Introduction
Introduction
Decision Making under Uncertainty
After outlining the gaps and limitations of the mainstream models of decision-making used in cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and organization studies, this chapter advocates for a holistic, therefore sociological, approach that, adopting a pragmatist theory of action, bridges the extant literatures with insights from science and technology studies. This approach to studying the process of decision-making eschews normative criteria of rationality in favor of context-dependent explanations of judgment in action. The unit of analysis is neither the individual nor the organization but the task at hand. Four guiding assumptions about decision-making in action are identified: (1) decision-making takes place within a more or less institutionalized environment that, over time, affords its members a certain stock of knowledge; (2) this stock of knowledge consists of cognitive heuristics and decision-making techniques that help initially frame and specify the empirical context of action; (3) decision-making may not be perfectly rational but rarely is it unreflective or routinized—instead, it is habitual and eminently practical; (4) it is within the evolving micro-context of action, and the human and nonhuman others populating it, that decision-making practice takes shape first and foremost.
Keywords: bounded rationality, deep uncertainty, naturalistic decision-making, pragmatist theory, situated learning, cognition, materiality, process, science studies, cultural repertoires
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