METAANALYSIS APPLIED TO OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT - SUMMARIZING THE RESULTS OF EMPIRICAL-RESEARCH

The writing of every new management study should include an enquiry in to previous, related investigations. This approach helps to build up a comprehensive picture of the phenomena being considered. Researchers working in isolation tend to repeat past mistakes and rarely achieve m uch progress. Progress in management sciences comes from building on t he efforts of those who have already worked on the subject. Research s ynthesis is therefore an important task in the theory building/theory testing process. In recent years, quantitative research synthesis (met a-analysis) has gained increasing acceptance. Meta-analysis offers a p owerful set of tools for extracting quantitative information from a bo dy of related research. It has already been applied in the fields of a rchaeology, astronomy, chemistry, education, geophysical science, psyc hology and public policy. However, it seems suitable even for manageme nt researchers since quantitative research is becoming more accepted i n management disciplines. The aim of this study is to identify the con ditions of applicability of quantitative methods in summarizing past r esearch by drawing overall conclusions from many separate studies. Met a-analysis will be applied to a specific topic of operations managemen t (OM): the link between JIT levers and manufacturing performance with particular reference to time performance. More specifically, an appli cation of meta-analysis will be made with reference to two of the main steps towards the development of an empirically-tested theory: testin g the adequacy of the measurement of variables and testing the linkage s between the variables. The preliminary application of meta-analysis to OM has revealed distinct potential. However, in order for this pote ntial to be fully exploited, a set of conditions should be established when publishing empirical research in operations management, in order to simplify the comparison of different studies which are related to the same issue. This recommendation is presented together with the fin al results of the present study.