Editorial: Balancing continuity and change in operations and supply chain management research

The International Journal of Operations and Production Management (IJOPM) stands as one of the premier journals in empirical operations and supply chain management (OSCM). Since its foundation in 1980, successive editorial teams have shaped IJOPM into the influential publication it is today. As the new Co-Editors-in-Chief (Co-EiCs), we are honored to build upon this legacy and to steward the journal’s continued growth in the years ahead, in close collaboration with Emerald as our publishing partner.We extend our deepest appreciation to the outgoing editorial team: Constantin Blome, Robert D. Klassen, Tobias Schoenherr and Martin C. Schleper, whose leadership over the past seven years has elevated IJOPM to a position of exceptional standing and impact within the OSCM community. Their commitment and contributions have set a high bar, and we are grateful for the foundation of excellence they have passed on to us.As the incoming editorial team, we are guided by a clear vision and strong aspirations to uphold and further strengthen IJOPM’s tradition of excellence. Our focus will be on maintaining the journal’s rigorous publication standards, reinforcing research integrity, fostering a dynamic and thriving global academic community, and supporting IJOPM’s continued growth as a leading empirical OSCM journal. Stepping into this role, our commitment is twofold: (1) to ensure continuity and (2) to drive change where needed. The transition to a new editorial team reflects this balance, exemplified by Professor Martin C. Schleper’s progression from Editorial Assistant to Co-EiC, ensuring that vital procedural knowledge is preserved while welcoming new perspectives brought by the incoming team members – Professors Jens K. Roehrich and Hugo Lam (Co-EiCs), as well as Drs Desirée van Dun and Byung-Gak Son (Managerial Editors – MEs).Supported by IJOPM’s dedicated and newly/re-assigned Associate Editors (AEs), Editorial Review Board (ERB) members and ad-hoc reviewers, our strategic agenda centers on five key priorities to further elevate the journal:Together, these initiatives reflect our vision of a journal that not only leads but continually evolves in step with the field.We are excited to collaborate with the IJOPM and broader OSCM community to ensure that the journal not only sustains its position among the leading OSCM journal outlets but also expands its reach and influence. A key priority will be to enhance IJOPM’s scholarly and practical impact by attracting high-quality submissions and upholding fair and efficient processes in review, manuscript development and publication. Particularly, we aim to further strengthen IJOPM’s vibrant communities of reviewers and researchers while extending meaningful support to scholars from underserved regions. This commitment to inclusivity will help ensure more diverse representation within OSCM scholarship. Through these efforts, we seek to elevate the journal as a platform that amplifies diverse voices and delivers research that is both academically rigorous and practically relevant.In this inaugural editorial, we reflect on the first year of editorial leadership and present a roadmap for achieving our goals for IJOPM’s continued growth and impact. We offer transparency into the journal’s review and publication processes and emphasize the need to uphold research integrity. Most importantly, we put forward theses on three major trends, i.e. (1) globalization and trade issues; (2) sustainability, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) topics; and (3) artificial intelligence (AI), which we believe will shape the future of OSCM and the journal’s content in the near to medium term. While these themes are not new to the field (i.e. continuity), we aim to explore them through a fresh and more provocative lens, one that encourages unconventional and forward-thinking research in OSCM (i.e. change).As we embark on this journey, we look forward to working closely with the IJOPM community. We invite you to share with us your ideas, enthusiasm and energy, and to join us in a productive and collaborative partnership to achieve these shared ambitions.IJOPM places strong emphasis on both theoretical contributions and practical relevance. We welcome research that advances OSCM theory by engaging rigorously with specific empirical phenomena while offering insights that extend beyond their immediate context. Contributions should deepen understanding and enrich ongoing scholarly debates within the field. At the same time, OSCM is an applied discipline. We therefore value research that addresses real-world challenges. Not only within firms and supply chains, but also in their broader connections to policy and society. Practical relevance does not require prescriptive advice; instead, we seek thought-provoking and non-obvious insights that can meaningfully engage managers, policymakers and/or other key stakeholders. The true test of relevance is whether the research can spark a compelling and substantive conversation beyond academia.To achieve this, IJOPM supports a wide range of empirically grounded approaches and maintains a strong commitment to rigor in the development, application and refinement of diverse theoretical perspectives. We are particularly committed to promoting methodological plurality and epistemological diversity, welcoming qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods and emerging approaches that reflect the complexity of real-world OSCM challenges. Through this inclusive and forward-looking stance, we aim to foster a vibrant academic community where diverse voices contribute to innovative and impactful research that advances theory, informs practice and addresses critical issues across business, policy and society. Furthermore, we carefully refreshed the AEs, ERB members and ad hoc reviewers who share this commitment.The academic peer-review process is a cornerstone of scholarly communication and a vital part of developing high-quality research. At its core, it ensures the rigor, credibility and relevance of published work by subjecting manuscripts to expert evaluation and development. Peer review plays a critical role in identifying methodological limitations, enhancing theoretical contributions and ensuring that research meaningfully advances our collective understanding of OSCM. However, the process is not without challenges. These include implicit and explicit biases, variability in review and development quality, and the increasing pressure on reviewer teams amid rising submission volumes.At IJOPM, we see peer review not as a gatekeeping mechanism but as a vital developmental tool that benefits both authors and reviewers. For authors, thoughtful feedback can sharpen research questions, improve methodological rigor, and enhance publication process. These standards are essential to ensuring the clarity and impact of their contributions (to theory, practice, policy and society). For reviewers, the process offers an opportunity to engage with emerging research, deepen subject-matter expertise and actively contribute to shaping our field. We also recognize the important role peer review plays in supporting academic careers, particularly for early-career researchers. A structured and constructive review process can help hone critical thinking, strengthen scholarly work and foster professional growth. By continually enhancing the transparency, fairness, developmental value and timeliness of our review process, we aim to support individual scholars while advancing the broader field of OSCM research.Throughout the publication process, we seek to provide clear, constructive feedback and developmental guidance to help authors refine their work and uncover new research opportunities. During rounds of revision, we set specific expectations and offer actionable suggestions to support authors in advancing their manuscripts. Authors are expected to respond to all comments from reviewers, the AE and the handling Co-EiC in a thorough and respectful manner. Each comment should be addressed either by clearly outlining the revisions made—indicating their specific location in the manuscript—or by providing a well-reasoned explanation for why a particular suggestion was not incorporated. We encourage authors to refrain from copying extensive sections of the manuscript into their response letters. Instead, revisions should be summarized succinctly, with responses focused directly on the issues raised. Replies should remain professional, concise and free from unnecessary elaboration. Most importantly, authors should keep the manuscript’s central goals and contributions in view while carefully engaging with all feedback to strengthen the overall quality and impact of their research study.As part of the initial submission, we recommend that authors include a brief and focused cover letter. A well-crafted cover letter serves as an important complement to the manuscript, helping the editorial team to quickly understand the core contributions, theoretical positioning, methodological approach and practical relevance of the work. It allows authors to clearly point out why IJOPM is the authors’ target journal (i.e. its alignment with current debates in IJOPM) and contextualize their submission within the journal’s scope, highlight its novelty, and clarify and flag unique aspects or potential sensitivities related to the submission (e.g. prior publications, previously used data, received funding and conflicts of interest).A brief schematic overview of IJOPM’s peer-review process is presented in Figure 1.While Figure 1 outlines the process for the first round of submission, revised manuscripts are, in most cases, evaluated only by the handling AE and the Co-EiC(s). In practice, most authors have a clear indication of their paper’s likely acceptance by the R2 or R3 stage, as possible R4 and subsequent rounds typically involve only minor revisions.Research integrity is fundamental to IJOPM’s identity as a leading empirical OSCM journal. As submission volumes continue to rise (IJOPM has seen average annual growth exceeding 10% in recent years), and as predatory and unethical publishing practices become more visible (Laine et al., 2025), we reaffirm our commitment to maintaining the highest ethical standards across all stages of the publication process. These standards are essential to ensuring that IJOPM remains a trusted and credible platform for academic scholarship.While recent anecdotal discussions on professional platforms such as LinkedIn and during Meet-the-Editor sessions have drawn attention to these questionable publishing practices, we recognize that scrutiny extends beyond the academic community. Non-academic stakeholders, including business leaders, policymakers and the wider public, are increasingly alert to issues of research misconduct. In some cases, political actors have even weaponized isolated incidents to undermine the credibility of science as a whole. This makes it more important for us, as researchers and editors, to remain vigilant and uphold the highest standards of integrity in academic research and publishing.Hence, we expect all authors and submissions to adhere to best practices in responsible research conduct, including transparency in data collection and analysis, appropriate citation of prior work and honest reporting of findings. Authors must clearly disclose any prior use of data featured in earlier publications. While such reuse is not inherently problematic, full transparency is essential. Editorial decisions will be guided by the novelty of the research and the unique contribution it makes to OSCM literature and practice.We are also increasingly vigilant toward unethical publishing practices, which have become more visible (or more readily detectable) in recent years. These practices include plagiarism, salami-slicing, data fabrication and other forms of academic misconduct (a useful overview and taxonomy of these behaviors is provided by Hall and Martin, 2019). IJOPM applies rigorous editorial checks and relies on the diligence of AEs, reviewers and plagiarism-detection software to identify and address such misconduct. We are also mindful that certain questionable practices may become more prevalent with the increasing use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and other forms of AI. To support responsible use and help delineate misconduct related to these technologies, IJOPM has joined a collective initiative with other leading OSCM journals, including the Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Business Logistics, Decision Sciences and others to endorse a shared AI policy (available here: https://sites.google.com/view/policy-on-ai?usp=sharing%C2%A0). While this policy serves primarily as guidance for authors, reviewers and for evaluating individual cases, it is intentionally designed to be dynamic and will be updated as LLM and AI we are particularly questionable practices that and in the scholarly These include where are as or substantive contribution to the where the same teams on without a clear and or where inclusion publication or citation While to such increasingly scrutiny and within the academic community. 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We a of development, ethical standards, fostering collaboration and shared growth for OSCM and We encourage you to engage with us, IJOPM, and the broader OSCM community, working to contribute to the of our of knowledge as well as policy and insights that shape OSCM us and to ideas, contribute to and build and strengthen The future of OSCM with our authors, reviewers, and in publishing and wider are vital that shape our collective elevate and drive practice, policy and We look forward to our our IJOPM