There are lots of literature reviews and conceptual papers out there so this is not the thing. This “ListAssist” is making the start easier listing key articles and book chapters in particular areas denoting their content but also their methods. There are three within the area of “operations and logistics management”: logistics and supply chain management, humanitarian logistics, and sustainable technology management. A good start making research – and teaching – somewhat easier.
Gyöngyi
Ethics committees guard more and more types of research at universities and in different countries. Even student papers are routinely checked for plagiarism. There have been many infamous cases in which academic titles were stripped from people and several companies lost their licences to operate upon a scandal related to breaching some aspect of research ethics.
But what will happen to politicians plagiarising each others’ statutes? This is exactly what happened between two parties in Sweden. And the parties aren’t even close in ideology…
Gyöngyi
PS There is enough material in this for another John Le Carré novel after the Constant Gardener having looked into big pharma’s research ethics.
Talking about co-authoring is a bit like opening Pandora’s box. Approaches differ largely across universities and countries. Yet there are actually international agreements determining who should be named as an author vs. who should be thanked in acknowledgements (only). Even the order of authors has been regulated. Here’s a link to the “Vancouver protocol” on the matter, and the text in brief:
“The Vancouver Protocols state that in order to be credited as an author, each and every author on a publication needs to have been involved in the:
1. Conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data
AND
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published.”
Note all the AND-s in the requirements.
So why bother? Statistics on the matter show an increase in domestic and international co-authoring, thus the topic should be of rising interest.
Trends in the co-operation in science, 1985-2007
For this and more see the OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2009.
Gyöngyi
Few groups see the benefit of social networks for research as clearly as the BDOM network (standing for behavioral dynamics in operations management). They haven’t just added a list of publications or a bibliography of relevant publications on their website but an archive (including classifications á la content analysis) of publications on google docs – hence one should be able to extend the list. Some (learning) models may be right 
Gyöngyi
PS. Here’s the link to Sterman’s (2002) article claiming that “all models are wrong“.
Those who are interested in the development of research in Operations Management will find this paper by Andrew Taylor and Margaret Taylor (editors of IJOPM* during the last 5 years) relevant to their collection:
Operations management research: contemporary themes, trends and potential future directions
The paper identifies main research themes, use of research methods, and reasons for rejecting manuscripts.
The analysis of 310 articles published in IJOPM from 2004-2009 identified these as amongst the top-five themes in the journal:
1. Supply Chain Management
2. Operations Strategy
3. Performance Management
4. Service Operations
5. Lean Methods
What is in particular of interest in this paper is the insight the editors provide into the publication process; main reasons for rejection of manuscripts are presented and discussed. In addition, the paper provides overview on the use of various research methods, which indicates a relative balanced use of surveys and the case study method.
Árni
*International Journal of Operations & Production Management
Authors are well advised to check out editorial policies on review processes. While you may assume sending a paper to a international “peer reviewed” journal assures you of a blind review process, some even “better” journals (such as the International Journal of Production Economics) only subscribe to a single-blind review – i.e. authors do not know who their reviewers are but reviewers certainly do know who the authors are. This is not to say there wouldn’t be good arguments to present for single-blind or even open reviews, the question is just why this is not openly stated in the journal’s editorial policy… So this is not blind, it’s just candid. More room for ring-a-ring-o’-roses. Nobody said it was easy to be a scientist 
Gyöngyi
Oddly enough, most Britons have lied about the books they’ve read in order to impress others; with a study revealing the “top ten list” of books people have lied about. The authors should be happy, even though they are not read, they are regarded as socially worth while reading. A lovely case of social desirability bias – sthg ethics scholars and corporate social responsibility researchers are quite familiar with. Apart from indirect questioning etc., one way to check for social desirability bias in a business setting is to see what a company does in an economic downturn – now it’s a good time for social desirability bias research, I reckon
Gyöngyi
The Journal of Business Logistics is seeking a new editor – see CSCMP’s call here. Deadline for applications: May 1, 2009
Gyöngyi
To be a bit more positive about academic publishing, LIHE is planning a workshop on “Writing for journal publication” in Sep in Greece. Check it out.
Gyöngyi
Ring a ring o’ roses… This is actually the title of a fascinating article on how to play the game of getting published, getting cited, publishing in “quality” journals etc. It is enlightening how little the quality of an article actually matters, and how we prefer where an article has been published over what it actually contains.
As for journal rankings, it’s a vicious circle of them being based on “quality” people publishing in a journal who submit their paper to the journal only because its a “quality” journal. And another vicious circle of journal ranking being based on (self?)-citations and on the inclusion of both the cited and citing journal article in the SSCI (otherwise your citation is just not counted). Then there is also the self-fulfilling prophecy of higher journal rankings leading to more submissions leading to higher rejection rates and an even higher journal ranking…
Just when is this academic bubble going to burst? The authors (Stuart Macdonald and Jacqueline Kam) suggest a game of tinkerbell to deal with it… and have been quite successful in the gamesmanship they criticise – this very article got them high publication points.
Gyöngyi
