The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management

Living Edition
| Editors: Mie Augier, David J. Teece

Operations Research

Living reference work entry
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_792-1
How to cite

Definition

Operations Research (OR) is the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions, which may concern strategic issues for an organization.

It may be surprising that an entry named Operations Research (OR) appears in an encyclopedia of strategic management. In discussing whether OR does address strategy, Kirkwood (1990) argued that it should and does. OR is the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions, which may concern strategic issues for an organization. By using analytical methods to analyse complex situations, OR gives executives the power to make more effective decisions based on more complete data, consideration of all available options, careful predictions of outcomes and estimates of risk, and the latest decision tools and techniques.

Every organization faces issues and decisions that are of strategic importance. Pidd (2004) comments that strategic decisions are often complex, involving many...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Ackermann, F., and C. Eden. 2011. Making strategy: Mapping out strategic success, 2nd ed. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  2. Bell, P.C. 1998. Strategic operational research. Journal of the Operational Research Society 49: 381–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Dyson, R.G. (ed.). 1990. Strategic planning: Models and analytical techniques. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
  4. Dyson, R.G. 2000. Strategy, performance and operational research. Journal of the Operational Research Society 51: 5–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Friend, J., and A. Hickling. 2005. Planning under pressure: The strategic choice approach, 3rd ed. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.Google Scholar
  6. Howard, R.A. 1966. Decision analysis: Applied decision theory. In The proceedings of the fourth international conference on operational research, ed. D.B. Hertz and J. Melese. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
  7. Keeney, R.L. 1996. Value focused thinking: A path to creative decisionmaking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  8. Kirkwood, C.W. 1990. Does operations research address strategy? Operations Research 38: 747–751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. O’Brien, F., and R.G. Dyson. 2007. Supporting strategy: Frameworks, methods and models. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
  10. Ormerod, R. 2006. The OR/MS contribution to strategy development and policy-making. Journal of the Operational Research Society 57: 117–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Pidd, M. 2004. Contemporary OR/MS in strategy development and policy-making: Some reflections. Journal of the Operational Research Society 55: 791–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Pidd, M. 2012. Measuring the performance of public services. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Poister, T.H. 2003. Measuring performance in public and nonprofit organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
  14. Rosenhead, J.V. 1992. Into the swamp: The analysis of social issues. Journal of the Operational Research Society 43: 293–306.Google Scholar
  15. Stenfors, S., L. Tanner, M. Syrjänen, T. Seppälä, and I. Haapalinna. 2007. Executive views concerning decision support tools. European Journal of Operational Research 181: 929–938.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Thissen, W.A.H., and W.E. Walker. 2012. Public policy analysis: New developments. New York: Springer.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Lancaster UniversityLancasterUK
  2. 2.University of WarwickCoventryUK