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Overview of This Book on Strategic Decision-Making Under Uncertainty

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Uncertainty in Strategic Decision Making

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Abstract

Explains how and why uncertainty is everything. Argues that because uncertainty is ubiquitous—affecting every decision—a rational way of approaching it is needed. Given the avoidance of uncertainty in the past—because it entails the non-optimizability of decisions—and due to the increased effects of it in the present (as seen in devastating shocks of the economic and environmental kind), it is worth delving further into for the future. That is the basis for this book and why it is needed now. Explains and argues for the approach taken—in using decision-making as the structure for analysis, in applying an objective reality perspective, and in the definitions and delineations proposed. Previews some big philosophical questions, quoting from previous analyses of uncertainty. Presents a plan for the rest of the book.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that even the probability distributions used in classical statistical mechanics are purely fictitious, given in that realm an enormous number of complex and highly differentiated situations arise so that the laws of probability theory do not accurately depict physical realities (Rouvray, 1997).

  2. 2.

    No one book can provide a complete and substantive review of the full set of ways that uncertainty has touched every scientific and practical field. While we provide a review of a subset of these, some directly and some only indirectly connected to business, we acknowledge that we forego many, many more (e.g., in psychology, marketing, sociology, medicine, climatology, law, and more). We can only hope that our peers in these fields follow suit in bringing more clarity to decision-making under uncertainty in their respective areas in the near future.

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  1. University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME, USA

    Richard J. Arend

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Arend, R.J. (2024). Overview of This Book on Strategic Decision-Making Under Uncertainty. In: Uncertainty in Strategic Decision Making. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48553-4_1

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