Production Planning & Control

ISSN: 0953-7287 (Print) 1366-5871 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tppc20

Case studies in operations management

Stephen J. Childe

To cite this article: Stephen J. Childe (2011) Case studies in operations management, Production
Planning & Control, 22:2, 107-107, DOI: 10.1080/09537287.2011.554736

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2011.554736

Published online: 18 Feb 2011.

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Production Planning & Control
Vol. 22, No. 2, March 2011, 107

EDITORIAL
Case studies in operations management

Production Planning & Control welcomes case studies,
as most readers will know. But I often hear (or read)
queries about the research value of case studies. What
can we learn from one or just a few companies?
The answer seems to lie in the aim of the research.
The widely-used paper by Voss et al. (2002) looks at
case research and identifies four broad categories of
research purpose exploration, theory-building, theory-
testing and theory extension/refinement. One of the
interesting aspects of working with industry is that it is
sometimes possible to identify the need for a new
avenue of research. This might be when technology is
being applied in a new setting, such as a different
industry. We might not have a solution to offer to that
company, but can report back to the research
community. This might lead to exploratory research,
in which the research questions are refined. For this
kind of research, it might be possible to show a need
for new knowledge from just one exploratory case
study, together with context and literature back-
ground, developing propositions and challenges.
Often, cases may be used to develop new models or
concepts that help researchers and managers under-
stand or deal with a situation. This kind of work can be
deemed to be theory building. This kind of research
depends on data from the real world that can illustrate
linkage and relationships, and perhaps also show, for
example, which variables can be controlled by man-
agers. Theory-building papers put forward models,
stating the phenomena under investigation, and suggest
relationships between variables. They may compare
different companies or different cases within the same
company, simplifying some contextual variables. For
theory to become accepted, it requires more testing.
Theory-testing papers tend to use large amount of data
such as from surveys or from aggregating cases.
Another area where cases can make a contribution
is in theory extension/refinement. Once a theory
becomes established, further cases can extend its
application into new areas or refine the details such
as improving the definition of variables. In operations
management, theories that become accepted in the
experimental or simulation world may require con-
siderable refinement to allow them to be implemented
in practice under conditions of time and cost pressure,
lack of resources and lack of data in the real world.
This may mean that there are more variables than the
model accounted for, or it may draw our attention to
implementation issues, which are worthy of investiga-
tion in their own right.
Cases that help us to identify new research needs,
develop models and implement the existing theoretical
work are particularly welcome in Production Planning
& Control. If the Journal helps direct research that
addresses the needs of industry, it is performing a
useful function.
Stephen J. Childe
Editor
Reference
Voss, C., Tsikriktis, N., and Frohlich, M., 2002. Case
research in operations management. International Journal
of Operations & Production Management, 22 (2), 195219.

ISSN 09537287 print/ISSN 13665871 online

2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09537287.2011.554736
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