Fowler (1998) believed that operations were increasing in importance in terms of
influencing strategic management, especially as resources became more constrained
and difficult choices over priorities arose. This would mean that a more holistic and
whole systems approaches to management would evolve to more closely embed
operations with strategic intent to replace the present linear, steady-state thinking in
use and improve understanding of decisions’ cause-and-effect relationships. He
highlighted there was an inverse relationship between change, service quality and
command-and-control management which was subject to “inertial lags” in the “real
world” and, in extreme circumstances, chaos resulted. A whole systems approach
allowed for such relationships to be better modelled and, consequently, to be better
controlled (albeit they remained complex and dynamic). He noted, though, that there
was little research on the linkage between “classical theory” (strategy) and operational
practice and, as a result, this area justified further investigation (in this instance,
moving beyond qualitative to greater levels of quantitative research).