The Easy Chair: What Kinds of Papers Will Contribute to a Well-Rounded View of the Conditions and Craft of OR/MS Practice?

Abstract

With an OR background of varied practice. I began my editorial career in operations research over three decades ago. Even then it was clear that readers of our journals wanted more of what were already being called applications papers. Note that this term appears to have conceded that the subject's center of attention was developing theory rather than exploring the phenomena that OR was undertaking to understand and explain. A balanced view of the subject should regard the two activities as inseparable partners: theory without an observational base is only an intellectual game; practice without adequate intellectual conceptions (that is, models) is mere management gamesmanship.