Walton College to Host Behavioral Operations Conference

Image by Paula Lawrence

The Sam M. Walton College of Business is hosting the 15th Annual Behavioral Operations Conference June 13-15 in the Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development at the U of A. Operations management professor and director of the Center and Laboratory for Behavioral Operations and Economics at the University of Texas Elena Katok will serve as the keynote speaker.

Katok will speak about the importance of replication in behavioral research and will explore how scientific results are not due to a particular set of circumstances so that we can rely on the findings with confidence.

Other conference topics will include how people make decisions for supply chain sustainability, retail operations and for healthcare, educational and supply chain analytics systems. Walton College is sponsoring the event this year as the research themes are aligned with the strategic research initiatives of the college. 

The Behavioral Operations Conference annually focuses on individual choices. Despite automation and sophisticated technological systems, people are still at the heart of operational and supply chain processes, and human decision-making is still integral to the functioning of modern business.

This conference attracts researchers from around the world who seek to understand how to best take advantage of human knowledge and skills that are difficult to replicate with systems. They also seek to understand how to compensate for the biases, social pressures, cognitive limitations and other reasons why humans make poor decisions.

This year the conference returns after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic and rotates among many universities worldwide. Former hosts include those in the U.S. such as University of Texas at Dallas, University of Wisconsin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and others. Former European host universities include those in France, Germany and the Netherlands. Attendees this year hail from all over the world including Australia, Israel, Europe and the U.S.

Walton College hosts a conference dinner for attendees at the Supply Chain Hall of Fame in Rogers, Arkansas.

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $2.2 billion to Arkansas’ economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research News.