Emergence of Asia and Australasia in operations management research and leadership

With Australasian countries/regions included within the umbrella of Asia for the purpose of this study, we examine all papers having authorship from Asia published in a set of journals generally recognized as the most relevant leading journals in the field of OM and map the leadership role of Asian authors, institutions, and countries/regions. We examine leadership within the dominant areas of OM research in Asia and chart the patterns of growth in research from Asia over the years 2001-2015. The results show that the Asian countries/regions of China, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea account for a major portion of the papers having authorship from Asia. We find a number of authors and institutions from these leading Asian countries/regions ranking high on various network centrality measures and serving as hubs of connectivity and productivity in research. Asian OM research is found to be focused most on the areas of supply chain management, quality management, and manufacturing. Our examination reveals a trend of rapid increase in the number of papers with Asian authorship appearing in these journals and countries/regions of the Asia Pacific gaining prominence in the global OM research domain. We identify and discuss country and regional focus in OM research from Asia, emerging trends, and future research opportunities.