About

Gopesh Anand is a Professor of Business Administration and the William N. Scheffel Faculty Scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Management from The Ohio State University and an MBA from the same institution. Anand has served as Area Chair for the Information, Operations, Supply Chain, and Analytics (IOSA) department from 2022 to 2025 and has been a faculty member at UIUC since 2006, progressing from Assistant Professor to Professor. His research focuses on operations management, including operations strategy, process improvement, and continuous improvement. Anand has contributed extensively to the field through numerous publications in reputable journals, exploring topics such as manufacturing flexibility, operational routines, and the impact of quality management systems. He is actively involved in academic leadership, serving as an associate editor for several journals and co-editing special issues related to operations and supply chains. Anand's work emphasizes the importance of process improvement, quality management, and strategic operations in enhancing organizational performance.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Operations management
• Knowledge management
• Process management
• Business
• Marketing
• Engineering
• Psychology
• Industrial organization
• Epistemology
• Medicine
• Philosophy
• Management science
• Management
• Nursing
• Economics

Selected publications

• Carbon management practices and associations with firm performance

  Journal of Environmental Management · 2025-07-08 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  In this research, we categorize carbon management practices of firms into three coherent bundles derived from the natural-resource-based view: (1) engagement of employees , (2) long-term orientation , and (3) measurement and disclosure . We validate these bundles through confirmatory factor analysis on data from the Carbon Disclosure Project. Next, including data from additional sources, we study the associations of the practice bundles with firm performance, measured as Return on Assets and Tobin's Q, using the Heckman selection model to correct for potential self-selection bias. In addition, we use a constraining factor model positing measurement and disclosure as the constraining factor. Results from our analyses suggest that greater levels of adoption in two practice bundles, engagement of employees and long-term orientation , are associated with higher firm performance. The constraining factor model shows that a high level of measurement and disclosure is critical for deriving the benefits of engagement of employees and long-term orientation . Overall, our results add specificity to the value of carbon management practices based on adoption patterns, providing insights for firms to select areas in which they should concentrate their efforts. • We categorize Carbon Management Practices into three bundles derived from the natural-resource-based view. • We use data from the Carbon Disclosure Project survey to assess the level of implementation of these practice-bundles. • Greater levels of engagement of employees and long-term orientation bundles are associated with higher firm performance. • High measurement and disclosure is critical for deriving the benefits of engagement of employees and long-term orientation .

  PublisherDOI

• Operations Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry

  Journal of Operations Management · 2025-04-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  The pharmaceutical manufacturing industry has an annual revenue of $1.2 trillion and employs approximately two million people worldwide (Brocker 2024). The drugs produced by the operations of this industry, which include all activities from scientific innovation to supply chain management, play an important role in the health and well-being of millions of people around the world (OECD 2025). Recent disruptions, especially the COVID-19 pandemic, exposed critical limitations in global pharmaceutical operations, spurring widespread concern (Shih 2020). In the U.S., the Biden Administration deemed pharmaceuticals one of four critical national supply chains, the others being semiconductors, large capacity batteries, and minerals (White House 2021). Further, Congress mandated a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) focused on securing the nation's medical product supply chains against quality and supply disruptions (NASEM 2022). Despite the recognition of its importance, operational challenges in this industry remain prevalent. Drug shortages reached a record high in 2024 (ASHP 2024), and their duration has been increasing (USP 2024). Further, quality issues remain common (e.g., Callahan et al. 2024), and the drug recall trend continues to climb (Ghijs et al. 2024). The opacity and complexity of pharmaceutical operations are two factors driving the continued quality and resilience issues. As Figure 1 depicts, much of the complexity in the U.S. pharmaceuticals industry stems from intermediaries and payors, who are often vertically integrated and powerful, and who can create and benefit from opacity. Additional complexity comes from the roles of powerful regulators, who oversee, among other things, approvals to produce drugs and ongoing drug quality and safety. We discuss many of these forms of opacity and complexity in detail in the next section. Source: Reproduced, with slight modifications, from NEC NSC (2024), page 218, Figure 1. Operations such as these call for rigorous academic explorations that highlight the unique context of the industry (Joglekar et al. 2016). Operations scholars, for example, can address questions related to balancing cost and quality (Lapré and Scudder 2004; Parmigiani et al. 2011), enhancing the resilience of operations and supply chains (Kim et al. 2015; Shen and Sun 2023), implementing new technologies (Angelopoulos et al. 2023), and demonstrating benefits to, and ways to establish, greater transparency (Buell et al. 2017; Lee et al. 2021). Further, operations researchers can identify the role that powerful regulators, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), play with regards to operational performance dimensions such as innovation, resilience, cost, and quality (Wang et al. 2025). Despite all that operations scholarship can offer, and despite the pharmaceutical industry's prominent role in the world's economy and health, the operations of this industry have not received sufficient academic attention, inspiring this special issue (SI). Another inspiration for this SI stems from the guest editorial team's unique industry and regulatory experiences. All four editors served on a two-year grant and a separate two-year contract with the FDA. Further, one editor served on the NASEM committee mentioned earlier and one served as a part-time consultant at the White House for 18 months, focused mostly on pharmaceutical industry resilience. These experiences created unique perspectives that we share in this editorial. We note that our most relevant experiences were in the U.S., and our secondary-data empirical research employs FDA data, and thus, this editorial is heavily tilted towards issues and examples from the U.S. and the FDA, but most of the discussion we present is globally relevant. However, we do not claim this editorial to be a comprehensive review of all relevant topics related to the operations of pharmaceutical products. For example, we do not discuss pharmaceutical supply chains serving developing countries (Yadav 2015), counterfeit supply chains (Chaudhry and Stumpf 2013), and likely other topics some would believe to be in scope. We begin with an overview through the lens of three core operational dimensions: (1) Structure, (2) Resilience, and (3) Innovation. While one section of this SI editorial is inadequate to properly describe the structure of the pharmaceutical industry, we nonetheless provide a parsimonious overview. In so doing, we examine four key characteristics of this structure: (1) original versus generic drugs, (2) globalization, (3) intermediaries, and (4) the role of regulators. A distinct characteristic of pharmaceutical operations is the juxtaposition between original and generic drugs. Original drugs that successfully obtain market approval are the result of years, or even decades, of research and development (Brown et al. 2022), large clinical trials (FDA 2018), and a facility pre-approval inspection before market approval (DiGlulio 2015). These drugs must demonstrate both safety and efficacy (FDA 2017). Original drugs can be priced in the thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars per dose, depending upon the novelty and prevalence of the disease treated (Beasley 2023). Such a high price is a consequence of the exclusivity granted to the firms that developed the original drugs in the U.S., a reward meant to incentivize the expensive and risky innovation efforts required to bring societal benefits (e.g., Lovelace Jr. and Fitzgerald 2024). However, high original drug prices are also frequently criticized by those focused on public health access (Thomas 2017; Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 2023). These high prices, combined with the rigorous pre-approval process, create operations for original drugs that are typically quite robust to disruption, as the manufacturers have uniquely large financial incentives to maintain high-quality and resilient drug supply. While drug quality problems still do arise for innovative new drugs (FDA 2021a; Pfizer Inc. 2022; Zajac 2010), drug shortages for original drugs are relatively uncommon (Ventola 2011). Generic drugs, on the other hand, enter the market with the same active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), dosage form (DF), and route of administration (RA) as the original drugs that they are patterned after. Generic drug manufacturers reverse-engineer the design of original drugs that have lost exclusivity, using only publicly available information, such as that provided on FDA's website. Manufacturers of original drugs have neither a requirement nor an incentive to share their design and manufacturing expertise with competitors that manufacture generic drugs. The approval process for generic drugs in the U.S. is substantially abbreviated; it, however, does include a mandatory pre-approval facility inspection by the FDA. Price competition in generic drugs increases consumer access via lower prices. The price competition for generics is most intense in the U.S. where prices are, on average, lower than a weighted average of prices in the 32 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Mulcahy et al. 2024). This leads to the astonishing fact that while 90% of prescriptions filled in the U.S. are generic, they represent less than 20% of the total costs of prescriptions filled (Trish et al. 2022). Once approved, generic drugs are presumed to have the same safety and efficacy as the original drug, leading to competition that is based almost exclusively on price (Woodcock and Wosinska 2013; Dabestani et al. 2023). One key operationalization of this race to the bottom on prices is the push to manufacture generic drugs in the cheapest manufacturing locations around the world (Eban 2019; Frank et al. 2021; Mosbergen and Abbott 2023), a part of the globalization complexity which we address in the next sub-section. We note that there is another type of drug supply chain that straddles the original and generic drug classification: drugs made at compounding pharmacies. We include these in this discussion because they constitute a growing and increasingly controversial aspect of pharmaceutical supply chains (Khaustovich 2024; Rao 2024). Compounded drugs are manufactured in less regulated pharmacies, which, according to the FDA “pose a higher risk than FDA-approved drugs because compounded drugs do not undergo FDA review for safety, effectiveness, or quality before they are marketed.” (FDA 2024) This category of pharmacy was originally created for ostensibly rare situations in which consumers needed a dosage form, mix, or quantity of drugs that were not available on the market. Some compounding pharmacies have been implicated in serious quality issues, most famously the New England Compounding Company scandal in 2012 (Dearen 2021); an incident which spurred augmented FDA oversight of the compounding pharmacies. Nevertheless, compounding pharmacies have become more prominent of late, as they have begun to play a key role in drug shortage mitigation. This is because compounders are permitted great leeway during times of shortages, being allowed to produce products to fill gaps in drug supply (Broughel 2022). This has led to debates and even lawsuits about the declaration of the beginning of, or the end of, shortages, as millions of dollars are at stake for compounding pharmacy revenues, as exemplified with recent weight-loss drug shortages (Gallardo 2025). Further, the role of compounding pharmacies in resolving shortages can put even greater pressure on them to skimp on quality to fulfill short-term unmet market demands, a risk that even the FDA acknowledges (FDA 2024). Drug manufacturing is a global endeavor. Many upstream manufacturers—particularly those that make Key Starting Materials (KSMs)—are in China and have been for decades, partially for production cost reasons but also to evade strict environmental 2022; 2020). manufacturing (USP and dosage form of generic drugs spurred by the intense cost competition have more heavily to et al. 2022). research has that in a with a than to lower with and greater quality in manufacturing et al. and has created challenges for because the to ongoing operations is to the of the production process via facility et al. 2022). In the U.S., the Government has the challenges by the FDA in global production using facility Recent research has these challenges as a of generic drug quality problems for drugs because are they are in the U.S. et al. 2025). is not uncommon for drugs and their to great while environmental the global of drugs more pharmacies also an to our as regulatory 2024). While globalization with between contract manufacturing and a of challenges et al. manufacturing is by drug manufacturers and Wosinska and the for the quality of production has been a concern of the FDA (FDA and operations researchers et al. 2016). and the of manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry operations a requirement for FDA regulated contract manufacturers and at their and and and the of to quality of high product and quality performance The complexity of the structure of these supply chains is by intermediaries 2021; and These intermediaries between drug manufacturers and 2004; and the most common in the context of pharmaceuticals are and pharmacies. In most a drug prices and some of drug between the and the consumer et al. 2017; Frank et al. 2022). In the U.S., is more are still and which the drugs, but also pharmacy benefit and 2024; et al. et al. et al. 2023), and and and payors, which and et al. 2019; and These intermediaries, or et al. constitute be as an in the U.S. 2024), with the three of the chain 2024; et al. 2022), and the three 90% of supply which pharmaceuticals 2022). have vertically integrated and et al. 2023), which often include and even chain Figure the of some of the as of per the Drug These intermediaries on and to opacity and have been of for consumers and increasing costs for all and 2024), the of those of generic (Trish et al. 2022; and pharmacies et al. and 2024) while large 2025). Source: received from on there is widespread in the U.S. that and have much and have the market in a that increases costs to payors, leads to the of pharmacies, and the to the in generic drug to address this have been 2023). The against in recent 2024), and and (e.g., U.S. have such as Company in the 2024) and the in the and are among firms ways to these intermediaries in the and chains, The increasing of intermediaries in the also the of operations research which has an increasing trend in the of on and financial in supply chains et al. 2020). in the supply chains a for research in the pharmaceutical and global pharmaceutical operations are regulators. include the in the Organization in the National Administration in and the FDA in the U.S. We most of this section on the FDA, both because we are the most with and because many other the FDA. Further, many regulators, such as the have with the FDA and and countries in the pharmaceutical inspection as neither the in nor the in China have with the FDA, nor do they in the these have for their in drug quality recent have the relatively required for drug approvals by the which is by the relatively required for mandatory clinical trials et al. 2024; et al. 2021). recent have about drugs in China 2025). the has for approvals and regulatory oversight of drug approvals and drug manufacturing quality and 2022). We our on the FDA. The role of the FDA is in the U.S. pharmaceutical The FDA is both a as they which drugs are allowed to enter the as as a as they manufacturing with of and shortages, for all drugs in the et al. 2024) In both and the FDA has the of to the societal of drug innovation, safety, and while its these critical the FDA's can the operations of pharmaceutical products. The FDA also has that can benefit researchers in the operations of pharmaceutical products. the one hand, the FDA is quite with the The FDA a of through its and and the in relatively ways on its our the FDA is also to of the other hand, can be for public and to FDA because of some For example, the FDA has not even in to that drugs to manufacturing to such is based on that the are this be for research is at to and has been in the medical and 2024). Such opacity by the FDA to even to a drug et al. much less to upstream in the supply for some on its for example, (FDA 2023), the FDA researchers from using the for as by the on the website. The FDA has also of drugs and 2023), which we believe be in or at a drug quality Further, the FDA has to and from the NASEM report to make drug manufacturing and quality available to the is to that the FDA does a of available to the public and However, other data, such as the that drugs to that would make their more for academic or efforts to resilience and are not made The FDA does drug safety et al. but does not make such available on a The FDA, is in an drug which to maintain the that all FDA-approved drugs are (FDA that is to We believe this opacity to the race to the bottom with generic drug as The FDA also a role via their both in the U.S. and in other However, their inspection between the U.S. and other countries in a key U.S. are drug manufacturing in the U.S. must at a of for an by an FDA are in such as or many or in and 2023). The FDA also does not bring its thus, upon the and of provided by drug facility are often more than to Some have that these to drug quality problems being in manufacturing et al. 2025). The FDA for many reasons such as approvals or but this a from U.S. and 2023). The of an FDA inspection by a facility was by et al. to be one type of that as a leading to the of the of with to FDA have in the FDA not product from a facility to enter the U.S., an While have been the of some shortages, recent academic research has that the most serious FDA to those in the can to shortages as they to required manufacturing by the (Wang et al. 2025). In regulatory the U.S., and all to pharmaceutical safety and with some in and As the global pharmaceutical industry to more be to drug and to access to and high-quality Operations resilience can be in many but in the pharmaceutical industry, the research has resilience using two related (1) drug quality and (2) drug These are especially in this industry, where drug quality issues are the leading of drug shortages (FDA et al. 2025). quality in this industry have in three inspection (e.g., et al. et al. 2015), serious drug (e.g., et al. 2021; et al. and serious drug (e.g., et al. and 2024; et al. 2025). has begun to these dimensions both and much more is has research been which the quality of drugs made by a This is to of in the research that drug manufacturing drug or that there a drug quality among drugs at As of one of the of this editorial a to a of which developed an for academic research on topics Despite the of and put the of the only the active of the drugs to the were in the to the et al. successfully to manufacturers of that those on the drug to have and that there was in depending upon which generic was are also some in the health health to drugs, typically generic versus original drug, or at drug not manufacturers (e.g., et al. et al. et al. 2024). We believe there is a cost to in drug quality that has to the widespread that all drugs are and the of the of a drug to We next to disruptions that result in drug shortages, a key concern in public Congress and the et al. et al. 2024; and 2024). We note that most drug shortages are by quality issues (FDA and shortages often to or of a with a large market For reasons generic drug manufacturers often obtain a large market share to their lower the of this is to make drugs often to One of the in this special issue et al. public to shortages, that manufacturers for quality performance is the most of those in operations have the and of drug shortages, for and and 2017; et al. 2021; and 2022; et al. 2022; et al. 2023). to drug shortages was during the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of was in the industry before especially a in shortages in the and 2013; and 2013; et al. The FDA has been more on the issue the of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress that of and in this industry also for the same reasons as in other as in the operations on supply chain resilience et al. For example, that important (e.g., 2024), et al. 2019; et al. 2024), and in (USP have all drug One unique in to disruptions in this industry can be regulatory such as to operations, which can In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, et al. drugs to COVID-19 with drugs not for COVID-19 and of of COVID-19 drugs by as an to the pandemic, leading to The shortage of in the a in the manufacturing of for that with in the market of manufacturers and in the market of manufacturers et al. and greater increases for manufacturers that were present in that market other drugs et al. 2022). on Lee et al. that mandated of shortages in the U.S. and Government of was in of shortages only industry While these were not for and intense they were for and have or at an to such as supply chains, increasing supply chain balancing and as of resilience, and developing in the of a to and available However, more than this industry from a in and and a of countries and in the supply chain to in their We have not the of a robust and national supply chain risk despite of concern and and efforts to address the U.S. of and 2024; 2024). This is another where operations research great et al. 2022). innovation is to as an original drug The product innovation process, the operations of clinical is an of For example, the FDA the clinical to include of clinical trials and and 2017; et al. 2020). trials are increasing in and the share of new drug trials in has while has in the of the and the the industry was by drugs. the was in drugs have become a in the approximately of global This one of the revenue drugs of all The generic of large drugs, has spurred This is because the of these drugs be as the can be for generic drugs. is much higher in than in the U.S., partially to U.S. 2023). product that operations include and et al. 2021). innovation is also critical to performance in this industry et al. 2022). manufacturing a process innovation with One of the in this special issue et al. on this new manufacturing from the to manufacturing and other of such as and present to make pharmaceutical supply chains more and However, the regulatory challenges of production and the benefit of these for many the of these technologies has been We received were and one was to the for of with the were for two of these were by the as all four of the SI editors of We the editorial of the were for this special the editor is on We the of the and who the for review for this special The four that we for in this SI of the operations of pharmaceutical products. et al. to a from the to the where operations are and at Key in this is regulators, and product their to this innovation to to market. While the role of is a key of this industry, is not and the for other to new et al. a to the of three on drug drug manufacturers to and implementing a that while approvals and manufacturers to production can provide short-term their is In the quality reward shortages by higher manufacturing supply However, an consequence of this is the of a market by a high-quality The a quality to this et al. examine upstream supply chains their to to their a that a risk that these drugs be to a A key is that pharmacies with more supply chains are more likely to create a in et al. the examine the of for clinical on the of pharmaceutical for for from the FDA FDA Drug and the that using leads to a in serious in In the benefits of the are greater for drugs with FDA and for based on these four the operations of pharmaceutical products. et al. examine the development of new and the new supply chains they et al. examine incentives to the quality of manufacturers et al. the end of the supply chain and their supply chain intermediaries, while et al. the of operational for on The unique and of the pharmaceutical industry, as as its to public health, provide for operations researchers to to academic and public We by key of the of the operations of pharmaceutical this editorial such In we believe that the four in the special issue as of to to this We with these are the operations of the pharmaceutical industry not and can researchers to the operations of most other product semiconductors, and so While is in all one can to in cost, and by and and The to the as to this has not at to the same in the pharmaceutical industry in the structure of the industry with its two product and generic and the of powerful intermediaries, supply chain and Operations have been in the in other and we believe the more they the of this industry, the more on the context and the unique of an industry is in the of industry Such research has led to some for example, which in the The that the We believe that research in the pharmaceutical industry on and operational performance between and products have a Operations can their and to for example, to design that quality other operational performance dimensions or to challenges for new We that this editorial and the four special issue more operations to research in this industry so that our a leading role in its and health are, at

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Obligatory Responses to FDA Inspection Outcomes and Future Drug Shortages

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Obligatory Responses to FDA Inspection Outcomes and Future Drug Shortages

  Manufacturing & Service Operations Management · 2025-03-12 · 3 citations

  article

  Problem definition: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the regulator tasked with overseeing two key dimensions of the drug supply chain: quality and shortages. Whereas the primary policy tool used by the FDA to oversee drug quality is recurring plant inspections, there are fewer similar tools used by the FDA to reduce drug shortages. In an effort to better understand the pernicious public health problem of drug shortages and the role of the FDA in reducing shortages, the U.S. Congress tasked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study this problem. A key conclusion in the GAO report is that when the FDA gives their most unfavorable plant inspection outcome, those plants develop shortages soon thereafter, a possible sign of onerous FDA corrective actions that may come at the cost of reliable drug supplies. We examine whether these most unfavorable FDA inspection outcomes help or hinder drug shortages, using a rigorous econometric approach. Methodology/results: We employ instrumental variable (IV) analysis to conduct a verification of this GAO report. We examine the relationship between the most unfavorable inspection outcome given by the FDA, an official action indicated (OAI), and future drug shortage risks. We find that, contrary to the GAO report, OAI inspection outcomes lead to reduced shortage risks. Robustness checks give consistent results. In posthoc analyses, we continue to leverage instrumental variable analyses to explore the impact of the other inspection outcomes, as well as merely receiving an inspection, on shortage risks. We find evidence of an incrementally beneficial relationship between inspection outcome severity and shortage risk reduction. Managerial implications: The FDA hesitates to issue OAI outcomes, doing so at an exceedingly low rate. Our results indicate that if the GAO report created any organizational hesitancy on the part of the FDA to issue OAIs out of a concern that they may lead to shortages, this hesitancy appears to be unwarranted. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022.0322 .

  PublisherDOI

• Learning from Failures: Differentiating Between Slip-ups and Knowledge Gaps

  Organization Science · 2024-02-29 · 13 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Our research investigates firm learning from failures by dividing them into two types, failures that occur due to slip-ups and those that occur due to knowledge gaps, and by examining whether learning occurs in the context of both types of failures. We study these phenomena in the context of product recalls in pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Based on text analysis of recall documents, recalls are divided into process related and design related to represent slip-up failures and knowledge gap failures. We further study how innovation capabilities, represented by accumulated stocks of patents and lagged research and development (R&D) intensity, impact learning from both types of failures. We test our hypotheses using negative binomial generalized linear models to analyze longitudinal data for 108 publicly traded U.S. firms over 2000–2016 comprising 7,984 recalls. Results indicate that design-related recalls generate learning to a greater extent than process-related recalls, and that accumulated patents and lagged R&D intensity enhance learning from design-related recalls. These findings suggest that the learning mechanisms invoked by failures are concentrated more on knowledge gap failures than slip-up failures, and such learning is impacted by innovation capabilities. Overall, this research extends organizational learning theory by differentiating between learning from different types of failures and extends absorptive capacity theory by incorporating the role of innovation capabilities in enhancing learning from failures. We develop recommendations for learning from slip-up failures by focusing on the cultural and social mechanisms of organizational learning in addition to the technical and structural mechanisms that may mainly impact learning from knowledge gap failures. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.15663 .

  PublisherDOI

• Beyond efficiency: the role of lean practices and cultures in developing dynamic capabilities microfoundations

  International Journal of Operations & Production Management · 2022 · 48 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Sociology
  • Business

  Purpose The purpose of this study is to theorize and test the relationships among lean operations and lean supply chain practices, learning- and innovation-oriented lean cultures and dynamic capabilities (DCs) microfoundations. Further, this study aims to assess the association of DCs microfoundations with process innovation. Design/methodology/approach The researchers combine primary data collected from 153 manufacturing firms located in five continents using a survey designed for the purpose of this study with archival data downloaded from the Bureau Van Dijk Orbis database and test the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modelling. Findings Results support the contribution of lean operations and lean supply chain practices to the development of DCs microfoundations, which further lead to greater process innovation. Additionally, while a learning-oriented lean culture positively moderates the relationships between both lean operations and lean supply chain practices and DCs microfoundations, an innovation-oriented lean culture only moderates the relationship between lean operations practices and DCs microfoundations. Practical implications This study identifies DCs microfoundations as the key mechanisms for firms implementing lean practices to achieve greater levels of process innovation and the important role played by lean cultures. This study provides direction for managers to put in place DCs through lean implementations, enabling their firms to be ready to respond to challenges and opportunities generated by environmental changes. Originality/value While previous research has confirmed the positive effects of lean practices on efficiency, the role of lean practices and cultures in developing capabilities for reacting to environmental dynamism has received little attention. This study offers an empirically supported framework that highlights the potential of lean to adapt processes in response to environmental dynamics, thereby extending the lean paradigm beyond the traditional focus on operational efficiency.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Product Recalls, Past Innovations, & R&D Intensity: An Empirical Examination of Interrelationships

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2022-07-06 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Past research has supported the idea of increases in research and development (R&D) efforts in the face of failures (Eggers and Kaul 2018, Greve 2003). We follow this research and propose that firms’ past experiences with recalls intensify subsequent R&D efforts. Further, we propose that firms’ past R&D efforts and stocks of innovation outcomes accentuate intensification of subsequent innovation efforts attributed to firm recall experience. This is based mainly on the idea that prior innovation knowledge provides a better understanding of emerging conditions leading to more proactive R&D efforts (Tsai 2001). Our research questions are: (1) do firms’ recalls intensify subsequent R&D efforts, and (2) do firms’ past innovation efforts and stocks of innovation outcomes accentuate the intensification of subsequent R&D efforts associated with recalls? Based on analysis of longitudinal data on product recalls in medical device and pharmaceutical industries supplemented by data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS), we find empirical evidence for R&D efforts attributed to past product recalls. We also find that past innovation efforts and stocks of innovations support subsequent R&D efforts attributed to past product recalls.

  PublisherDOI

• Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms

  Production and Operations Management · 2020 · 45 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Sociology
  • Epistemology

  This study provides key arguments and contributions of Kuhn (1970) concerning paradigms, paradigm shifts, and scientific revolutions. We provide interpretations of Kuhn's (1970) key ideas and concepts, especially as they relate to business management research. We conclude by considering the practical implications of paradigms and paradigm shifts for contemporary business management researchers and suggest that ethical rules of conversation are at least as critical for the health of a scientific community as methodological rules (e.g., the rules of logical positivism) derived from the philosophy of science.

  PublisherDOI

• Sustainable process improvements: Evidence from intervention‐based research

  Journal of Operations Management · 2020 · 32 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Process management
  • Operations management

  Abstract This research develops a methodology for making process improvements that can sustain over time. Working with caregivers at a large U.S. hospital over 3 years, we redesign a process for educating kidney transplant patients with instructions for post‐surgical care. Adopting an intervention‐based research (IBR) framework and based on our actions to overcome challenges in implementation and sustainment of the redesign, we revise the current understanding of organizational learning theory. Follow‐up observations after our intervention show that the process improvements at the hospital are sustained. We supplement the IBR with quantitative analyses and provide evidence of improvements in health outcomes and satisfaction levels of patients associated with the redesign. These analyses are based on difference‐in‐difference estimations using data from transplant patients, including a control group from other transplant units. Overall, our research specifies a methodology for implementing sustainable process improvements, particularly in high interaction service environments such as healthcare delivery, and identifies refinements to organizational learning theory, especially for such environments.

  PublisherDOI

• Do qualifications matter? A qualitative study of how villagers decide their health care providers in a developing economy

  PLoS ONE · 2019-08-01 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  INTRODUCTION: The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched in India in 2005 to address the health needs of under-served populations in rural areas, and to support universal access to care. Despite this initiative, unaccredited informal providers (IPs) often remain patients' first point of contact, which has led to inconsistencies in treatment, and has compromised the quality of care. AIM: To explore the factors that influence patients' decisions about healthcare providers in rural areas of central India. METHODS: Nine focus group discussions (FGDs) were held in nine villages in central India. Framework analysis using an inductive approach was used to analyse the data. RESULTS: The crosscutting theme across the discussions was not choice but need-the need for affordable and accessible health care regardless of the provider's qualification. Results highlighted that IPs play a pivotal role in villagers' lives. Formal healthcare services were accessed infrequently, and mainly when a condition was judged severe or possibly even fatal. Even then, affordability was carefully weighed. Villagers' distance from formal providers contributed to high cost and low preference of formal providers. When opting for IPs, familiarity and trust were more important to villagers than qualifications. IPs have operated in rural communities in India for a long time and have adapted their services to meet the needs, preferences, social norms, and economic conditions of villagers. CONCLUSION: IPs have captured a niche and are often the first contact point in rural settings even when patients ultimately are diagnosed and treated by trained doctors. Merely tackling the undersupply of qualified doctors is not effective or sufficient to impact on the rural healthcare system: the strong and prevalent influence of IPs needs to be addressed also.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Peter T. Ward

  Fisher College

  16 shared

• John Gray

  The Ohio State University

  9 shared

• Aravind Chandrasekaran

  5 shared

• Aleda V. Roth

  Clemson University

  4 shared

• Dilip Chhajed

  American Society For Engineering Education

  3 shared

• Mrinalini Gadkari

  The Ohio State University

  3 shared

• Maike Scherrer

  ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences

  3 shared

• Ujjal Kumar Mukherjee

  3 shared

Awards & honors

• William N. Scheffel Faculty Scholar, University of Illinois…
• Deloitte Scholar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign…
• List of Excellent Teachers, UIUC, 2006-2007, 2009-2024
• Illinois Strategic Organizations Initiative Research Award,…
• Service Associate Editor, International Journal of Operation…