The DOI matches its Crossref record; 4 of the 4 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The scientific theory‐building process: a primer using the case of TQM
Abstract
As Operations Management (OM) researchers begin to undertake and publish more empirical research, there is a need to understand the nature of the scientific theory‐building process implicit in this activity. This tutorial presents a process map approach to this process. We begin by defining the nature of scientific knowledge, and proceed through the stages of the theory‐building process, using illustrations from OM research in Total Quality Management. The tutorial ends with a discussion of the criteria for OM journal reviewers to consider in evaluating theory‐driven empirical research, and suggests a number of OM topic areas that require greater theory development.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (2017) · Aldine (Routledge reprint) · doi:10.4324/9780203793206 · Cited by 25,789
Building Theories from Case Study Research
Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989) · The Academy of Management Review · doi:10.2307/258557 · Cited by 17,455
Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Triangulation in Action.
Jick, T. D. (1979) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.2307/2392366 · Cited by 7,103
That's Interesting!: Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology
Davis, M. S. (1971) · Philosophy of the Social Sciences · doi:10.1177/004839317100100211 · Cited by 1,219
Cited by
Case research in operations management
Voss, C., Tsikriktsis, N., & Frohlich, M. (2002) · International Journal of Operations & Production Management · doi:10.1108/01443570210414329 · Cited by 2,963
Effective case research in operations management: a process perspective
Stuart, I., McCutcheon, D., Handfield, R., McLachlin, R., & Samson, D. (2002) · Journal of Operations Management · doi:10.1016/s0272-6963(02)00022-0 · Cited by 1,050
Self-citationAgile Business Model Innovation in Digital Entrepreneurship: Lean Startup Approaches
Ghezzi, A., & Cavallo, A. (2020) · Journal of Business Research · doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.06.013 · Cited by 722
Theories in sustainable supply chain management: A structured literature review
Touboulic, A., & Walker, H. (2015) · International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management · doi:10.1108/ijpdlm-05-2013-0106 · Cited by 688
THINKING DIFFERENTLY ABOUT PURCHASING PORTFOLIOS: AN ASSESSMENT OF SUSTAINABLE SOURCING
PAGELL, M., WU, Z., & WASSERMAN, M. E. (2010) · Journal of Supply Chain Management · doi:10.1111/j.1745-493x.2009.03186.x · Cited by 411
Metadata
- Authors
- Handfield, R. B., & Melnyk, S. A.
- Venue
- Journal of Operations Management
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1998-07
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 321-339
- ISSN
- 0272-6963 (ISSN-L)
- 1873-1317
- OpenAlex
- W1974097914
- Cited by
- 466
- References
- 4
- FWCI
- 3.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The scientific theory‐building process: a primer using the case of TQM. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/s0272-6963(98)00017-5
- The paper
- Handfield, R. B., & Melnyk, S. A. (1998). The scientific theory‐building process: a primer using the case of TQM. Journal of Operations Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-6963(98)00017-5
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.