The Doctoral Program in Operations Management (OM) at the Ivey Business School is designed to prepare students for an engaging and enriching career in conducting meaningful scholarly-based research and teaching in leading schools of business administration.
The Doctoral Program in OM at the Ivey Business School has a strong track-record of exceptional first job placements in Top business schools around the world, including Georgia Tech, IE Business School, HEC Montreal, and many others.
The faculty members comprising this group include Dave Barrett, Jury Gualandris, Fraser Johnson, Rob Klassen, Deishin Lee, Larry Menor, Jason Nguyen, and Gal Raz. Their work is published in the top journals in the Operations and Technology Management disciplines, including Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Management Science, Production and Operations Management, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Operations Research, and Academy of Management Journal.
The OM group has strong, important research collaborations with top universities and researchers around the world, including MIT, Arizona State University (CASN-RA), University College Dublin, Indiana University, Strathclyde University and Erasmus RSM School of Business, among others.
OM deals with the planning, control and improvement/innovation of the operational system that transforms inputs into outputs and enables value realization for and from customers. OM also deals with the emergence and capable functioning of supply chains as complex adaptive systems that span industries and countries. As such, students will be exposed to, and critically examine, both foundational and recent scholarly developments spanning a wide array of tactical and strategic issues underlying how work gets done in the firm and across firms in order to develop their own theoretical and practical insights on relevant OM topics. While improved decision making and action based upon rigorous empirical science is the primary focus and interest of the OP discipline group's faculty, students will also be introduced to relevant analytical/axiomatic modeling approaches and interdisciplinary theorization that may be informative to the scrutiny of the OM topics.
Students take the full spectrum of Doctoral Program and OM special field offerings; on occasion, students may be encouraged to register and complete courses offered by other Ivey discipline groups and UWO faculties that may be salient to their specific program of study and individual scholarly development. For example, those courses related to advanced statistical and econometrical techniques, network analysis and any relevant other. Other aspects of the program are tailored to fit the student’s own research, teaching and professional interests and requirements.
Areas of Research Focus
- Sustainable supply chain management
- Operations strategy
- Managing production and service systems and technologies
- Systematic operational improvement and innovation approaches
PhD Student Opportunities
The doctoral program in Operations Management welcomes applications from qualified candidates with the following research interests:
Sustainable Supply Chain Management:
- Developing ESG transparency and accountability in extended supply chains (Professor Jury Gualandris)
- Tackling waste through sustainable and circular operations (Professors Deishin Lee and Jury Gualandris)
- Tackling behavioral biases to improve individual and firms' sustainable practices (Professor Jason Nguyen)
- Remanufacturing and recycling strategies in competitive settings (Professor Jason Nguyen)
- Environmental regulation and its implications on supply chains’ environmental innovation decisions (Professor Jason Nguyen)
Operational Systems Design and Functioning:
- Big Data-enabled processing, coordinative and learning capabilities (Professor Larry Menor)
Interdisciplinary Reseach with Strategy, Accounting, Information Systems and Sustainability
- To examine how multiple actors address collective action issues and promote systemic transformation in food supply chains, focusing on on how farmers and actors of the food chain interact with each other and develop communities of practices to define rules of interaction, agree on common food production principles, and promote sustainable change (Professor Jury Gualandris).
PhD Graduates
The doctoral program in Operations Management is designed for those interested in pursuing academic careers in operations management at top business schools.
Dr. Kelsey Taylor (2021 PhD)
Assistant Professor, University of Manitoba
Effectiveness of Social Enterprises: Aligning Strategies and Supply Chains for Impact
Social enterprises use market mechanisms to address social issues that are undesirable targets for intervention by conventional businesses. The pursuit of these goals comes with inherent operational constraints that must be mitigated for the organization to survive, but that are unavoidable without compromising the organization’s social mission. However, the assumption embedded in much of the SCM literature, that profit maximization is the ultimate goal, may lead to the implementation of practices... Read more about this thesis
Dr. Fernando Naranjo (2021 PhD)
Assistant Professor, Niagara University
Lean Supply Management in the Canadian Agri-food Sector
This thesis examines a novel conceptualization and operationalization of the lean supply management (LSM) construct and investigates its practical relevance for the Canadian agri-food sector. The thesis consists of three integrated essays, intended to advance the LSM scholarly theorization and managerial understanding. The first essay offers a systematic literature review to gain a better comprehension of the current state of research on LSM regarding its... Read more about this thesis
Dr. Asad Shafiq (2015 PhD)
Assistant Professor, California State University
Supplier social engagement, reciprocity of social practices and performance in supply chains
Over the last two decades, social and environmental issues in supply chains have attracted increased scrutiny and debate. Moreover, managers are realizing that irresponsible behavior by their supply chain partners is negatively projected to their firm, with the potential for causing adverse publicity, reputational damage, and costly legal obligations. In my dissertation, I focus on supplier engagement efforts of firms aimed at encouraging suppliers to behave in a socially responsible manner... Read more about this thesis
Dr. Sara Hajmohammad (2015 PhD)
Assistant Professor, Telfer School of Management
Three Essays on Sustainable Operations Management
This dissertation consists of three essays on sustainable operations management. The unifying theme in this work is the focus on sustainability-related risks originating from an organization’s internal operations or its supply chain, operational-level initiatives for managing such risks, and the determinants and subsequent outcomes of those initiatives. The first essay focuses on safety and environmental risks and looks into the role of a safety-oriented culture in effectively managing them.... Read more about this thesis
