Understanding the role of uncertainty and ambiguity in the decision-making process

Hello Professor Aspers. What current topics are keeping you busy?

I am currently working on how organisations cope with uncertainty and ambiguity in their decision-making, the two main conditions that stress and complicate this process.  Decision makers deal with uncertainty in several ways: Some may try to reduce it, or preparing for it, and others seem to embrace it or try to increase it. My work hopes to empirically analyse this process and will look for common markers coping of uncertainty and ambiguity. 

What interests you in this topic?

My interest in uncertainty comes from my focus on basic social science research questions. Uncertainty is a fundamental question that has been addressed not only, and not even primarily, by sociologists, but also by business scholars, political scientists and anthropologists. They tend to focus on the very “practical” questions related to this. 

What were the key findings?

My work complements existing research by focusing on fact that many problems that decisions makers face can only be addressed and effectively solved jointly in a public domain, like a boardroom. I start with a practical problem an organisation may face, then focus the research on solutions that require may actors. For example, to have some stability and predictability in a business environment, for firms to invest, for activist to know what can be done, for politicians to concentrate on setting the rules of the game, requires that actors trust one another. The problem of trust, to take this example, comes prior to the problem of signing formal contracts. But trust is not something that we can take for granted. Nor can an individual firm do much to create or enforce trust or other virtues like fairness. This virtue is typically something that grows over time because actors, usually create trust over time when interacting. 

One should underline that uncertainty and ambiguity are not only problems; in many cases they are necessary conditions. In the world of sport organisations may aim at creating uncertainty. In the NHL (North American ice hockey), there are rules that make sure that low performing teams get the first chances to sign the highest ranked newcomers for the upcoming season. This rule creates uncertainty, which in the case of professional sports is a good thing because certainty, or that one can with very high predictability know which team will win.

Take another example, the 100 m race last week in Zürich between Karsten Warholm, the current 400m world record holder and the holder of the pole vault record, Armand Duplantis, ignited interest because the outcome was very uncertain.

Religion is another field that thrives on ambiguity, because the narrative explanations about what exists, why things are happening, ultimately, are not scientifically accountable. Obviously, entrepreneurial actions too are about ceasing opportunities under uncertainty and ambiguity. If we know everything, it would be easy to know what to do – and this could done by anyone. Put in one sentence, certainty is sometimes just very boring.

Did anything surprise you in the results?

Let me first explain my initial assumptions. I started out with the idea that the distinction between risk and uncertainty, which was established already in 1921 by Frank Knight, had been diluted. What I mean is that many researchers speaking of uncertainty considered it to be a condition to which one could ascribe likelihood, and thus calculate. However, Knight’s point is that exactly this is not possible. Instead, most of the situations and conditions we as human beings face are uncertain, meaning that we do not know what will happen in the future when we act. 

Ambiguity is a matter that is addressed by interpretation, and it opens up a new horizon of problems and the different ways to cope with problems. Situations in war are only partially certain, but what is going on may often be even ambiguous. For example, what is initially interpreted as a smaller attack may of course turn out to be a strategic victory that leads to other victories. To cope with such conditions, an organization may try to find out more, for example. 

What does this mean for society, what can we take from the results?

Under the condition of ambiguity, it is not easy to establish what is true and false; instead, it remains open to interpretation, leading to a situation in which there are several different interpretations, but with no objective way to judge between them.

Some actors may have a strong interest to increase the realm of ambiguity, whereas others typically aim to diminish this. Scientific work diminishes ambiguity by finding things out, by researching areas to inform us what is and what is not. But it must also be clearly said that in many domains, things are neither true nor false. Instead taste or different preferences is what matters. This is the case for people’s different preferences for food, but also in art, to mention two areas. So, the solution, again, is not necessarily the reduction of ambiguity, but coping with or even embracing it.

How can this change our approach to decisions?

By reflecting on ambiguity, we are able to address it. This opens up questions about honesty and the necessity to both individually and collectively curb attempts to not let ambiguity become a constant state… even though both uncertainty and ambiguity provides us with the opportunities to think, reevaluate and act. Not everything can be ambiguous or uncertain at the same time.

Patrik Aspers is Chair of sociology at the University of St.Gallen. He has previously held positions in Sweden and Germany. His work is grounded in phenomenology, and oriented towards economic sociology and sociological theory.