Operations Research in the United Arab Emirates Current Status and Future Diffusion.pdf

Volume 1, Issue 1, 2007 Operations Research in the United Arab Emirates: Current Status and Future Diffusion Darwish Abdulrahman Yousef, Ph.D. Professor of Management Science Department of Business Administration College of Business Economics United Arab Emirates University United Arab Emirates E-mail: dayousef@uaeu.ac.ae Abstract The paper presents results of a survey that investigated levels of awareness and usage of Operations Research (OR) / Management Science (MS) in a sample of manufacturing and service organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A sample of 200 individuals at different management levels was used and descriptive statistical analyses were employed. Results indicated that the maj ority of the respondents are aware of OR/MS and use it to some extent .Results also showed that the most common OR/MS techniques are: decision analysis, cost benefit analysis, computer simulation, financial modelling and risk analysis. The most common application areas identified are: proj ect evaluation, sales analysis, manpower planning, accounting procedures, and stock control. Limitations and future research are also presented. Keywords: Operations research; Management science; United Arab Emirates; Practice; Developing countries; Survey. Introduction Operations Research (also known as Operational Research or Management Science) was first introduced in the western world during the Second World War, and since then it has flourished and widespread in almost all aspects of life. However, in developing or newly industrialised countries the status of Operations Research (OR) is not up to expectation due to a number of problems and obstacles. A number of surveys have been undertaken over the last decades to investigate the awareness, the usage and the barriers to the widespread of OR in these countries. Examples are the papers by Kemp and Yousef (1995) and Yousef (2000) in the UAE; Pappis (1979) and Pappis et al. (1988) in Greec