Phaedra Daipha, Ph.D.

Several of my projects conceptually develop and empirically flesh 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. To be sure, individual actors are emplaced in a more or less institutionalized sociomaterial environment that affords them certain cultural repertoires and recipes for action. But 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. Of particular interest to me here is the role that prospection (or future orientation) plays in how decision makers develop problem-solving habits to navigate distinct time-driven tasks.

​