The behavioral agency model: Revised concepts and implications for operations and supply chain research

Abstract

The COVID 19 crisis and geopolitical ruptures of recent years have highlighted the importance of operations and supply chain management (OSCM) to firms and society. How do OSCM executives make decisions under uncertainty, and how do they balance the competing needs of various stakeholders? The behavioral agency model (BAM), which has been widely used in the management literature, focuses on the executive as the unit of analysis, like the behavioral science research in which it is embedded; by contrast, much of the supply chain risk management research has examined risk at the level of the firm. We review BAM literature and its core constructs, refine its original predictions, identify OSCM executive decision contexts that could take advantage of BAM, and highlight research opportunities using BAM. We aim to provide a platform for further risk research applying BAM in the domain of OSCM executive decision-making.