Rigor in Behavioral Experiments: A Basic Primer for Supply Chain Management Researchers

Abstract

The study of the nuances of human behavior in supply chain management (SCM) contexts and the behavioral reactions that accompany changes in operating policies has finally started to gain a strong headwind. This has come after several decades of operational modeling in which the behavior of the human actors, so critical to the mechanics of operating policies, has either been largely simplified or ignored. With the growth in joint work in experimental behavioral testing and improvements in behavioral codification, greater insight into the practicality of operational policies is now emerging. Yet in order to ensure such practicality, the rigor of this new joint experimentation needs to be ensured. While SCM researchers have a rich history in the rigor of artificial modeling, the sparse history of behavioral experimentation in SCM provides much less evidence of an understanding of what ''rigor'' with such methods entails. The purpose of this brief essay is to touch on some of the basic tenets of rigorous behavioral experimentation, and to hopefully promote such rigor in future SCM behavioral studies.

Supply Chain Psychological Contract Breach: An Experimental Study across National Cultures

“…Factor levels proved significantly different from each other on both treatments (see Table ). Interactions of the manipulations were not significant, therefore alleviating concerns of confounding effects (Bachrach & Bendoly, ).…”

Organizational Communication and Individual Behavior: Implications for Supply Chain Risk Management

“…Following the methods suggested by (Bachrach & Bendoly, ), several tests of validity and approaches to increase the interpretability of the findings were used. Manipulation checks were used to determine if participants responded to the different experimental conditions as expected.…”

Public Policy and Supply Chain Management: Using Shared Foundational Principles to Improve Formulation, Implementation, and Evaluation

“…Recent contributions include many studies using the methods of behavioral economics, published in response to multiple calls for research on judgment and decision‐making in SCM (Bendoly, Donohue & Schultz, ; Knemeyer & Naylor, ; Tokar, ). Several papers introduce theory (Schorsch, Wallenburg & Wieland, ) as well as guidance and resources concerning how such research can be carried out (Bachrach & Bendoly, ; Carter, Kaufmann & Michel, ; Rungtusanatham, Wallin & Eckerd, ; Siemsen, ; Thomas, ). One such paper, authored by a Nobel Prize winning economist and a distinguished colleague (Deck & Smith, ), describes how laboratory experiments can be employed to examine issues of relevance to SCM—many of which, they point out, have direct policy implications, such as regulation and pricing in the gasoline retail market, and transportation issues related to deregulation in the natural gas industry.…”