranked as important content areas and
what was being published in leading OM-focused
academic journals. Whilst there were similarities in
ranking for quality and improvement and supply chain
management, significant variations existed for the
content area of operations strategy, just-in-time (JIT),
planning and control, MRP, and enterprise resource
planning (ERP). At the macro level it would appear that
practitioners reflect what one might consider a
manufacturing-centric expectation of the subject
discipline whilst researchers in the field (many of
whom are likely to teach OM) focus more on strategic
issues and less on the actual day-to-day operational
aspects of the discipline. According to de-Margerie and
Jiang (2011), practitioners evaluate OM research in
terms of (1) whether the research is applicable or
implementable to practice; (2) whether the research
provides novel insights or new perspectives; and (3)
whether the research helps practitioners recognize their
situation (that is, to communicate in recognizable
ways).
Such requirements correspond to the view of
Benbasat and Zmud (1999) who contend that the topic
of academic research is influential in determining its
relevance to practitioners and that the results of research
should be implementable, easy to synthesize and able to
stimulate critical thinking in the relevant practitioner
field. In seeking to determine the relevance of OM
content to the needs of industry practitioners we explore
first what constitutes OM by means of a survey of the
extant literature. This is followed by an explanation of
our research methodology, a discussion of our key
findings, an examination of our research limitations and
suggestions for future research.
Determining the scope of OM
Academics have a range of views on what constitutes
and what informs the structure and shape of OM
teaching. Some simply see it as in-house ‘process
management’, while others take a more holistic
approach and regard it as the management in addition of
supplier operations. According to Lovejoy (1998, p
106), OM is the:
376
‘Selection and management of transformation
processes that create value for society, with the goal
of operations management instructors to prepare
lectures and students to contribute more effectively to
improving society through their practice of OM.’
What seems evident, however, is the view that the
discipline may be likened to a menu, consisting of a
range of ‘offerings’ which, in themselves, are interesting
and appealing but do not constitute a coherent whole.
Lockyer (1984) suggests that this lack of clarity is due
to the discipline incorporating so many diverse tasks
involving inputs from many other functions, such as
human resources management (HRM), finance,
marketing and sales and information technology (IT).
Similarly, Meredith and Amoako-Gyampah (1990, p
147) state that:
‘The field of OM has had a turbulent and confusing
development, with a variety of what might well be
termed ‘‘liaisons’’ with other fields such as industrial
engineering (IE), operations research and
management science (OR/MS). The result has been
that deans, colleges, and even faculty who consider
themselves to be in the field, are not sure what
‘‘operations management’’, as a field, actually
constitutes.’
According to Pilkington and Liston-Heyes (1999), this
ambiguity derives from the absence of a distinct
intellectual framework (particularly the degree to which
OM differs from OR/MS), which has impeded the
identification of clear boundaries afforded to other, more
defined, subject disciplines. Such a view is reflected in
the findings of Sower et al (1997) who sought to
identify ‘classic’ publications in the OM field with a
view to determining the body of knowledge underlying
the discipline. They found that very few ‘classics’
existed in the OM field and that this lack of theoretical
underpinning compromised the clarity and direction of
the discipline. However, a number of authors have
charted the development of the discipline and attempted
to contextualize OM within clearly defined boundaries
(Table 1).
Table 1 shows how the lack of clarity described
above has, in part, been caused by the change in the
field from a broadly manufacturing-centric discipline,
aligned to the fields of operations research/management
science (OR/MS) to a more process-driven discipline.
This change moves OM beyond the confines associated
with manufacturing to a wider ‘operations’ perspective
incorporating services and business processes both
within and beyond the boundaries of what might be
referred to as the ‘core’ operation. This development
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION October 2013
 OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners

Table 1. Operations management content development (1950–2011).

Period Operations management development Source

1950s This was a period of looseness for the discipline and it was generally synonymous with Buffa (1982)
industrial management whilst the next decade saw OM regarded as a key functional field of
management with appropriate concepts, tools, and techniques.
1960s Emergence of the OR/MS served to provide a clear context for the study of OM issues. Buffa (1982)
However, it was believed that the term ‘production’ was too narrow and misleading and it Starr (1997)
started to be changed to ‘operations’ management to expand the focus from purely
manufacturing to manufacturing and services.
1970s The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) encouraged Business Berry et al (1978)
Schools to assign coursework in OM. There were calls for more focus on service organizations
and a balance between teaching traditional OM concepts and newer more analytical
techniques.
1980s OM was widely dominated by operations policy, operations control (including traditional Buffa (1982)
techniques, such as materials requirement planning (MRP) and new techniques, particularly Filippini (1997)
just in time (JIT)), service operations, productivity and technology (particularly with regard to
process control issues).
1990s OM witnessed an increased reference to the Toyota production system, mass customization, Womack and Jones
agility, lean production, Six Sigma and an increased emphasis upon service operations (1996);
management. Slack et al (2004)
2000+ A need emerged to make OM more relevant to the ‘new economy’, recognizing the interface Hayes (2002);
between OM and HRM, and considering the need to ensure sustainable OM practices and Boudreau et al (2003);
procedures. Kleindorfer et al (2005).

reflects the fact that operations are now often dispersed
amongst suppliers carrying out key operations processes
outside the boundaries of the focal firm.
The content of operations management
The extant literature has been explored to establish the
development of OM content and the role of OM
textbooks, in order to develop set of research questions
designed to determine the relevance to practitioners of
OM modules delivered on MBA programmes in the
UK.
Development of operations management content
One could contend that the purpose of OM teaching is
to help business practitioners improve their
understanding of operations and apply OM tools,
techniques and concepts in their work environment.
Such a view is supported by Hill (1987) who suggests
that OM academics have three basic tasks:
• To research (the process of creating new
knowledge);
• To teach (the process of transferring knowledge);
and
• To write (the communication of ideas from research
and the creation of new teaching materials).
These tasks are particularly relevant to the delivery of
OM modules on postgraduate programmes intended to
help practitioners make products, deliver services,
manage supply chains, compete globally and apply lean
production tools, techniques and practices (Chase and
Prentis, 1987; Hill and Hill, 2012; Neely, 1993;
Meredith, 2001; Slack et al, 2004; Pilkington and
Fitzgerald, 2006; Pilkington and Meredith, 2009). In
particular, OM academics in recent years have
emphasized the need to make OM teaching content
more relevant to the ‘new economy’ (Hayes, 2002);
recognize the interface between OM and HRM
(Boudreau et al, 2003); develop sustainable operations
(Kleindorfer et al, 2005); and incorporate supply chain
management into OM modules (Johnson and Pyke,
2000). Equally, Pal and Busing (2008) suggest that OM
should be delivered in a more integrated format that
enables students to understand the role of operations
within the broader business context and effectively
draws together all the different aspects of OM. The
extant research relating to OM teaching reflects the
changing nature and scope of OM and demonstrates the
challenges facing OM teachers as they continually adapt
the content of their modules to mirror changes in the
subject discipline and practitioner practices. OM
teaching has tended to focus on the following distinct
areas:
• Aligning OM teaching to the needs of industry (Hill,
1986, 1987; Nicholson, 1997) and manufacturing
policy (Voss, 1984; Hill, 1987);

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OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners
• Accommodating the increasing importance of supply
chain management in OM teaching (Johnson and
Pyke, 2000; Simchi-Levi et al, 2000; Kopczak and
Fransoo, 2000);
• Reflecting the growing importance of service
industries in OM teaching (Armistead et al, 1986;
Johnston, 1999);
• Using simulations and technology in OM teaching
(Smith, 1990; Roth et al, 1997; Richardson, 2000;
van der Zee and Slomp, 2009);
• Pedagogical challenges facing OM teachers (Starr,
1997);
• Teaching OM on executive programmes (Goffin,
1998);
• Developing introductory OM programmes (Leschke,
1998);
• Improving OM teaching (Lovejoy, 1998; Spearman
and Hopp, 1998; Miller and Arnold, 1998); and
• Accommodating global marketing, global
operations, ERP, global logistics and global supply
chain management (Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2012).
The creation of knowledge from research activity has a
clear influence upon the content and the teaching of OM
(Hill, 1987). Petersen et al (2011) found that OM
researchers are influenced by other business areas,
which has resulted in a diverse field that embraces both
modelling and empirical research approaches; as such,
the OM field is inherently difficult to define and codify.
In fact, Chase and Prentis (1987) and Johnston (1999)
suggested that OM content must continue to reflect and
develop an interdisciplinary approach to research in the
areas of service operations management, manufacturing
management, manufacturing systems, manufacturing
technology and JIT.
Role of operations management textbooks
Nieto et al (1999, p 345) contended that OM textbooks
‘constitute a fundamental frame for the integration and
diffusion of knowledge [and] contain the main
techniques and theories, of which this discipline is made
up’. Fillipini (1997) noted that during the 1950s most
textbooks were characterized by a broadly descriptive
approach to OM, which included time and motion study,
plant layout, production control and descriptions of how
production systems worked. Mathematical techniques
were also being developed at that time and chapters on
personnel management, finance, marketing and
organization management began to populate OM
textbooks.
Ebadi and Paul (1985) reviewed the ‘best-selling’ US
OM textbooks in the 1980s and found significant
variation between texts and that an overlap existed
between OM and other disciplines (particularly evident
378
in coverage of OR/MS and technology issues).
Furthermore, they found that texts tended to exclude
emerging topics and that the traditional view of OM as a
purely functional discipline was beginning to
incorporate strategic elements of operations
decision-making. From a European perspective, Nieto et
al (1999) sampled 84 OM textbooks used on Spanish
OM modules and found that during the period
1960–1979 the primary content areas focused upon job
design, process design and inventory control. Between
1980–1989 product development replaced inventory
control and job design was still regarded as the central
issue in OM. However, between 1990 and 1998
operations strategy became the central issue, followed
by job design and inventory control. Miller and Arnold
(1998) explored teaching OM in the 21st century and
concluded that OM may become ‘business process
management’, incorporating management of both
manufacturing and service operations. Furthermore, the
authors concluded that issues relating to resource
allocation would be viewed through a societal lens with
greater emphasis upon how operations can contribute to
the greater societal good rather than simply optimizing
operations to reduce costs and increase sales revenues.
Research methodology
The primary purpose of this research was to address the
question: Is operations management taught on MBA
programmes in the UK relevant to industry? Whilst this
might seem somewhat provocative, the intention is to
address the relevance of this important subject
discipline when viewed from both academic and
practitioner viewpoints. This led to the development of
the following research questions (RQs).
• RQ1: What constitutes the content of operations
management modules on MBA programmes at UK
universities?
Whilst Goffin (1998) and Slack et al (2004) have
touched on the content of OM teaching in the UK, their
research has been limited to either a small number of
practitioners and/or a small number of business schools.
This present research, in contrast, seeks the views of
lecturers at all UK universities who deliver OM
modules on MBA courses.
• RQ2: What are the content needs of OM
practitioners studying MBA programmes in the UK?
This question has been designed to determine whether
the needs of practitioners are currently reflected in the
delivery of OM modules on MBA programmes in the
UK.
• RQ3: What differences, if any, exist between the
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION October 2013
 OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners

Table 2. OM module content areas.

OM content area Description

Operations strategy Exploring the strategic role of operations management using a range of models and frameworks.
Content generally includes strategic perspectives (top-down, bottom up), the process of operations
strategy, trade-offs and targeting, the configuration of capacity, the use and the role of technology,
capacity dynamics, and the role of suppliers.

Process design
Job design and work
organization
Capacity management and
control
Inventory management
Lean production and JIT
Supply chain management
Project planning
Business process improvement
techniques and tools
Global operations management
Process types, development and analysis, role of process technology, and process design.
People in operations, human resource strategy, organization, and job design.
Defining and measuring capacity, capacity planning and control, aligning capacity with demand,
and capacity strategies.
Defining inventory, determining inventory levels, economic order quantity, and Pareto analysis.
Defining lean production, link with just-in-time, lean production techniques, and link with supply
chain management .
Defining supply chain management, the activities of supply chain management, supplier selection,
supplier control, and supply chain improvement.
Coordination of tasks, people, organizations and other resources to deliver all the work required to
complete a project within defined scope, quality, time and cost constraints, developing a project
plan, defining project goals and objectives, specifying tasks or how goals will be achieved,
determining the needed resources and associating budgets and timelines for completion.
Operations improvement techniques, risk management, and organizing for improvement.
Exploring the international dimensions of operations management from a demand and supply
perspective, global sourcing, influence of trade agreements, currency fluctuations, and other
macro-economic factors.

content of OM modules and the needs of
practitioners?
It is important to ensure that the subject discipline
reflects the needs of practitioners so that what is taught
remains relevant to those who engage in OM in the
business community. The question has been designed to
allow practitioners to reflect on their own experience of
OM teaching and to compare this experience to their
prior expectations and to their actual application of OM
concepts and techniques in the workplace.
Research design and survey instrument
Academics. The first phase of the research, conducted
toward the end of 2011, surveyed academics teaching
on UK postgraduate programmes, to identify the content
of their modules and the areas they considered to be
important. A survey instrument was constructed based
on earlier studies by Slack et al (2004) and de-Margerie
and Jiang (2011).
The instrument included a series of structured
questions designed to determine the content that
academics used in their OM modules and the areas that
they believed were most important in the modules they
delivered. The generic content areas from which they
could select are shown in Table 2. The content areas
were identified from an analysis of the popular OM
textbooks sold at UK university bookshops, using data
provided by Nielsenbookscan (2011).
Practitioners. The second phase of the research,
conducted between December 2011 and January 2012,
surveyed MBA alumni from several UK universities, to
identify the content areas they thought should be
covered on an OM module and the areas they
considered most important. The universities were
selected on the basis of ease of access to the alumni and
related ease of access to data from the authors’
institutions. Clearly this selection is opportunistic and
the findings should be viewed with this sample bias in
mind. The survey instrument (shown in the Appendix)
was constructed using previous instruments used by
Slack et al (2004) and de-Margerie and Jiang (2011) as
exemplars.
Data collection: academics
An effort was made to reach as many UK academics
teaching on OM postgraduate modules as possible. Our
study included all academics that taught OM (or close
variants) modules on their postgraduate programmes

INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION October 2013 379

OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners

of 32%. After cleaning for missing responses the data

set included 141 responses.

Results
We will first explore the responses from academics at
UK universities delivering OM modules on MBA
programmes; then examine the responses from business
practitioners; and, finally, present a comparison of the
findings from academics and business practitioners.

Figure 1. Frequency of OM content areas taught on MBA
programmes.
within UK universities. Ninety-seven academics were
identified in total and sixty of them completed the
survey, a response rate of 62%. The high response rate
is due to the fact that each potential respondent was
contacted directly and individually by e-mail and
following that was then sent a questionnaire.
Respondents were offered an executive summary of the
main findings and this was seen as contributing to the
high response rate.
Data collection: practitioners
After the academic perceptions had been identified, a
sample of practitioners was surveyed to determine the
importance they attached to the content of OM modules.
Our study included MBA alumni from a smaller set of
universities, including Brunel University, University of
Warwick, Exeter University and Kingston University.
Six hundred graduates were contacted and 190
completed questionnaires were received, a response rate
Academic perceptions
Using the online questionnaire, respondents were asked
first to state which of the content areas detailed in Table
2 were included in their modules. The findings are
shown in Figure 1, which indicates the frequency of
topics included in OM modules. The most frequently
included topics were supply chain management and lean
operations and JIT, with global operations management
being the topic least frequently included.
Academics were then asked to rate the importance of
each of these content areas using a standard 1–5 Likert
scale (5: ‘very important’ through to 1: ‘of no
importance’). The findings from this analysis are
presented in Table 3 and they show that operations
strategy, lean operations and JIT and supply chain
management were ranked as the three most important
content areas by academics, with job design, global
operations management and project planning and
management ranked as important by fewer academics;
indeed, 10–24% of respondents regarded these latter
content areas as being of little or no importance.
Respondents were also given the opportunity to add
any content areas that were not included on the list: 21
responses were received and they were classified
generically as quality, service or technology. By far the

Table 3. Importance attached by academics to content areas.

OM content area Important or very Of some Of little or no

important importance Importance
(Likert scale: 5 and 4) (Likert scale: 3) (Likert scale: 2 and 1)
Operations strategy 85% 9% 6%
Process design 78% 13% 9%
Job design and work organization 34% 28% 38%
Capacity management and control 66% 31% 3%
Inventory management 68% 19% 13%
Lean operations and JIT 84% 13% 3%
Supply chain management 84% 13% 3%
Project planning and management 50% 13% 37%
Business process improvement 59% 22% 19%
Global operations management 41% 18% 41%

380 INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION October 2013

 OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners

Respondents were then asked to rank the importance

Table 4. Characteristics of practitioner respondents.
Characteristic Survey respondents
Average age 40–49 years (n=59)
Gender 75% male
25% female
Average experience of OM Over 10 years (n=59)
Sector employed 86.5% private sector
13.5% public sector
most prevalent of these responses related to quality
(n=12) and included quality, quality management and
sustainability. Where service was mentioned (n=9) this
included reference to service quality, service
measurement, service operations, servitization and
service design. Responses citing technology (n=7)
included process technology, technology transfer and
information systems.
Practitioner perceptions
The first section of the practitioner survey explored a
number of respondent characteristics, including age,
gender, experience and sector employed and occupation
(Tables 4, 5 and 6).
Table 5 provides further insight into the
practitioners’ age group and experience. As anticipated,
there is a positive correlation between age and
experience in operations management. Our practitioner
group is representative of those aged 30–59 and all
levels of experience, with a slightly higher number of
practitioners having experience of 10 or more years.
attached to the same content areas used in the academic
questionnaire so that comparisons could be made
between those that deliver OM content and those who
apply the tools, techniques and concepts associated with
such content (Table 7).
Responses were then analysed according to sector,
age and gender, in order to determine whether
differences existed between the needs of practitioners in
each of these case. With regard to sector (private versus
public sector) we noted no significant differences in
content areas regarded as important: however, in terms
of age and gender there were several interesting
differences (Tables 8 and 9).
We conducted independent samples t-tests to
determine whether there were differences between
practitioners employed in the private and the public
sectors. We noted key differences in terms of the
ratings relating to operations strategy, with 81% of
practitioners in the public sector regarding this content
area as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ in comparison
to 61% of practitioners in the private sector. The most
important content areas were identified as operations
strategy, project planning and management, and
business process improvement techniques and tools.
The top three priorities for different age groups are
generally aligned and no discernible difference
emerged from the different age categories; the
priorities were project planning and management,
business process improvement techniques and tools,
and operations strategy. Additionally, capacity
management and control was regarded as important by
the 30–39 age group. However, we could find no
statistically significant difference between different age

Table 5. How much experience have you had in operations management?

Age group No experience 1–5 years 5–10 years Over 10 years Total
21–29 1.41% 0.00% 0.70% 0.00% 2.11%
30–39 11.97% 5.63% 5.63% 6.34% 29.58%
40–49 10.56% 4.23% 4.93% 21.83% 41.55%
50–59 0.70% 4.93% 4.93% 10.56% 21.13%
60 or older 0.70% 0.70% 1.41% 2.82% 5.63%
Total 25.35% 15.49% 17.61% 41.55% 100.00%

Table 6. Occupations of practitioner respondents (%).

Position Function
HR Strategy Finance Sales Operations Marketing Procurement IT Consulting Other
Middle management 2 2 6 4 12 4 – 4 2 4
Senior management 10 8 – 6 2 2 4 – 4 2
Self-employed 4 – – – 2 – – 2 7 3

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OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners

Table 7. Importance attached by practitioners to OM content areas.

OM content area Important or Of some Of little or no

very important importance importance
Operations strategy 65% 26% 9%
Process design 47% 41% 12%
Job design and work organization 42% 48% 11%
Capacity management and control 44% 45% 11%
Inventory management 21% 36% 43%
Lean production and JIT techniques 31% 47% 22%
Supply chain management 33% 39% 28%
Project planning and management 66% 28% 6%
Business process improvement techniques and tools 64% 31% 5%
Global operations management 29% 41% 30%

groups in terms of the importance assigned to content
areas.
Whilst the top three content areas are common for
male and female respondents, the order of importance
differs, with males ranking operations strategy and
females ranking project planning and management as
the most important content areas.
Differences between academic and practitioner
perceptions
From the results presented above the differences
between academic and practitioner perceptions could be
readily identified. Figure 2 compares content areas
regarded as ‘very important’ or ‘important’ by both

Table 8. OM content areas attributed ‘important’ or ‘very important’: practitioners by age of respondent.

OM content area Age of respondent

30–39 40–49 50–59
(n=28) (n=41) (n=34)
Operations strategy 75% (1) 56% (3) 73% (1)
Process design 45% 46% 61% (2)
Job design and work organization 46% 38% 47%
Capacity management and control 60% (3) 40% 29%
Inventory management 38% 20% 12%
Lean production and JIT techniques 37% 26% 38%
Supply chain management 35% 35% 30%
Project planning and management 50% 81% (1) 55%
Business process improvement techniques and tools 62% (2) 59% (2) 58% (3)
Global operations management 33% 28% 18%

Note: Figures in parentheses reflect ranking of content area.

Table 9. OM content areas attributed ‘important’ or ‘very important’: practitioners by gender of respondent.

OM content area Gender of respondent

Male Female
Operations strategy 74% (1) 46% (3)
Process design 53% 33%
Job design and work organization 44% 39%
Capacity management and control 43% 32%
Inventory management 27% 4%
Lean production and JIT techniques 35% 20%
Supply chain management 37% 20%
Project planning and management 61% (3) 67% (1)
Business process improvement techniques and tools 62% (2) 55% (2)
Global operations management 30% 18%

Note: Figures in parentheses reflect ranking of content area.

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 OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners
Figure 2. Content areas regarded as ‘very important’ or
‘important’.
academics and practitioners and demonstrates
significant gaps between the content areas. The most
notable differences include lean production, inventory
management, supply chain management and capacity
management. We noted that the percentage of
academics attributing importance to business process
improvement techniques is the same as the percentage
of practitioners attributing importance to this area. Also,
we noted that the percentage of practitioners regarding
job design/work organization and project
planning/management important is higher than the
percentage of academics. This finding may have been
affected by the sample, but it gives an insight into the
areas that are considered more important among the
practitioner bodies and academics.
Discussion
We sought to determine the relevance of OM to the
needs of business practitioners by exploring the content
of OM modules and their relevance to practitioners. Our
findings may provide some educators with confirmation
that what they are delivering mirrors the practices
adopted by other university lecturers, whilst others may
view the findings as at odds with their own preferences
and contest the importance placed upon some of the
content areas explored in this research. However, the
findings we report do not attempt to suggest that there is
a single ‘content template’ which will satisfy all
practitioners’ needs. Essentially the findings are a first
attempt at establishing what is currently happening in
the field of OM and, in so doing, set the scene for a
wider debate on how we as educators do what we do
and how we could align our content to reflect better the
needs of business practitioners.
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION October 2013
The first research question was designed to determine
the content of OM modules delivered to postgraduates.
It is interesting that, from the view of academics,
operations strategy, supply chain management and lean
production now feature as highly ranked content areas,
regarded as either ‘important’ or ‘very important’. This
may be due to a number of factors. Of particular note is
the fact that operations improvement is now seen as a
key tool for gaining competitive advantage and, as such,
the role of OM is increasingly being regarded as a
strategic rather than a purely functional factor. This has
led to a greater emphasis on operations strategy in OM
textbooks and the greater use and application of lean
production tools and techniques when delivering OM
modules. A natural extension of operations strategy and
the application of lean production techniques is to view
operations through a supply chain lens. Indeed, many of
the cases used in OM textbooks reflect such a
perspective and supply chain management, as an
element of OM modules, can be used to bring together
other content areas, including capacity planning and
control, inventory management and global operations
management.
Content areas ranked as of ‘little’ or ‘no’ importance
by academics included job design and work
organization, global operations and project
management. In terms of job design and work
organization one could contend that these areas are
covered in specialist HRM modules and thus there is
little need to explore them in an OM module. Whilst it
is surprising to see global operations ranked so poorly,
one could argue that global operations and sourcing are
now part of the supply chain management landscape and
are thus covered in other areas of the module. It is less
surprising, however, to note that project management is
ranked poorly, because this has been the case since the
mid-eighties when the OM discipline moved from
OR/MS to a more functional area of management
(Buffa, 1982). Indeed, many business programmes now
offer a separate module for project management, to
reflect the specialist and growing importance of this
area.
Turning to the views of practitioners, our findings
echo those of Berry et al (1978) – that significant
differences do exist between what is being taught on
OM programmes and what practitioners regarded as
important content areas in their business life. The most
revealing finding was not the importance placed upon
operations strategy (rated as the Number 1 content area
by both academics and practitioners) but the importance
placed upon both project planning and management (the
second most important content area) and business
process improvement techniques and tools (the third
most important content area). These findings may reflect
383
OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners

the essentially service sector background of our techniques and supply chain management, to ensure that
respondents and/or the average age of such respondents these important areas are relevant to practitioners.
(30–39). There was no statistically significant difference
between the private and public sectors and there were
no discernible differences between male and female Limitations
respondents.
Whilst this study sheds light on what OM content areas
What is interesting, however, is the significant gap
are regarded as important both by academics delivering
between the views of academics and practitioners in the
OM modules and practitioners studying such modules,
areas of inventory management, lean production
there are limitations associated with our findings. First,
techniques and tools and supply chain management –
the research focuses on MBA programmes delivered in
topic areas rated highly by academics but regarded as
the UK and on alumni from each of the authors’
marginal by practitioners. Each of these content areas is
institutions. Second, the research took place over a
evident in the majority of OM modules delivered on
single time period and does not therefore offer a
MBA programmes in the UK, yet their relevance to
longitudinal view of changes in OM content areas or
practitioners seems to be questioned. One might believe
practitioner requirements of such content. Whilst this
and anticipate that there will always be a gap between
approach has shed some light on the potential
academic content and practitioner requirements, but this
differences between delivery and consumption, it may
would be to ignore what appears to be a chasm rather
be useful to expand the research over a longer time
than a mere surface crack. If we accept that these
period and to extend the research from MBA
content areas are important and should be taught, then
programmes to other Master’s-level programmes. Third,
we need to understand why practitioners appear not to
the survey instrument was designed to encourage
value them. It could be due to the fact that many of the
Likert-based responses which potentially limits the
practitioners who participated in this research were not
value of the responses. Future research may seek to
employed in an OM-specific role. However, such an
adopt a mixed-method approach involving interviews
interpretation ignores the fact that each of the functional
and/or focus group survey tools to add richness and
areas identified in this research is responsible for
depth to the research outcomes. Finally, this research
managing processes, budgets and people and could be
did not seek to determine whether differences in the
regarded as ‘operational activities’, which the tools and
delivery of OM modules reflected regional economic
techniques of OM were designed to address. Another
characteristics – for example, whether the delivering
reason could be that as academics we still teach these
university was based in a manufacturing or
content areas from a manufacturing-centric
service-centric environment. Subsequent research
viewpoint; after all, the very tangibility of
should seek to identify if there is regional differentiation
manufacturing examples assists understanding of these
and use such findings to provide a broader
areas and provides those studying at postgraduate level
understanding of the content, scope and delivery of OM
with both visible and physical examples of operations in
modules.
action. Slack et al (2004) noted that the long history of
OM and manufacturing significantly influences how the
subject defines its priorities and looks at emerging
problems. Perhaps it is the case that reliance is placed Conclusions and further research
on the manufacturing sector to provide fruitful This paper has reported on an exploration of the nature
material and that, in contrast, the service sector is not of OM teaching at UK universities and has provided a
regarded as a similarly reliable source. Nevertheless, number of insights into what constitutes OM teaching.
inventory management, lean tools and techniques and The findings set the scene for further research by
supply chain management are equally applicable presenting an overview of teaching content and thus
to the service sector and the volume of research provide educators with insights from their peers. The
activity on the service sector is increasing (Johnston, research was limited to an electronic survey delivered
1999). over a short period of time; future research may seek to
However, we cannot blame OM textbooks which adopt a longitudinal approach with an expanded
have, on the whole, included many service examples research remit. Buffa (1982) suggested that ‘. . .we view
and continue to reflect the changing landscape of OM. the field as a collection of seemingly unrelated
Perhaps as academics we need to move away from subsystems rather than as whole systems’. This seems to
thinking about OM in terms of ‘cars and computers’ and remain true today. Little appears to have changed in the
focus instead upon ‘customers and call centres’ as the field in terms of an integrated and cohesive approach to
starting point for inventory management, lean tools and the discipline.

384 INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION October 2013

 OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners
As a consequence the shape, content and focus of
OM continually changes. Furthermore, OM teaching in
the UK appears to consist of a wide range of ingredients
and as a result it is now more difficult to clearly define
what the subject discipline constitutes. In the 1980s the
content of a typical OM module would look very
different from OM modules delivered today, with very
little evidence in the earlier modules of service
operations, supply chain management, JIT and lean
production techniques. Rather, inventory control,
process analysis and design, capacity control, quality
management and project management techniques would
have dominated, reflecting the operations landscape of
the time. Currently we cover many topics, some of
which might require an entire semester to deliver
satisfactorily. Operations strategy has clearly grown in
importance and is now covered in most OM modules;
service operations, JIT and lean production, as well as
coverage of supply chain management, are now
considered important and staple topics to be covered in
OM modules. So, what constitutes contemporary OM
content at UK universities? The results suggest that the
discipline lacks clarity and focus and is, in essence, a
‘smorgasbord’ or a ‘taster menu’ consisting of loosely
related content areas which make some sense as
individual offerings but, as a whole, lack a cohesive
form that would support the view that OM is a mature
subject discipline consisting of and based upon solid
theoretical foundations. As it stands we tend to add and
subtract content to suit current conditions. This in itself
changes the shape and focus of the discipline; such
content changes may reflect our own special interests or
the needs of the cohort studying the module.
We also set out to establish the nature of the content
and relevance to commercial practice of OM teaching
on MBA programmes – and found that its relevance is
in question, certainly for the alumni surveyed for this
research. Clearly our sample represents only a fraction
of the number of students that complete MBAs every
year in the UK and the results must be viewed with this
in mind. However, the findings present OM academics
and other interested parties with food for thought and
should, at the very least, stimulate further research into
this important subject discipline. The possibility of
further research in a range of countries is another
potentially rich source for academics to explore.
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Appendix
Survey instrument for MBA alumni
Demographics
(1) Please state whether you are: Female/Male
(2) Please state your age category: 21–29; 30–39; 40–49; 50–59; 60 or older

Employment, work experience and level of education

(1) Please state in which sector you are employed: Private/Public
(2) Please state your job title: [open ended]
(3) How much experience have you had in Operations Management? No experience; 1–5 years; 5–10 years; Over 10
years
(4) Please state your highest level of Operations Management education: Bachelor; MSc; MBA
(5) Please state the institution where you most recently studied an Operations Management module: [open ended]

The importance attached to the typical content of an Operations Management module [common with
academics survey]
(1) Please state the level of importance of the following Operations Management content areas to your specific work
environment (1: Extremely Low; 2: Very Low; 3: Low; 4: Neutral; 5: High; 6: Very High; 7: Extremely High):

386 INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION October 2013

 OM teaching: establishing content and relevance to practitioners

!Operations Strategy
!Process design
!Job design and work organization
!Capacity Management and Control
!MRP/ERP
!Stock control
!Lean Operations and Just in time techniques
!Supply Chain Management
!Project planning and management
!Business process improvement techniques and tools
!Global operations management
(1) What Operations Management topics, if any, do you feel were missing from the Operations Management module
that you studied? [Open ended]
(2) Would you say that studying an Operations Management module has equipped you with?
!a good understanding of operations in a work environment
!some understanding of operations in a work environment
!little understanding of operations in a work environment
!no understanding of operations in a work environment

INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION October 2013 387