The role of routines in reducing pervasive uncertainty

Remarkably little advice has been offered in the way of helping management develop appropriate strategies to cope with different forms of uncertainty. In an effort to fill this gap, the present article combines extant research from economics and strategy to identify two broad classes of uncertainty and the generic strategies that are appropriate to handle each class of uncertainty. We point out that organizational routines are ways to reduce pervasive uncertainty in decision making, whereas increasing the available information is appropriate when other, less demanding forms of uncertain situations arise. The argument is supported by empirical tests. (c) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.