APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS OF OR - REVIEW, CRITIQUE AND EXTENSION

The Practitioner's Dilemma draws attention to the distinction between the prescriptions for practice contained in the Literature and the act uality of practice. In this paper a review of the current approaches t o understanding the profess of OR is carried out that identifies the s ource of the Dilemma to lie in the two types of explanation of practic e that currently dominate the field. A third approach is identified th at offers a different perspective on the process of OR that is not sub ject to the problems associated with the Dilemma. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sc ience Ltd.