Capita selecta – Behavioral Operations Management fall 2020/21

Behavioral Operations Management focuses on how human behavior affects operations management decision making and, in turn, how operations management decisions affect human behavior. Most operations management models rely on simplistic assumptions when it comes to human behavior. These simplistic assumptions limit the applicability of these models. This is especially the case in quantitative decision models, heuristics, and algorithms. Examples are scheduling algorithms, forecasting models, and inventory models. These algorithms and models usually do not consider behavioral factors that play a role in decision making such as motivation, trust, cognitive limitations, and psychological ownership. This limits usability, usefulness, and acceptance of models in practice, as shown by recent literature on Algorithm Aversion. In the course we analyze these factors and how their effects can be mitigated by incorporating behavioral factors in the design of quantitative models and algorithms