Tracks

The track on Behavioral Operations Management (BOM) aims at bringing together researchers with a common interest in the interface between human behavior and operations. The goal is that of sharing ongoing work in this field of OM, and of identifying new research problems with relevant implications for OM modeling, policy prescription and managerial practice. The track welcomes behaviorally grounded research using diverse approaches, such as analytical modeling, simulation studies, field studies and natural experiments, human experiments. Given the interdisciplinary nature of BOM research, intersections with Organizational Behavior, Psychology, Decision Theory, or Behavioral Economics are also welcome.

Decisions regarding operations strategy, product design, process design, quality management, capacity and facilities planning, production planning and inventory control have implications not only for the immediate profit objectives of an organisation, but also for a broader set of stakeholders including the natural environment. Corporate Social Responsibility, ’the  responsibility  of  enterprises  for their impacts on society’, as defined by the European Union, requires that enterprises that embrace the concept of CSR ’should have in place a process to integrate social, environmental,  ethical,  human  rights  and consumer  concerns  into  their  business  operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders’.

The track on CSR in Operations Management aims to present research results and state of the art corporate practices in the field, to share recent developments and to raise new research questions. Papers focusing on the special topics of the 2018 conference, namely networks, big data and advanced data analytics are encouraged. Topics such as cooperation within supply chains and between different types of organisations, the use of data to support environmental and social work and the social and environmental implications of the 4^th industrial revolution will be discussed during the conference.

Our track invites original research focusing on ICT driven innovation improving the rich domain of operations management. Cloud services, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, platform technologies, smart devices, robotics, enhanced communication and pervasive computing amongst many others are not only reshaping classic manufacturing and supply chain environments, but they transform services as well. Just to mention a few phenomenon of digital innovation we just need to look at new forms of human-computer interactions, networked based collaborations, or revolutionary process designs enabled by ICT. Both manufacturing and service delivery are enhanced by knowledge sharing tools and solutions supporting organizational learning, co-creation; along the supply chains and also with customers. ICT has become inseparable from tasks and processes and routines of organizations´ everyday life, and with this duality of technology and humans now expands to AI and robotics, where people work together with intelligent systems on the shop floor and in offices as well.

We call for innovative contributions investigating – amongst many others – the following issues:

• contemporary new technologies for innovating manufacturing and services,
• how new technologies (IoT + Big Data) improve post sales services (e.g. predictive maintenance) and the development of new products (e.g. based on technical data collected),
• impacts of new ICT innovations on productivity, efficiency and value creation,
• ICT and Industry 4.0 – new forms of organizing with AI, robotics and smart communication,
• new forms of human-machine collaboration,
• the role of big data and the power of algorithms in operations management,
• investigating institutional and organizational requirements for successful digital innovation.

Authors are encouraged to submit papers with diverse methodologies: apart from quantitative studies the track is open to case studies, action research, various types of qualitative analyses rooted in the rich social and philosophical theories of information systems.

The track focuses on the “third mission” of universities: the services, infrastructure and networking opportunities they offer to companies, institutions and budding entrepreneurs in their area of reach. More specifically, it deals with opportunities in establishing and operating technology transfer companies, offering incubator facilities to start-ups and with creating funding opportunities to support the primary missions (research and teaching) of universities. The Track welcomes contributions from all academics who are working in the above areas (e.g., Chancellors, Directors of Finance, Directors of External Affairs) that would fit under the broad umbrella of entrepreneurship.

As competition becomes global and the complexity of the environment in which companies operate is increasing, designing and managing integrated international networks are becoming increasingly important for managers. This track is concerned with research on the design and management of international manufacturing networks, facility relocations such as reshoring and right-shoring, studies on operations practices around the globe, and other aspects related to global operations.

Humanitarian operations continue to grow in interest both due to various natural disasters as well as conflicts around the world. Humanitarian operations, logistics, and supply chain management play a major role in preparing for, and responding to such events. Empirical and field research is particularly important for humanitarian operations to have an impact. Hence our call is in particular for research with and for humanitarian organisations, with the aim of improving the lives of beneficiaries. All phases of disaster relief are of interest to the track.

• Topics of particular interest include
• Context-specific considerations in applying logistical concepts in the humanitarian sector
• Innovation and its impact on the humanitarian supply chain
• Emergency procurement
• Securing humanitarian operations
• Disaster relief operations
• Humanitarian operations in conflict zones
• Collaborative efforts in humanitarian operations (procurement, kitting, convoys, secondments)
• Social and environmental impacts of humanitarian operations

In consonance with the EurOMA’s intent to broaden operations management perspectives addressing the development of operations capabilities in an era of complex networks, this special session aims to explore the potential of innovative and disruptive technologies to improve the sustainability capability of organisations.

Amongst the most recent technological innovations with strong potential to disrupt orthodox operations and supply chain processes, the IoT (internet of things), UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, e.g. drones) and distributed ledger technology (such as blockchain) offer unique opportunities for organisations to develop operational capabilities that fully meet social, economic and environmental sustainability imperatives of the current economy.

In practice, these technologies are paving the way for the development of new business models and more sustainable operations with unprecedented capacity to enable, inter alia, access to data in complex value chain networks, implementation of flexible and rapid logistics systems and expansion of supply chain process visibility (e.g. improved supply chain transparency).

With the fast growing development and application of these innovative technologies by global industry players, there is momentum for academic scrutiny of their potential to enable sustainable operations capabilities and for the positioning of their managerial practices within theoretical frameworks underpinning the OM body of knowledge. This special session therefore provides a valuable forum for the OM community to explore, critique, debate and exchange knowledge of the role these innovative technologies can play to develop more sustainable manufacturing and service operations, including servitisation, and to discuss the theoretical and managerial implications involved.

For the special session we invite academics and practitioners to submit papers that consider these recent technological innovations in the OM context, contributing to the wider debate on how IoT, UAVs or blockchain equip operations to meet the challenges of sustainability. We welcome papers which address one or more aspects of the topics below. Papers are not limited to the list below and they can focus on one specific innovative technology only and the related sustainability capabilities enabled by the technology considered.

• New business models and improved sustainability capabilities enabled by IoT, UAV or blockchain technologies
• Sustainable supply chains and logistics operations enabled by these technologies
• Operational and managerial implications concerning their adoption
• Their role in corporate responses to climate change
• The main socio-economic-environmental drivers and benefits brought by the adoption of these technologies
• Regulations and constraining factors impacting their adoption in operations and supply chain systems
• Implementation barriers involved in the adoption of these technologies, including cultural, behavioural and skills issues
• Exploratory case studies on successful/unsuccessful adoption of these technologies
• Theoretical underpinning of the managerial practices involved in the deployment of these technologies within the OM (manufacturing, service, servitisation) context
• Data archetypes/structures associated with these innovative technologies to support decision making processes concerning sustainable operations

Achieving and sustaining operational excellence continues to be a topic of great interest to practice and academia. Submissions under this track should report on research related to tactics and strategies for operational excellence – spanning from implementation of better shop-floor methods for improving operations to cultivating learning organizations for sustaining improvement initiatives.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Improvement initiatives such as Lean production, World class manufacturing, Agile methods, Quality management, and Six Sigma
• Operational excellence frameworks such as EFQM, Malcom Baldrige, Shingo, and company-specific production systems
• Relationship between process improvement and process innovation
• Assessing maturity of operational excellence
• Intra- and inter-organizational transfer of knowhow and best practices
• Cultural and behavioral issues in operational excellence
• Role of technology including smart manufacturing and information systems in operational excellence
• Operational excellence in small- and medium sized enterprises and in different sectors such as manufacturing, construction, healthcare, public governance, education, etc.
• Theoretical foundations of operational excellence
• Teaching operational excellenceWe welcome research based on all methodologies including case studies, surveys, ethnographic studies, field experiments, archival records, and simulations. The research reported in these submissions should advance the knowledge on operational excellence and must provide implications for practitioners seeking to improve their operations.

The ‘engineer-to-order’ (ETO) sector, including construction, shipbuilding, and offshore (oil platforms, wind power, etc.), typically constitutes a major part of many countries GDP and, directly or indirectly, employs a lot of people. Still, most of the published research in operations and supply chain management has neglected the needs of the ETO sector. ETO-type industries typically face a number of unique challenges, as the products are often one-of-a-kind and/or highly customized. Bespoke methods, approaches and purchasing requirements have to be managed appropriately, and products are quite often, at least partially, produced on the site of use, resulting in temporary ‘factories’ and supply chains. We are particularly interested in papers that address the following sub themes:

• adapting approaches from MTS classifications and cross industry comparisons,
• CODP concepts and interfaces in engineer-to-order,
• design automation and IT developments (including VDC and BIM),
• engaging with the customer and customization,
• logistics, 3PLs, and supplier management,
• production strategies and supply chain planning.

State reform and modernizing public administration have been crucial and permanent elements of governments’ rhetorics and practices all around the world in general, but in an extremely special form in the post- soviet countries after the transition in particular. Within this past 25 years countries have witnessed tremendous amount of influx of new ideas and very diverse initiatives. Several frameworks have been developed to classify and analyze these different approaches to public management and public sector reforms. Most of these focus on the transition from the traditional old –style bureaucratic management to the “Running Government Like a Business” [Box R. C. 1999] mode of management. These two different, even controversial identity logics relating to the values, principles and operations of public administration organizations are still guide practitioner and academic thinking about reforming public administration and managing public organizations better.

On the one hand, the proponents of the traditional bureaucratic way of public management stress that because of profound differences between public and private sectors they are not directly comparable on efficiency criteria. Therefore, the techniques that public managers can learn from private managers must be taken with cautiousness and with highly critical consideration.  On the other hand, both the public and private sector provide goods and services for the same people, public and business managers deal with the same issues and challenges. And if these two sectors are so similar in these major senses, than why would there be any differences in organization performance and management? In the latest decades public administration organization have been called to take strategic, business alike management models more seriously in order to improve their effectiveness. There are a lot of critics on that “the public bureaucracy is constantly growing its budget and jurisdiction, without any wider strategic reflections about overall direction or about the cost or quality of services it provides for citizens” [Ferlies and Ongaro 2015], that is unlike to private companies which are profit oriented and customer centric and who willing to constantly innovate.

These panel aims to provide a better understanding of the connections between public administration and “its more popular” and “more heartless sibling” [Keltgen 2009] the private administration. This might also allow some re-thinking of traditional ways to define public management goals and instruments, the way how to provide public services with potential gains in more efficient resource management and enhancing public organizations’ effectiveness. One of the key and permanent issues of this discourse is what makes public administration and public management “public” and thus distinctive to the private sector. Secondly, whether or not the business-management techniques can be adopted and used to manage a range of risks to public administration organizational capability and public policy implementation in relation to resource scarcity, handling even more complex “wicked issues” or external threats to service delivery. This panel intends to explore how the cross –fertilization can work between the two fields of managements in practice; assess the failures and successes of business alike management techniques in public sector and identifies the challenges ahead. It is safe to say that public and private organizations are unlike in many respects and those special organizational, cultural characteristics might be shaping the managerial style and performance. However regardless of their special characteristics there might be lessons to learn and share between the public-sector leaders and those of their private sector counterparts.

The DEA & SFA track covers papers on the theme of efficiency and productivity analysis and performance management. Both parametric and non-parametric papers will be considered. We especially welcome papers on the theory, methodology and application of Data Envelopment Analysis and econometric methods in performance management. Of particular interest are successful applications of performance and efficiency analysis in the real world, for example in banking, healthcare, education, transportation, environment and energy, agriculture and so on.

The presentations of this Track analyze how the changes in the macro-and microenvironment of the firms influence the techniques, the approaches as well as the orientations of retail management. The demonstrated papers will find empirical evidence for the need of retail managers to rethink their strategies, the range of their customers, competitors as well as their suppliers, and their means to create comparative advantage by the rearrangement of their activities.

The track is focused on discussing and debating the latest research in the service transformation and innovation of firms.

The rise of the digital technology such as, the Internet of Things (Industry 4.0), augmented reality, machine learning among others, provide fantastic platforms and avenues to further servitize and innovate service business models.

This conference track invites papers for submission on topics (but not only limited to):

• Servitization
• Service Operations
• Service Innovation
• Service Business Models
• Service Transformation
• Digital Services
• Digital Platforms and Services
• Co-Creation of Services
• Service Ecosystems
• Services and Data Analytics
• Services and Customer Experience
• Service Journey
• Service and Customer Experience Journey
• Service Networks
• Service Supply Chain