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JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
Discipline Boundaries in Innovation Studies: Operations Management and Allied Fields
Author(s): John E. Ettlie, Nada R. Sanders
Citation: John E. Ettlie, Nada R. Sanders, "Discipline Boundaries in Innovation Studies: Operations Management and Allied Fields," Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, Vol. 12, Iss. 1, p. 41-54
Article Type: Research paper
Publisher: North American Business Press
Abstract:
In this essay we summarize the state-of-the art of innovation studies shadowed by the daunting challenges
this eclectic subject domain incurs as a result of discipline silo structures in most universities. Indeed,
developments in technology and other external forces like competition and regulatory changes have pushed
organizations towards development and adoption of new approaches particularly salient in Operations
Management (OM). We show, however, that in the academic community, these discipline-based efforts have
created an impediment to development of a general theory of innovation processes. We conclude with an
upbeat and optimistic appraisal of possible ways forward and suggest a process to accelerate theorybuilding
that might deal with the growing feeling among many scholars that many academic journals are
becoming irrelevant. Examples from the current literature and reflections on the past 40 years of research in
the field are liberally sampled. Although our essay views innovation through a broad bi-disciplinary lens, we
place OM and technology as the centerpiece of discussion and use it as an exemplar for the proposed way
forward.
