What has 25 years of P/OM research taught us about productivity

Achieving productivity growth that is both sustained and sustainable is clearly a concern of Governments across the world, yet what has 25-years of research in production and operations management taught us about productivity and to what extent have these lessons been incorporated into mainstream public policy debates. Using data gathered during a meta-analysis of papers published during the last 25 years in the International Journal of Operations and Production Management (IJOPM), the Journal of Operations Management (JOM) and the International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE) this paper argues that the P/OM community has largely failed to engage with the policy community, not because the research undertaken by the P/OM community is irrelevant to the policy community, but because the P/OM community has failed to capitalize on its relevance. Using a framework based on the OMA model – opportunity, motivation and ability - we explore the reasons why this is the case for individual P/OM scholars and the community as a whole.