Journal of operations management

Journal of Operations Management (journal-of-operations-management)

Journal positioning

The Journal of Operations Management (JOM) is a leading empirical home for operations and supply-chain management research, with a long tradition of survey-based, behavioral, and theory-driven empirical work. It is OM's empirical flagship in the way M&SOM anchors analytical OM: JOM rewards papers that test or build operations theory with strong primary or secondary data, and it takes construct measurement and research design seriously. This is the OM "JOM" — distinct from the management Journal of Management. The readership is the empirical OM and SCM community.

This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the publisher's JOM site and the editorial submission system.

When to trigger

• The author names JOM (the operations-management journal, not the management Journal of Management) as the venue.
• An empirical, survey-based, behavioral, or theory-testing OM/SCM paper needs an empirical OM flagship.
• A modeling-heavy or descriptive operations paper needs re-framing around an empirical theoretical contribution.
• The author needs JOM's desk-reject risks and a credible OM / MS alternative list before submitting.

Scope & topic fit

• Empirical operations and supply-chain management: sourcing, supplier relationships, operations strategy, quality, and process management.
• Survey-based research with rigorous construct development and measurement.
• Behavioral operations: experiments and field studies on operational decision-making.
• Theory-driven empirical work using secondary/archival data, with identification appropriate to the operations question.

Method & evidence bar

• Theory-driven empirics: the paper must develop and test operations theory, not just report associations; hypotheses (or an inductive model) follow explicit logic.
• Survey work needs validated constructs, attention to common-method bias, reliability/validity evidence, and a defensible sampling frame.
• Archival/secondary-data work needs credible identification (DiD/IV/RDD/experiments) and robustness.
• Behavioral studies need adequate power, sound design, and replicability; measurement and manipulation checks must be reported.

Structure & house style

• The front end frames an operations theoretical gap and develops hypotheses or a grounded model with explicit logic.
• Methods sections are transparent about constructs, measurement, sampling, and identification; appendices carry scales and robustness.
• Results report operational magnitudes and effect sizes, not only significance; the discussion cashes in the theoretical and managerial contribution.
• Writing emphasizes the contribution to OM theory and practice.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Journal of Operations Management author guidelines / information for authors" and follow the current publisher version.
• Re-check word/length limits, abstract format, anonymization for double-blind review, reference style, and structured-abstract requirements if any.
• Re-check the current open-science, data/code availability, and AI-use disclosure policies.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence stating the contribution to operations-management theory.
• Hypotheses (or the inductive model) follow from explicit theoretical logic.
• Constructs are validated; common-method bias and identification concerns are addressed to current standards.
• Results report operational magnitudes; the discussion states theory and practice contributions.
• Length, abstract, anonymization, references, and open-science policy match the current JOM guide.

Common desk-reject triggers

• An atheoretical empirical study ("a survey of practice X in industry Y") with no OM theoretical contribution.
• Weak construct validity, unaddressed common-method bias, or no identification for causal claims.
• A purely analytical / optimization paper with no empirical OM contribution.
• Confusing JOM (operations) with the management Journal of Management in scope and framing.

Re-routing decision

• Analytical OM theory and models (supply chain, inventory, service, revenue management) → manufacturing-and-service-operations-management.
• Broad OM with society audience, sustainability/healthcare operations, analytical or empirical → production-and-operations-management.
• Broad management insight or empirics across subfields → management-science (choose the right department).
• OR methodology / optimization for its own sake → operations-research; computational → informs-journal-on-computing.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Journal of Operations Management
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <does the theory-driven empirical design clear JOM's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <submission system / length / blinding / open-science / data-code>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>