Incorporating behavioral factors into operations theory

Human behavioral factors have significant impacts on people’s decision-makings and corporates’ decisions and performance. Given the extensive adoption of quantitative modeling techniques in operations management/research and the advantages of precision and generalizability that quantitative modeling has, there is a need to extend the existing and develop new operations theories via analytical models that incorporate well-documented behavioral constructs. In this chapter, we introduce commonly used behavioral models and summarize the differences between these models and their respective applicable scenarios. The chapter also discusses how to develop behavioral operations models and provides guidelines for deriving empirically testable predictions.