Operations research, often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decision-making. The term management science is occasionally used as a synonym.

Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. It has applications in many fields of social science, used extensively in economics as well as in logic, systems science and computer science. Initially game theory addressed two-person zero-sum games, in which a participant's gains or losses are exactly balanced by the losses and gains of the other participant. In the 1950’s it was extended to the study of non zero-sum games and was eventually game applied to a wide range of behavioral relations, and is now an umbrella term for the science of rational decision making in humans, animals, as well as computers.