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This article presents a first hand account of the financial crisis by 'Margaret Taylor', a union activist within HBOS. Overviewing more than twenty years' experience in the sector, Margaret highlights three types of change under way since the 1990s that she sees as antecedents of the present crisis: the shift from traditional pay structures to individualised, performance based pay; the entry of retail giants geared to aggressive marketing and maximising market share; and technological innovation which facilitated workforce deskilling. The testimony deepens our understanding of a significant, contemporary event and consistent with the aims of oral history, which influenced the interviewer's approach, provides a glimpse into the lives of those who generally do not, or cannot record their stories.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify the contemporary research themes published in IJOPM in order to contribute to current debates about the future directions of operations management (OM) research.Design/methodology/approachAll 310 articles published in IJOPM from volume 24 issue 9 in 2004 through volume 29, issue 12 in 2009 are analysed using content analysis methods. This period of analysis is chosen because it represents all the articles published in issues for which the authors are able to have full control, during their period of tenure as Editors of the journal. This analysis is supplemented by data on all 1,853 manuscripts submitted to the journal during the same time period and further, by analysis of reviews and feedback sent to all authors after review.FindingsThe paper reports the main research themes and research methods inherent in the 310 published papers. Statistics on the countries represented by these papers and the size and international composition of author teams are provided, together with the publication success rates of the countries that submit in the highest volumes, and the success rates associated with the size of the author team. Finally, data on the reasons for rejection of manuscripts are presented.Research limitations/implicationsThere is some residual inaccuracy in content analysis methods, whereby, in extracting research themes there is often more than one topic covered. In the same vein, as regards categorisation of the causes of rejection of manuscripts during the review process, there is frequently more than one reason for rejection, so perhaps a weighted scoring system would have been more insightful. In determining the country of origin of papers, while the country of the corresponding author is used, it should be recognised that some studies originate from international collaborations so that this method may give a slightly distorted picture. Finally, in computing publication success rates by comparison of submissions and published papers there is a time delay between the two data sets within any defined period of analysis.Practical implicationsThe analysis adds generally to debates about contemporary research themes; in particular it extends the work of Pilkington and Fitzgerald, which analyses all articles solely in IJOPM between 1994 and 2003. In addition, the findings suggest a need for more frequent exploitation of multiple research methods, for greater rigour in the planning and execution of fieldwork, for greater engagement with the world of OM practice and finally, consideration of how OM research can address wider social and political issues.Originality/valueThis paper represents an inside view of the publication process from a leading OM journal; this kind of insight is rarely available in the public domain.