The purpose of the summer institute is to provide PhD students who are interested in behavioral research a solid foundation to conduct behavioral operations management (BOM) research. Additionally, we hope that the summer institute will encourage collaboration and the creation of a research community amongst the next generation of researchers.
The schedule will generally be divided into morning and afternoon sessions. The morning sessions will be primarily in lecture format. They will provide an general overview of BOM, review core behavioral economics/psychology topics, and discuss OM applications. The afternoon sessions will be more focused more on small groups, practicums (e.g., applying ideas to actual research activity), and roundtables (more informal discussions). There will also be free time to prepare for the next day, have office hours, pair up to work on ideas, and hang out! The tentative schedule is here.
The intended audience for the summer institute is PhD students completing their 2nd-4th years who have largely finished their foundation PhD coursework and passed their qualifying exams, but still have time to take on new projects before they start the job market process. In general, the summer institute is designed for any PhD student who has already started or is seriously considering conducting BOM research, broadly defined (e.g., lab experiments, field experiments, analytical models, secondary data). No prior knowledge of behavioral OM is required to apply. Indeed, the summer institute is designed to help students who are interested in behavioral research, but don’t have the resources at their home university to get a solid foundation in both methodology and the foundational behavioral literature.
More information about applying is here. If you think you (or your PhD student) may be a good fit, please contact the organizers.
The summer institute is subsidized by the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Harvard Business School Technology and Operations Management Unit. The registration fee is $225, which includes breakfast, lunch and snack. Institute attendees are still responsible for their own transportation, accommodations, and dinner expenses. More information about accommodations can be found here. There is no cost to apply.
We have limitations in terms of capacity (around 15-20 students), but otherwise will accept as many students as we feel fit the program's objectives. Given that this is the first year the summer institute is being offered, we unfortunately do not have much further information as to the competitiveness of gaining admission.
The organizers will email you a link to the registration page after you have been accepted.
Our plan is to offer the summer institute every other year (in the odd years) - rotating locations between Michigan, and Wisconsin.