
Operations management (OM) researchers have traditionally focused on developing normative mathematical models that prescribe what managers and firms should do. Recently, there has been increased interest in understanding what managers and firms actually do and the factors that drive these decisions. To advance this understanding, empirical investigation using causal inference models is critical. However, in many contexts, the ability to obtain causal inferences is fraught with the challenges of endogeneity and selection bias. This paper describes five empirical tools that have been widely used in economics to address these challenges and how they can be adopted by OM researchers. We also present an example that illustrates how the various attributes of big data—variety, velocity, and volume—can be useful in addressing the endogeneity bias.The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2017.0659 .
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 85 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 1% | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Top 10% | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% |
