Research Opportunities in the Decision and Management Sciences

• Published in: Management science Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 1 - 13
• Main Author: Little, John D. C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linthicum, MD INFORMS 01-01-1986; Institute of Management Sciences; Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Series: Management Science
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Conferences; Decision analysis; Decision making; decision science; Decision support systems; Exact sciences and technology; Expert systems; Fuzzy sets; Interdisciplinary research; Judgment; Management science; Mathematical programming; Miscellaneous; Modeling; Observational research; Operational research and scientific management; Operational research. Management science; Opportunity; Process management; Psychological research; Psychology; R&D; Research & development; research opportunities; Science programs; Studies; System theory; Workshops; Scientific management; Decision theory; Operations research
• ISSN: 0025-1909; 1526-5501
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.32.1.1

The National Science Foundation established the Decision and Management Sciences Program (DMS) in 1982. Healthy and growing, DMS is likely to affect OR/MS significantly, not only by providing funds for basic research, but also through its vision of a combined theoretical and empirical science of operational and managerial processes, and by its policy of bringing together different disciplines within the program. An NSF workshop held in Dallas in April 1984 sought to identify research opportunities in the decision and management sciences. Promising areas, many of them inviting cross-disciplinary research, appear in the development of measurement-based models for operational processes (both natural and designed and including organizational and managerial activities), choice theory (individual and group choice, values, judgment, and risk behavior), decision support, and the treatment of complexity. Increased knowledge in any of these areas would be likely to have a valuable long-run impact on management practice.