Editorial by Bob Hollier

It was in early 1995 that we, that is, my colleagues Ruth Boaden, Bernard Burnes and myself, were invited by Keith Howard to take over the editorship of the Journal. We accepted formal responsibility on 1 July 1995. The UMIST editorial team in turn handed over formal responsibility to Margaret Webster and Andrew Taylor at Bradford School of Management in June 2004, but continued to deal with papers in progress until January this year. Thus, the UMIST team served the Journal for over nine years with only one team change when Ruth Boaden stepped down in 1999 and was replaced by Martin Spring. UMIST merged with the University of Manchester at the end of September 2004, so with all the changes in the new university it was time to pass the baton.

When we took over the editorship we introduced double‐blind reviewing of papers after an initial screening by the editors. We updated the scope of the Journal and set out to attract papers with a strong applications emphasis, based on empirical evidence rather than abstract modelling. Some changes were made to the Editorial Advisory Board, both then and subsequently, and as the workload on editors increased there was a growing need to see members become more involved with the operation of the Journal. Last year, we appointed Roger Schmenner as the Journal's first American Regional Editor. Another major development was the welcome increase in electronic communication, although there were problems with editorial software.

During our tenure, the Journal received well over 200 submissions a year (not including special issues), more than a third of which were rejected after initial screening. The most serious problem was always the selection of suitable reviewers, persuading them to act and receiving good quality reports on time. This meant that our target times for processing papers were exceeded in most cases and too much work in progress resulted – a classic problem in operations management! Everyone is busy these days, but reviewing duties are essential if the quality of published work is to be maintained. Most papers required modification, either minor or major, before final acceptance for publication. We reckoned on a final output of about 50 papers a year, with at least two additional special issues. These were based on particular themes or selected papers from conferences, especially EurOMA conferences. Special issues, and their Guest Editors, were not always easy to control, both in terms of delivery and sometimes quality. Likewise, relationships with EurOMA were occasionally strained, but we valued their association with the Journal.

With regard to content, it was interesting to observe the way in which topics waxed and waned. In fact, it seems that topics have a life cycle, similar to the product life cycle. They start in a small way, often lagging developments in practice, and then grow rapidly as researchers jump on the bandwagon; a fashion or fad becomes established. After a time, the subject starts to decline in popularity, although submissions can continue for a considerable period, but one has the feeling that the topic has been milked dry. This raises the question about whether researchers would rather continue to tackle old topics than address new and potentially more important ones or new application areas. Much of the work in POM was first carried out in manufacturing before being transferred to other sectors of the economy; the obvious example being the service sector. Certainly we had many submissions on topics which someone once called “SOS” – same old stuff!

Another issue concerns research methodology, often an area criticised by reviewers as unsound in some way. This could range from inadequate coverage of relevant previous research, to the validity of hypotheses, to data analysis and presentation of results. Because the editorial policy of the Journal has been directed towards a strong applications emphasis, most papers have been based on surveys of practice or case studies. In general, there have been too few submissions dealing either with a thorough review of a particular topic and proposing a way forward or with trying to tackle important issues, which are not well structured or understood. Journal policy is sufficiently flexible to accommodate these papers or even a more theoretical approach, but very few were forthcoming. Ultimately, the judgement is whether the paper makes a real contribution to research, so that operations management can develop a sufficiently solid and broad theoretical base. At the moment, it could be argued that there are islands of theory in a sea of practice.

A crucial test for any academic journal is whether it is regarded highly by those working in the field. In many countries, universities are under pressure to conduct relevant research, frequently publicly funded, and disseminate the results in the best peer‐reviewed journals. There is certainly evidence that this Journal has established a strong international reputation in its subject area, both in terms of the submission of papers from all over the world, its wide readership and various independent evaluations. However, there is always room for improvement; this is the challenge for the new editorial team at Bradford. Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues on the Manchester editorial team and Lesley Bernardis, who was our Editorial Administrator for nearly nine years, for all their hard work.