Operations Management Opportunities in Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship

T he field of Production and Operations Management (POM) is increasingly perceived as a rigorous but narrow field, antiquated and not very relevant to the current challenges and concerns of managers in job-creating growth companies vital to our economies. I argue that a narrower positioning of POM in the past is responsible for its perceived limited utility to growth firms and global economies. POM at its core is about “doing more with less,” which is very well aligned with the context and needs of resource-constrained entrepreneurial companies. My discussion is focused on how the research paradigm of POM is and can be relevant to meeting the emerging challenges of growth companies of tomorrow. Specifically, I examine how POM can help meet the needs of these organizations to become scalable and sustainable. The objective is to stimulate thought and discussion and encourage early-stage POM scholars to seriously consider the contexts of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship, and growth companies as avenues for future research.