It's an age-old question: Is it healthier to focus on the type of food you eat or the portion size? Whatever the correct answer is, consumers tend to be more influenced by the perceived healthiness of a food (nuts over chocolate, for example), than a food's portion size. That's one of the findings in new study, to be published in the INFORMS journal Management Science, that also finds that this tendency to neglect food quantity in favor of food type can partly be mitigated by encouraging consumers to compare different portion sizes of food side-by-side.

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences will sponsor a summit Monday to encourage better use of data among government agencies. The summit, which will take place at the Reserve Officers Association building, will feature former Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden.

Critics say capitalism erodes institutions and relationships. Turns out, working in sales might, according to a new study in the INFORMS journal Organization Science. A survey of people from different countries revealed that working in a sales-related job was associated with being less trusting, even controlling for other factors. To confirm this experimentally, participants here and abroad were randomly assigned to generate a positive review of a low-quality product. Compared to generating an honest review, generating an artificially positive review caused participants to see people as less honest.

Collective creativity in diverse teams is a kind of black box: We have a good idea of what goes in it (e.g. team composition) and what comes out of it (e.g. creativity), but we know very little about the process – what actually happens when people from different cultures work together. In order to illuminate this process, a new study published in the INFORMS journal Organization Science, examines how the cultural backgrounds of team members interact to shape team dynamics and outcomes.

With the 76th anniversary of the 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea on May 7-8, 2018, Brock University professor and INFORMS member Michael Armstrong describes his mathematical modeling research on this battle between American and Japanese aircraft carriers, in particular how the battle could have turned out differently if the officers had made different decisions. 

A team from Northwestern University that included Chicago Marathon personnel were presented the Innovative Applications in Analytics Award at the 2018 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference for their project SAFE (Situational Awareness for Events) system, which incorporates critical data into one user-friendly dashboard to provide leaders of large-scale events like marathons a centralized information source. 

The research of Terry August, associate professor of Innovation, Technology and Operations at Rady School of Management is featured in an INFORMS Editor’s Cut series. Titled “Securing Information in a Digital World,” the goal of this edition of the Editor’s Cut series is to enable researchers to quickly understand and take action to improve information security. The series shares a robust collection of leading journal and industry articles, video, and interviews in a variety of areas impacting data security including employee compliance, cloud vulnerability, cyber security risk and policy guidelines. 

A new editorial by INFORMS President Nicholas Hall discusses how a robust, holistic approach to the use of data would enable the federal government to achieve more efficient and effective outcomes. 

Key aspects of corporate sponsorship programs, while designed to advance women’s careers, may end up widening the gender gap rather than narrowing it, according to new experimental research. The findings are published in the INFORMS journal Management Science. 

INFORMS recently honored BNSF Railway Co. with an award for pioneering and integrating operations research and analytics programs into its organization.

Michael Trick, dean of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and INFORMS Fellow, was part of a Federal Communications Commission team that was awarded the 2018 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research and Management Science from INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics.

Syngenta and the Analytics Society of INFORMS are proud to recognize a team from The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia as the winner of the 2018 Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics.

Marketers look to trendsetters as “influencers,” but can the influencer be influenced herself? A study recently published in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science suggests that, in fact, early propagators of trends tend to respond less to advertising than latecomers.

INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals, announced it has awarded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) its 2018 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research, and Management Science for its use of operations research (O.R.) to create a revolutionary approach to meeting the rapidly growing need for the spectrum used for wireless communication in the United States and Canada.

One out of two mobile apps released is a clone of an existing app. However, new research in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research shows the success of the original app is not always adversely affected by these clone apps. The study found that whether the copycat app increases or decreases the number of downloads of the original is dependent upon the quality of the copy.

INFORMS Analytics Conference brings together 1,000 leading analytics professionals & industry experts (execs, analysts, managers, researchers, data scientists, etc.) to share ideas, network, & learn.

A common assumption in digital marketing is that individuals who are mindful of what’s trending on social media and propagate these trends, will be responsive to social media advertising and marketing, thus sharing branded messages with their network on a wide scale. As a result, firms increasingly try to mesh their brand or product with an emerging trend to get the attention of those who propagate these trends. The study will be published in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science.

A submission from the Pediatric Heart Network (PHN), a consortium of nine leading North American children’s hospitals, including Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, has been named as one of six 2018 finalists for the INFORMS Franz Edelman Award for Achievements in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research and Management Science. The Edelman Award is a prestigious honor given for achievement in the practice of advanced analytics and operations research. For more than four decades, winners have been recognized for revolutionary contributions that transform how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems.

For every two mobile apps released, one is a clone of an existing app. However, new research published in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research shows the success of the original app is not always adversely affected by the creation of clone apps. In fact, the study, which was conducted by Carnegie Mellon University researchers, found that whether the copycat app increases or decreases the number of downloads of the original is dependent upon the quality of the copy.

One out of two mobile apps released is a clone of an existing app. However, new research in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research shows the success of the original app is not always adversely affected by these clone apps. The study found that whether the copycat app increases or decreases the number of downloads of the original is dependent upon the quality of the copy.