Empirical Elephants—Why Multiple Methods are Essential to Quality Research in Operations and Supply Chain Management

Vinod Singhal I agree with Kenneth Boyer and Morgan Swink that multiple methods are critical for doing high quality research in operations and supply chain management (OSCM). Ken and Morgan have clearly described the various empirical methods used in OSCM, the strengths and weaknesses of these methods, and examples where these method, individually or collectively, have been effectively used. The debate generated by this article will be useful in advancing empirical research in OSCM. I have two thoughts about empirical research in OSCM. First, although all four methods mentioned by Ken and Morgan have been used in empirical research in OSCM, the majority of empirical papers use surveybased methodologies. Its seems to me that researchers as well as respondents are suffering from survey fatigue, which has a direct impact on the quality of data received as well as the response rate. As a profession we need to consider how we can organize ourselves to develop a common database based on data from surveys and make it available to our community of researchers. This will make the data collection process more efficient, more reliable, allow researchers to more effectively build upon previous work, and our papers do not have to spend time justifying the reliability and robustness of data collection methods or the data collected. Our colleagues in Finance and Accounting have done this. Also, there are organizations that are in the business of developing, maintaining, and providing specialized data