Sensitivity analysis, incorporating the concept of shadow prices, is a powerful tool that helps us understand how changes to variables impact the outcomes of operations research models. It provides insights into how alterations in parameters, constraints, or other model components affect the optimal solution, objective function value, and resource allocation.

Shadow prices provide an economic interpretation of the value of resources. For example, in a production model, a positive shadow price for a resource indicates the amount of increase in profit per unit increase in that resource.

In linear programming, shadow prices represent the change in the objective function value with a unit change in the right-hand side of a constraint. Positive shadow prices indicate that an increase in the constraint's right-hand side will lead to an increase in the objective function value.