Threats to the Growth of Operations Research in Business and Industry

Abstract

It is customary at annual meetings of professional societies such as ours, for the president to devote much or all of his retiring address to the many accomplishments and advances of the organization during the preceding year or years. In the case of ORSA we call point with some pride to our 40 per cent increase in membership, to the increased health and size of our J ournal and to other signs of healthy growth. Our optimism regarding past achievements should not be permitted to obscure, however, those dangers or threats to our continued development which may loom in the future. I propose, therefore, to be the devil's advocate and to depart from precedent by playing the part of a viewing-with-alarm prognosticator rather than that of a pointing-with-pride historian. Operations Research , ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.