Research Strategies Used by OR/MS Workers as Shown by an Analysis of Papers in Flagship Journals

It is possible to distinguish seven process categories among OR/MS research strategies: ripple, embedding, bridging, transfer of technology, creative application, structuring, and statistical modeling. To examine how often OR/MS workers use these processes, this paper analyzes as a sample the contents of the papers in the 1992 Issues of Operations Research, Management Science, and Interfaces. It finds that the ripple process is dominantly used in theoretical research and the transfer-of-technology process is the one most frequently used in true applications. The paper also sets forth the full spectrum of results for all seven processes in the 1992 sample, and reaches some conclusions with possible implications for the future of OR/MS.