Operations Research (OR) is the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions, which may concern strategic issues for an organization.
It may be surprising that an entry named Operations Research (OR) appears in an encyclopedia of strategic management. In discussing whether OR does address strategy, Kirkwood (1990) argued that it should and does. OR is the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions, which may concern strategic issues for an organization. By using analytical methods to analyse complex situations, OR gives executives the power to make more effective decisions based on more complete data, consideration of all available options, careful predictions of outcomes and estimates of risk, and the latest decision tools and techniques.
Every organization faces issues and decisions that are of strategic importance. Pidd (2004) comments that strategic decisions are often complex,...
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Rand, G.K., O’Brien, F. (2016). Operations Research. In: Augier, M., Teece, D. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_792-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_792-1
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