Preparing our students to be newsvendors

Teachers of management science in schools of business use a variety of criteria in deciding what to teach and how to teach it. An important criterion that is often ignored is how our students will—as opposed to could or even should—actually address decision-making situations they encounter after taking our courses. One such situation that is commonly addressed in management science courses is the newsvendor problem. Applying the criterion of how students are expected to act when facing a newsvendor problem or any other of the situations commonly addressed in management science courses is an important factor to consider when designing managerially relevant courses.