PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

1 Conducting Academic Research with anIndustry Focus: PRODUCTION and OperationsManagement in the High Tech IndustrySara Beckman Kingshuk K. SinhaHaas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-1900, USAC arlson School of MANAGEMENT , University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, words: collaborative research; new product development; clockspeed; inter-functional collaboration;manufacturing OPERATIONS ; changeover flexibility; capacity planning; quality MANAGEMENT ; setup timereduction; service OPERATIONS ; after sales support; service design; supply chain OPERATIONS ; capacityreservation contract; supplier selection; high tech industry; personal computer industry; aerospaceindustry; semiconductor industry; electronics industry; telecommunications industry; managementconsulting; technology vendor; trade associationSubmissions and Acceptance: Received May 2005; revision received June 2005; accepted July 2005 byKalyan Singhal.

2 The impact of high tech products on people s everyday livesis immeasurable. High tech products keep people safer andhealthier, enable them to be more productive at home and onthe job, and contribute to a better quality of life. Whether it smedicine or national security, education or agriculture, en-vironment or entertainment, the high tech industry is om-nipresent and is inextricably linked to the advancement ofmodern society. (American Electronics Association 2003, p. 1)1. Motivating Focus on a SpecificIndustryHistorically, knowledge in professional disciplines hasdevelopedthroughtopicallyfocusedresea rchgrounded in the relevant discipline. The managementdiscipline in general and the PRODUCTION and opera-tions MANAGEMENT discipline in particular are no ex-ception. The field of PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS man-agement has evolved over the years through researchfocused in areas such as PRODUCTION and inventorycontrol, facilities location and layout, OPERATIONS strat-egy, quality MANAGEMENT , new product development,technology MANAGEMENT , service OPERATIONS , supplychain MANAGEMENT , international OPERATIONS , and e-business.

3 Hence, it is natural that this flagship journalof the PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT Soci-ety is organized in departments predominantly cen-tered on major topics in the PRODUCTION and operationsmanagement field. Further, we the scholars of produc-tion and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT who publish in andreview forProduction and OPERATIONS Managementandother sister journals of the field, when declaring ourindividual specialty and expertise, generally do so interms of these topics or an even more refined versionof them, in terms of methodological expertise, or interms of some combination of both. Finally, ourknowledge dissemination vehicles ( , productionand OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT textbooks, courses, andexecutive education programs), too, are largely orga-nized by such topics. In sum, the supply side of thefield of PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT , con-sistently organizes and brands knowledge creation,reporting of scholarly expertise, and knowledge dis-semination with a topical in the consumption and application of pro-duction and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT knowledge onthe demand side of the field are less obvious.

4 If weare committed to advancing the PRODUCTION and oper-ations MANAGEMENT profession and practice (cf., Ben-nis and O Toole 2005), it is imperative that we under-stand how PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS managementPOMSPRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENTVol. 14, No. 2, Summer 2005, pp. 115 124issn1059-1478 05 1402 115$ 2005 PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT Society115tapraid4/z3z-pom/z3z-pom/z3z00 205/z3z0472-05amoyerrS 117/27/0522:10 Art:Input-dla(dla)knowledge is being consumed and applied so as toeffectively map the field s supply side to its demandside. To learn about how the consumption and appli-cation of PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS managementknowledge is organized, we looked outside the aca-demic community at the community of managementconsultants and technology vendors and examinedhow they organize their specialties. MANAGEMENT con-sultants with PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS managementexpertise( ,PRTM[ ],McKinsey [ ], Booz Allenand Hamilton [ ]), andtechnology vendors of supply chain solutions ( , i2[ ], SAP [ ],Oracle [ ]) share with pro-duction and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT scholars a com-mon interest in knowledge creation, dissemination,consumption, and application.

5 While it is reasonableto assume that knowledge creation is the forte ofscholars, knowledge synthesis, dissemination, con-sumption, and application are often the forte of man-agement consultants and technology vendors. In fact,consumption and application of PRODUCTION and oper-ations MANAGEMENT knowledge is critical to the sur-vival and sustained success of MANAGEMENT consult-ants and technology vendors of supply do MANAGEMENT consultants and technologyvendors organize their specialties? They organize notonly by function and disciplinary topic, but also byindustry sector. Booz, Allen and Hamilton, for exam-ple, includes change MANAGEMENT , innovation, opera-tions, outsourcing advisory services, program man-agement, supply chain MANAGEMENT , and strategyamong the topics on which it focuses, and aerospaceand defense, healthcare, high tech, media and enter-tainment, pharmaceutical and medical, and telecomand networks among the industries it serves.

6 Pittiglio,Rabin, Todd, and McGrath (PRTM), a firm focusedmore narrowly on OPERATIONS in the high tech sector,includes strategy, product development, operationsand supply chain MANAGEMENT , customer service andsupport, marketing and sales, and strategic informa-tion technology MANAGEMENT as its services and offersthem to a variety of high tech industry sub-sectorsincluding aerospace and defense, computers andperipherals, electronic equipment and distributors,medical devices and diagnostics, pharmaceutical andbiotechnology, semiconductors and components, soft-ware, and telecommunications. Organizing by indus-try sector, in addition to organizing by function anddisciplinary topic, provides MANAGEMENT consultantsand technology vendors an effective way to map howknowledge is created and disseminated ( , the sup-ply side) to how knowledge is consumed and applied( , the demand side).

7 Industry trade associations similarly show a focuson industry specific problems and solutions. In a shortweb search, one can find a wide range of industry-focused associations that provide information and ser-vices targeted to narrow populations of manufactur-ers. Examples include The Steel ManufacturersAssociation, Association of Home Appliance Manu-facturers, Association of American Publishers, BritishFurniture Manufacturers Ltd., and Australian Minesand Metals Association. That such institutions notonly exist, but thrive, provides additional evidence ofthe desire for industry based choice of industry focus on the supply side, however, is not the only evidence of important differ-ences among industry sectors. That there are system-atic differences with respect to investigating issues orphenomenon pertaining to a particular managementdiscipline becomes readily and intuitively visible inempirical studies where data are collected from orga-nizational units across more than one industry.

8 Inthese studies, for example, we observe the use andsignificance of indicator variables as proxies to captureaggregate industry effects in model Sloan Foundation s ( ) significant investments in setting up in-dustry centers in universities across the country alsosuggest that it is important for scholars to understandand investigate issues facing specific industry industry centers have brought together facultycolleagues and graduate students from multiple disci-plines and provided them with opportunities to col-lectively address problems of the industry. Manymanagement scholars and, more specifically, produc-tion and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT scholars have takenadvantage of the Sloan Foundation industry centersand used specific industries as their empirical researchsettings to advance the frontiers of knowledge in theirrespective disciplines.

9 Some of these colleagues in-clude: Roger Bohn (University of California at SanDiego) and associates studied the information storageindustry; Charles Fine (Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology) and associates studied the motor vehicleindustry; Marshall Fisher (University of Pennsylva-nia), Janice Hammond (Harvard University), AnanthRaman (Harvard University) and associates studiedthe textile/retail industry; Robert Leachman (Univer-sity of California at Berkeley) and associates studiedthe semiconductor industry; K. K. Sinha (University ofMinnesota) and associates studied the food , the outlets for knowledge dissemina-tion ( , journals and conferences) in the field ofproduction and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT remain pre-dominantly topically and sometimes methodologi-cally focused. Notable exceptions include a specialissue ofManufacturing & Service OPERATIONS Manage-ment(2004) on the food and agribusiness industryBeckman and Sinha:Conducting Academic Research with an Industry Focus116 PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 14(2), pp.

10 115 124, 2005 PRODUCTION and OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT Societytapraid4/z3z-pom/z3z-pom/z3z00205 /z3z0472-05amoyerrS 117/27/0522:10 Art:Input-dla(dla)sector and a symposium sponsored by the NationalScience Foundation (2004) on supply chain manage-ment in process industries held at the University ofMinnesota. While other industry-focused research hasproduced many publications usually in the form ofindividual papers or presentations, few are aggre-gated in focused special issues or Focus on High Tech IndustryThe AeA, formerly the American Electronics Associa-tion (2003), a well-known and well-established tradeassociation representing the high tech industry defineshigh tech as including 45 different Standard IndustrialClassification (SIC) codes in the following sub-sectors: High-tech manufacturing Computers and office equipment Consumer electronics Communications equipment Electronic components and accessories Semiconductors and related devices Industrial electronics Photonics Defense electronics Electro-medical equipment Software and computer-related services, includ-ing.