From the Editor

Stefanos Zenios
Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Stefanos Zenios, editor in chief of Operations Research, provides his vision and goals for the journal’s next three years.

Introduction

Operations Research is one of the flagship journals of our profession, and it has a long and distinguished history of excellence. In recent years, the journal has enjoyed significant growth in the numbers of papers submitted and accepted, substantially shorter review times, and increased impact (both in measurable and nonmeasurable ways). For that, we are all grateful to David Simchi-Levi, the previous editor-in-chief, and all members of the previous editorial board for their tireless service to the journal and the profession. As the new editor in chief of the journal, I am honored to pick up from where the previous board left the journal. I am also thankful to the distinguished colleagues who have joined the new editorial board. I look forward to working with them and the broader Operations Research community to build on the current strengths of the journal and further enhance its stature and impact.

Editorial Objectives

Operations Research aims to publish high quality papers that represent the true breadth of the methodologies and applications that define our field. It serves the entire Operations Research community including practitioners, researchers, educators, and students. In that respect, the papers that appear in the journal must satisfy three essential requirements: operations-focused, scientific, and broad. Let me elaborate:

Papers ask questions related to Operations. The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides nine definitions of the word Operations. These range from “performance of practical work or of something involving a practical application of principles or processes” to “any of various mathematical or logical processes of deriving one entity from another according to a rule” to “business transactions, military actions, and health care procedures.” This shows that the word Operations is broad. It covers research topics that one would normally associate with our field (e.g., algorithms, business processes, military actions, manufacturing systems, health-care operations, etc.), but it can be expansive in nature. At a fundamental level, a focus on Operations means paying attention to the “details” of how inputs are transformed into outputs, and how the various components of systems that enable the transformation operate and interact. In that respect, Operations focuses on the “physics” of systems that enable these transformations, but it does not ignore the interaction of these systems with other interrelated systems and with the “imperfect” people who often design them and make them work. It does not include only designed systems and may also include systems that appear in the natural and physical sciences.

Papers adhere to the scientific method: systematic observation, measurement, experimentation, formulation, testing and proving hypotheses, and evidence-based modification of hypotheses. The scientific method provides a systematic approach to remove bias from the interpretation of the observations and from testing of hypotheses. The tools used in our field to remove such biases typically come from the mathematical sciences and computational experimentation. However, the scientific method is broad, and papers that involve the use of traditional scientific approaches that have not been used widely in Operations Research, such as randomized controlled experiments or well-designed observational studies, are also welcomed and indeed encouraged.

Papers are of broad interest. Methodologically oriented papers should be relevant to several of the applications reflected in the field. Applications papers should consider a problem that is central to their application area and preferably of broader societal or business impact. Papers reporting practical applications of Operations Research should go beyond reporting the application instance. They should provide lessons and observations that can influence the more foundational research in our field, or offer generalizable insights that can influence educators or practitioners.

In summary, the editorial board wishes to attract to the journal papers that answer a clear Operations question, using the scientific method, and that span the continuum from theory, to applications, to practice. More importantly, we wish to attract papers that broaden the scope of the journal by (a) expanding the domain of problems examined, (b) expanding the scientific methods used, and (c) connecting theory, to applications, to practice.

Area Structure

To broaden the range and type of papers appearing in the journal, we are making some changes in its area structures. First, we classify the areas of the journal into three broad categories:

• Methods. This category includes the four areas that attract the papers that deepen and broaden the foundations of our field: Decision Analysis, Optimization, Simulation, and Stochastic Models.
• Contextual Areas. This category includes the established applications areas of Operations Research: Financial Engineering, Military and Homeland Security, Operations and Supply Chains, and Transportation.
• Crosscutting Areas. This category includes areas that typically cut across multiple areas and disciplines: Environment, Energy, and Sustainability; Games, Information, and Networks; Marketing Sciences; OR Forum; OR Practice; Policy Modeling and Public Sector OR.

This categorization of the areas of the journal signals that we welcome papers that build on the established methodological and application traditions in our field, but we are also open to papers that cut across areas, open up new applications, or bring new methodologies to bear on important problems. The categorization is imperfect, and we expect that some papers submitted to the Methods and Contextual Areas categories will have a crosscutting component. In the print version of the journal, papers will be categorized not only by their area but also by their broad categories. Papers in the same category will be published consecutively in each issue under a prominent heading. Authors will continue to submit their papers directly to the areas they choose. This classification does not affect the review process. It changes how papers will be presented in the journal and symbolizes our desire to broaden the journal.

We have also made some changes in the areas of the journal. First, Games, Information, and Networks is a new area. This area subsumes the Telecommunications and Networking, and Computing and Information Technologies areas. The premise behind this new area is simple: Modern information and communication technologies have generated a whole array of problems related to network design, structure, control, pricing, etc., that require creative modeling and analysis. Analysis of these problems often relies on modeling paradigms from Game Theory and Economics. This new area is meant to provide a home for papers that represent this emerging paradigm in our field and draw from paradigms in three “sister” fields: economics, electrical engineering, and computer science.

Second, the area Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources has been renamed Environment, Energy, and Sustainability. The area continues to welcome papers in the Natural Resources domain, but it also welcomes papers in the broader sustainability domain (expanded to include economic sustainability). There will be some overlap between this area and Operations and Supply Chains. We encourage authors of papers that overlap between the two areas to err in favor of the Environment, Energy, and Sustainability area. This is in order to acknowledge the growing role of environmental considerations in Supply Chain Management and Operations Management.

Third, the Manufacturing, Service, and Supply Chain Operations area has been renamed Operations and Supply Chains. This is mostly for brevity and does not reflect a shift or change in the area’s mission.

Fourth, the Revenue Management area is discontinued. This does not reflect a diminished stature for this area. On the contrary, we feel that the volume and variety of Revenue Management papers can be handled more effectively by submitting to one of the following: Stochastic Models; Operations and Supply Chains; Transportation; Games, Information, and Networks; and Environment, Energy, and Sustainability.

Finally, we are making some adjustments in the strategy for OR Forum and OR Practice. The OR Forum area will no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. Instead, the Area Editor for OR Forum will work with all other areas of the journal and the Editor in Chief to identify papers in the pipeline that could be designated as OR Forum papers. As before, scholars will be asked to provide online commentary for OR Forum papers, and the authors will provide a rejoinder. A one-page summary of the online debate will be provided in the print version. The OR Practice area expands its current scope to include papers that synthesize the experience from multiple cases of OR practice implementation and provide insights into the critical success factors of practice.

Taking Risks

We are also open to risk taking. While we will not compromise on the three basic principles—operations-focused, scientific, and broad—we want to encourage papers that employ creative modeling and analysis to provide “imperfect solutions” to messy and novel problems. Imperfect does not mean “incorrect.” Rather, it means papers that need to make some painful (and not fully validated) assumptions to make progress in new areas. These “imperfect” papers will be welcomed to the journal as long as they meet three criteria:

• The problem area is novel, important, and holds a promise for opening up new areas for the field.
• The limiting assumptions are clearly articulated and defended.
• Implications of the limitations are discussed in depth.

Judicious risk taking can support our broader goal of expanding the reach of our journal and profession.

For the Reviewers

High-quality reviews provide the foundation for the journal. Excellent reviews provide an objective view of the strengths and limitations of a paper and suggestions to the authors on how to improve their paper. By providing excellent reviews, reviewers ensure the quality of the papers appearing in the journal, and they also contribute to the broader quality of the papers in our field. For that, we are thankful to all the reviewers who make this journal a success. We will continue to recognize excellent reviews with the Meritorious Service Award. Beyond that, we want to encourage our reviewers and Associate Editors to take some risks that are consistent with the guidelines presented in this editorial statement. The editorial board will rely heavily on the judgment of our reviewers when it comes to evaluating papers that provide “imperfect” solutions to broad and messy problems. Reviewers should praise and reward papers that are diligent in articulating the limitations and assumptions made in such papers, and they should not necessarily assume that an in-depth exploration of all limitations is a prerequisite for acceptance into the journal. What is important is that key limitations are articulated, and reasonable explanations for their implications are presented in the papers.

Conflict-of-Interest Policy

When carrying out their journal duties, the Editor in Chief (EIC), Area Editors (ArEd), and Associate Editors (AEs) may receive submissions from authors with whom they have close relationships. Similarly, reviewers may inadvertently be asked to review papers from others with whom they have close relationships. This includes, for example, former students, recent collaborators, and colleagues from the same department. In these situations, a potential conflict of interest arises. The journal recognizes that the EIC and the ArEds are senior people in the field with many collaborators and former Ph.D. students. If every former collaborator is a potential conflict of interest, the journal will soon run out of reviewers for a particular paper. Thus, our objective is to ensure that a potential conflict of interest is well managed without sacrificing the quality of the review process or significantly increasing its complexity.

Potential conflict of interest occurs when an Editor (either the EIC or an ArEd) receives a submission from (or when an AE or reviewer is assigned a paper from):

• Authors who collaborated with the Editor (or AE/ reviewer) in the three years prior to submission.
• Current or former Ph.D. students who were advised by the Editor (or AE/reviewer) and who graduated within the past five years.
• Colleagues from their own department or school.
• Other authors whose relationship to the Editor (or AE/reviewer) could reasonably be expected to prevent the Editor (or AE/reviewer) from judging the paper fairly.

The EIC and ArEds will attempt to assign papers to AEs to avoid any potential conflict of interest. However, due to limited awareness of relationships, occasionally assignments will occur for which there is a potential conflict of interest for an AE or reviewer. In such cases, the AE should notify the Area Editor who will decide the most appropriate action. This would typically entail reassigning the paper to a different AE or possibly handling the paper directly.

Whenever there is a potential conflict of interest for the EIC or ArEd, the EIC will ask an experienced ArEd from the editorial board to serve as the proxy ArEd or EIC for this submission. The proxy editor will then handle the entire review process; select an AE, receive reports and recommendations from the AE, and then make a decision and communicate this back directly to the authors. The proxy editor would continue to manage the review process for any revisions until the paper is accepted, rejected, or withdrawn.

To the extent possible, AEs should also attempt to avoid potential conflicts of interest in selecting referees but if a conflict of interest exists, they must consult with their ArEd for the appropriate course of action.

Page Limit

Although we want to maintain the average number of manuscript pages per paper to be less than 30, we do not wish to enforce a strict limit at 30 pages (including references, tables, and figures). Longer papers (30 > number of pages < 40) may be published in their entirety depending on the significance of the contribution. However, the AEs and ArEds will always strive to shorten papers when possible. This may mean that some proofs, lemmas, supporting tables, etc., in a paper will be posted as an electronic companion online. Authors are encouraged to use an electronic companion to shorten their papers and strive for a 30-page paper.

Conclusion

We want to build on the current strengths of Operations Research and expand its breadth, reach, and impact. Operations Research should be the outlet of choice for the best papers that use the scientific method to study broad Operations Research problems. Papers that expand the applications studied and methods used in our field are welcomed. And we are especially open to papers that provide “imperfect” but well-defended solutions to big and messy problems. On behalf of the whole editorial board, we look forward to serving the journal and the profession in this important role.