The Interactive Decision Experiment or TIDE Lab is Culverhouse’s human research laboratory where scholars study business-relevant issues from asset market pricing to emotional connections with brands, from front-line customer interactions to common value auctions, and from inventory management to risk attitudes. TIDE Lab consists of multiple computer labs, a virtual reality lab, a shopper insights lab, breakout rooms and a large group room as well as other equipment and props for faculty and students across the business school to use in their research.
Since its opening in 2018, the use of the TIDE Lab has grown steadily to the point that it has been operating at near capacity. Given the high demand from scholars in the college, TIDE Lab is expanding to include two new research spaces. One of the spaces is a larger group room that can be used for a variety of hand-run studies as well as research presentations and project development sessions. The other space is an additional computer lab. This new computer lab will be used for study development and testing as well as overflow space for the main lab, but it will also operate as a drop-in lab where students can stop by between classes and complete short surveys or other studies to be eligible to receive cash or other prizes. With this expansion, TIDE Lab will have 52 computer workstations spread across 4 separate spaces that are connected virtually and this will allow for large interactive studies.
The research that has been conducted in TIDE Lab has been published in high-quality academic journals. TIDE Lab faculty have recently published their behavioral research in American Economic Review: Insights, Decision Analysis, Experimental Economics, International Economic Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing, and Management Science. TIDE Lab has also become a powerful recruiting tool for the college helping to bring in world-class faculty. For example, Dr. Tigran Melkonyan, who recently joined Culverhouse’s Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies from the University of Warwick, said, “Access to a facility like TIDE Lab and the caliber of colleagues using the lab factored heavily into my decision to move to the University of Alabama.” According to Dr. Cary Deck, TIDE Lab’s Director, “Expansion of TIDE Lab will help keep Culverhouse among the elite centers for behavioral business research not only by providing world-class infrastructure, but also by affirming the College’s commitment to this type of scholarship and solidifying its global reputation.”