The Past, Present, and Future of Operations Research at the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration

This evaluation of the past, present, and future of Operations Research (OR) here was inspired by the fact that it has been 10 years since the founding of a professorship in business economics, specifically in Management Systems. Starting from definitions of OR and Management Information Systems (MIS), we deduce logical units that could be taught to students studying OR/MIS, and from these we form meaningful topics and career paths within which candidates for a Master's degree can choose. To determine how well the present objectives for the teaching of OR have been realized, we performed a survey asking all graduates with a Master's degree specializing in OR how they felt about OR in general, whether they believed the objectives set for the subject had been realized, and what the impact of OR on their careers was. They were asked to help improve the selection and content of courses in order to get theory and practice as close to each other as possible. We present the resulting suggestions for improving the selection and content of courses and deduce the future objectives and career paths for OR at a school of economics.