Anita Carson

Dr. Anita L. Tucker is a Professor at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University. Prior to joining Boston University, Professor Tucker taught at Wharton, Harvard, and Brandeis Business Schools. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and a doctorate in Business Administration. Before pursuing her doctorate, Anita worked in operations positions for General Mills and the Electric Boat division of General Dynamics. Her manufacturing experiences are therefore diverse: ranging from fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt to nuclear submarines.

She investigates how service process design impacts quality and efficiency. In particular, she has studied care delivery processes in hospitals. Her research finds that a lack of internal integration results in a culture of workarounds that wastes up to 10% of staff’s time. She leverages principles from operations management to help hospitals decrease workarounds and create an improvement-oriented culture. Her research has won numerous awards including a Best Dissertation award from AcademyHealth, a Sloan Industry Studies Fellowship, a best paper award from California Management Review, seven best paper proceedings awards from the Academy of Management, and outstanding abstract from AcademyHealth.

Professor Tucker teaches operations management, service operations, quality improvement, healthcare operations, operations strategy and supply chain management at the undergraduate, MBA, executive, and doctorate levels. She has written case studies and conducted research on process improvement in collaboration with hospitals such as Kaiser Permanente, Cincinnati Children’s, Cleveland Clinic, Brigham and Women’s, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She has taught her cases in executive education programs for Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Macy’s Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She has presented her research at Boston Children’s Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Improvement Science Research Network, and Vermont Oxford Network.

Education

• Harvard Business School, Doctorate Of Business Administration, Operations & Technology Management, 2003
• Purdue University, Ms Industrial Engineering & Operations Research, 1992
• University Of Massachusetts, B. Sc. Industrial Engineering & Operations Research, 1990 (Cum Laude)

Academic Appointments

Boston University Questrom School Of Business

• Department Chair, Operations & Technology Management July 2022 - Present
• Larz Anderson Professor Of Management Sept 2022 - Present
• Professor July 2019 – Sept 2022
• Senior Fellow, Institute For Health System Innovation And Policy May 2018 – Dec 2021
• Everett W Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar Ay 2020 - 2025
• Dean’s Research Scholar Ay 2017-2020
• Associate Professor With Tenure July 2016 –june 2019

Brandeis University International Business School

• Associate Professor (With Tenure) 2014 – 2016

Harvard Business School Technology & Operations Management

• Associate Professor 2010-2014
• Assistant Professor 2007-2010

University Of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School Operations & Information Management

• Assistant Professor 2003-2007

Selected Publications

• Adepoju, T., Carson, A., Jin, H., Manasseh, C. (In Press). "Hospital Boarding Crises: The Impact of Urgent Versus Prevention Responses on Length of Stay", Management Science (3405617)
• Feizi, A., Carson, A., Berry Jaeker, J., Baker, W. (In Press). "To Batch or Not to Batch? Impact of Admission Batching on Emergency Department Boarding Time and Physician Productivity", Operations Research
• Adepoju, T., Carson, A., Jin, H., Manasseh, C. (2023). "Hospital Boarding Crises: The Impact of Urgent vs. Prevention Responses on Length of Stay", Management Science
• Song, H., Tucker, A., Graue, R., Moravick, S., Yang, J. (2020). "Capacity Pooling in Hospitals: The Hidden Consequences of Off-Service Placement", Management Science, 66 (9), 3825-3842
• Tucker, A., Zheng, S., Gardner, J., Bohn, R. (2020). "When do Workarounds Help or Hurt Patient Outcomes? The Moderating Role of Operational Failures", Journal of Operations Management 67-90
• Berry Jaeker, J., Tucker, A. (2020). "The value of process friction: The role of justification in reducing medical costs", Journal of Operations Management, 66 (1-2), 12-34
• Roth, A., Tucker, A., Venkataraman, S., Chilingerian, J. (2019). "Being on the Productivity Frontier: Identifying “Triple Aim Performance” Hospitals", Production and Operations Management
• Tucker, A., Zheng, S., Ren, Z., Heineke, J., McLaughlin, A., Podell, A. (2018). "The Impact of Internal Service Quality on Preventable Adverse Events in Hospitals", Production and Operations Management, 27 (12), 2201-2212
• Mazza, M., Dynan, L., Siegel, R., Tucker, A. (2018). "Nudging Healthier Choices in a Hospital Cafeteria: Results From a Field Study", Health Promotion Practice, 19 (6), 925-934
• Fryer, A., Tucker, A., Singer, S. (2018). "The Impact of Middle Manager Affective Commitment on Perceived Improvement Program Implementation Success", Health Care Management Review, 43 (3), 218-228
• Song, H., Tucker, A., Murrell, K., Vinson, D. (2018). "Closing the Productivity Gap: Improving Worker Productivity Through Public Relative Performance Feedback and Validation of Best Practices", Management Science, 64 (6), 2628-2649
• Nembhard, I., Tucker, A. (2016). "Applying Organizational Learning Research to Accountable Care Organizations", Medical Care Research and Review, 73 (6), 673-684
• Tucker, A. (2016). "The Impact of Workaround Difficulty on Frontline Employees’ Response to Operational Failures: A Laboratory Experiment on Medication Administration", Management Science, 62 (4), 1124-1144
• Senot, C., Chandrasekaran, A., Ward, P., Tucker, A., Moffatt-Bruce, S. (2016). "The Impact of Combining Conformance and Experiential Quality on Hospitals’ Readmissions and Cost Performance", Management Science, 62 (3), 829-848
• Berry Jaeker, J., Tucker, A. (2016). "Past the Point of Speeding Up: The Negative Effects of Workload Saturation on Efficiency and Quality", Management Science
• Song, H., Tucker, A. (2016). "Performance Improvement in Health Care Organizations", Foundations and Trends® in Technology, Information and Operations Management, 9 (3-4), 153-309
• Song, H., Tucker, A., Murrell, K. (2015). "The Diseconomies of Queue Pooling: An Empirical Investigation of Emergency Department Length of Stay", Management Science, 61 (12), 3032-3053
• Tucker, A., Singer, S. (2015). "The Effectiveness of Management-By-Walking-Around: A Randomized Field Study", Production and Operations Management, 24 (2), 253-271
• Singer, S., Tucker, A. (2014). "The evolving literature on safety WalkRounds: emerging themes and practical messages: Table 1", BMJ Quality & Safety, 23 (10), 789-800
• Senot, C., Chandrasekaran, A., Ward, P., Tucker, A. (2013). "Do Professional Service Organizations Financially Benefit from Conformance and Experiential Quality?", Academy of Management Proceedings, 2013 (1), 11058-11058
• Nembhard, I., Tucker, A. (2011). "Deliberate Learning to Improve Performance in Dynamic Service Settings: Evidence from Hospital Intensive Care Units", Organization Science, 22 (4), 907-922
• Tucker, A., Singer, S., Hayes, J., Falwell, A. (2008). "Front-Line Staff Perspectives on Opportunities for Improving the Safety and Efficiency of Hospital Work Systems", Health Services Research, 43 (5p2), 1807-1829
• Tucker, A. (2007). "An Empirical Study of System Improvement by Frontline Employees in Hospital Units", Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 9 (4), 492-505
• Tucker, A., Nembhard, I., Edmondson, A. (2007). "Implementing New Practices: An Empirical Study of Organizational Learning in Hospital Intensive Care Units", Management Science, 53 (6), 894-907
• Tucker, A., Spear, S. (2006). "Operational Failures and Interruptions in Hospital Nursing", Health Services Research, 41 (3p1), 643-662
• Tucker, A. (2004). "The impact of operational failures on hospital nurses and their patients", Journal of Operations Management, 22 (2), 151-169

Awards And Honors

• 2021, JOM Jack Meredith Best Paper Award
• 2020, Excellence in Teaching Award
• 2019, Best OM paper in Management Science
• 2018, M&SOM Service SIG Prize (for Best Published Paper), INFORMS M&SOM Service Special Interest Group (SIG)
• 2018, Most Influential Paper Award, Production and Operations Management Society, Service Operations Track
• 2018, Excellence in Teaching Award, MBA Cohort Beacon, Class of 2019
• 2017, Excellence in Teaching Award, MBA Cohort B, Class of 2018
• 2015, INFORMS Behavioral Operations Management Best Working Paper Award, INFORMS Behavioral Operations Management Society
• 2015, Best Student Paper Award, INFORMS Health Application Society