Empirical Research in Operations Management

Catalog description

Empirical research in Operations Management has been repeatedly called for over the last 10-15 years, including calls made from the academic thought leaders in the field as well as by many of the editors of the top academic journals. Remarkably though, most researchers in the field would be pressed to name even three empirical papers published in such journals like Management Science or Operations Research. But, has there really been so little published related to empirical Operations Management (you might be surprised to learn that all five bullets listed above has been addressed by Management Science papers)? What types of problems in operations are interesting and worthwhile studying from an empirical viewpoint? How can one get started with an empirical research project in Operations Management? These are the questions that are at the heart of this course. Specifically, the objective of this course is to (a) expose doctoral students to the existing empirical literature and (b) to provide them with the training required to engage in an empirical study themselves.