The Chan Hahn Best Paper Award is given to the best paper presented as part of the OSCM Division conference program.
Papers for this award are assessed on the following criteria:
- Significance of the paper to the field of Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM);
- The extent to which the paper is interesting and managerially relevant;
- Theoretical contribution to OSCM;
- Use of appropriate methodological rigor;
- Clarity of writing and/or presentation.
Finalists for the award are selected by the OSCM Division Program Chair based on the ratings and comments received from AOM conference reviewers.
The award winner is then chosen from these finalist papers by an independent committee following a blind review process.
2025 Chan Hahn Best Paper Award
Winner: Elaborating on the Theory of Swift, Even Flow: Insights from the Construction Industry
Eva Unruh, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg and Christian Busse, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg
Finalists:
Technology Sourcing and Category Management: Towards a Dynamic Problem-Solving Perspective
Jas Kalra, University of Manchester; Michael Lewis, University of Bath
2025 Chan Hahn Best Paper Award Winner Feature
Congratulations Christian and the team on winning this award! What motivated you to conduct this award-winning research?
Our motivation comes directly from real-life experiences with construction firms. As OM scholars, we often found ourselves wondering: how can they work like that? Despite decades of attention, the construction industry worldwide continues to struggle with productivity, standing out as one of the few industries where improvements have been so elusive. This paradox inspired us to take a closer look through the lens of operations management, particularly by testing whether the Theory of Swift, Even Flow could also explain productivity dynamics in construction firms.
What is the most interesting outcome of your awarded AOM paper?
One of the most intriguing findings is that planning and optimization—cornerstones of the OM mindset—are not always reasonable in construction contexts. Managers in construction face such unpredictable and unstable working conditions that the cost–benefit trade-off of detailed planning often doesn’t hold. Sometimes, it is actually more rational to adopt a flexible “wait and see” approach rather than investing heavily in optimization that may quickly become irrelevant.
What are your future plans? How will you continue this work?
We are currently refining our model and extending our research with new international data to assess the robustness of our findings and address remaining open questions. Together with our new co-author, John Gray, we are preparing a manuscript that we hope to submit soon. Our broader goal is to deepen the understanding of productivity in construction, and we hope to continue investigating how it can be meaningfully improved in practice.
Thank you for sharing !
Past Chan Hahn Best Paper Awards
2024 Christian Felix Durach, Di Fan, Frank Wiengarten, Veronica Haydee Villena: "Diffusion of Irresponsible Workplace Practices in Supply Chains: The Chinese Industrial Sector Case"
2023 Kedong Chen, Hung-Chung Su, Kevin Linderman, William Li, Shanghai Jiao: "Last-Minute Coordination Between Warehouses: An Empirical Analysis in E-Commerce"
2022 Kevin Lau and David Bendig: "Go Bold or Go Home: Measuring the Effect of Industry 4.0 Implementation on Firm Performance"
2021 Yingchao Lan, Deepa Wani, Aravind Chandrasekaran: "Ancillary Cost Implications of Multisiting and Organizational Boundary Spanning During Healthcare"
2020 Veronica Haydee Villena, Miriam Michiko Wilhelm, Chengyong Xiao: "Untangling Drivers for Supplier Environmental and Social Responsibility"
2019 Arunachalam Narayanan, Alan Mackelprang, Manoj Malhotra: "Effect of Capacity and Flexibility Constraints on Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains"
2018 Siqi Ma, John Aloysius, Li Hao: "Gender Pairing and Cooperative Behavior: An Experimental Study"
2017 Christoph Bode, Maximilian Merath: “Supply Disruption Management: The Early Bird Catches the Worm, but the Second Mouse Gets the Cheese?”
2016 Veronica H. Villena, Li Cheng “The Benefits and Downsides of Common Supply Chain Partners”
2015 Stephanie Eckerd, Sean Handley: “To Err is Human: A Model of Interorganizational Violations and Repair”
2014 John Gray, Sean Handley: “Managing Contract Manufacturer Quality when Product Testability is Low”
2013 Jeremy Kovach, Manpreet Hora: “Firm Performance in Dynamic Environments: The Role of Operational Slack and Operational Flexibility”
2012 John Gray, Gopesh Anand, Aleda Roth: “ISO 9000 as a Best Practice Intervention: An Empirical Examination”
2011 Anand Gopal, Manu Goyal, Serguei Netessine, Matthew Reindorp: “Impact of New Product Introduction on Plant Productivity”
2010 Dayna Simpson: “Organizational Information Gathering and Recycling Performance Outcomes”
2009 Rob Klassen, Markus Biehl: “Toward Assessing Financial Returns from Green Structural and Infrastructural Expenditures”
2008 Mile Terziovski and Shyong Wai Foon (U. of Melbourne)
2007 Xiande Zhao, Baofeng Huo, Jeff Hoi Yan Yeung (Chinese U. Hong Kong), and Barbara B. Flynn (Indiana)
2006 Xingxing Zu, Lawrence Fredendall, Tina Robbins (Clemson U.)
2007 None
2005 Ravi Kathuria (Chapman University)
2004 Adrian Choo (RPI), Kevin Lindermand (Minnesota) and Roger Schroeder (Minnesota)
2003 Mark Pagell (Oregon State) and Daniel Krause (Arizona State)
2002 None
2001 Mark Pagell and Chwen Sheu (Kansas State University)
2000 Morgan Swink and Dongsong Zeng (Michigan State University)
1999 Mohan Tatikonda (UNC) and Stephen Rosenthal (Boston U)
1998 Shaker Zahra (Georgia State University), Anders Nielsen (Aalborg University)
1997 1. Ken Boyer (DePaul University) / 2. Robert D. Klassen (University of Western Ontario) (two awards)
1996 Larry Menor, Aleda Roth and Charlotte Manson (UNC)
1995 Kim Bates (New York University) and Jim Flynn (Iowa State University)