Phaedra Daipha, Ph.D.

My research conceptually develops and empirically fleshes out a sociologically-informed approach to studying real-world risk and uncertainty management that reinstates decision makers as makers of decisions, crafting locally rational solutions out of the heuristics and techniques with which they have equipped themselves over time. The unit of analysis is neither the individual nor the organization but the task at hand. The proposed conceptual framework emplaces decision makers within a more or less institutionalized sociomaterial environment that affords them certain cultural repertoires and recipes for action, intended to help them respond efficiently to the microcontext of the decision-making task. However, it is in the wild, within the evolving microcontext of action, that decision making takes shape first and foremost. Hence decision makers become skillfully improvisational and discerningly creative as a matter of habit. My research is currently aimed at assessing the role of prospection (or future orientation) in how decision makers navigate different time-driven, uncertainty-riddled tasks and develop particular problem-solving habits.