Multidimensional approach to navigating uncertainty

The business landscape is changing faster than ever, causing uncertainty and unpredictability for firms across industries. Recently, uncertainty has been driven by several remarkable external forces, such as, trade barriers, digitalization, and the global pandemic (i.e., COVID-19). Consequently, companies have been under pressure to rapidly adapt their strategies and business models in an evolving business landscape that is characterized by increasing uncertainty. Research has investigated the causes of uncertainty and demonstrated its implications for organizational behavior, business models, and operational processes. Researchers have also offered several theoretical concepts and models that offer guidance for managing uncertainty. However, the vast majority of studies approach this phenomenon from a specific perspective, providing knowledge on what types of resources, capabilities, organizational culture, structure, or processes are needed to address uncertainty. This dissertation takes a multidimensional perspective to provide a more holistic view of how firms successfully address uncertainty. Specifically, by building on the concepts of market orientation, effectuation, and dynamic capabilities, this dissertation investigates the role of strategic orientation, decision-making logic, and capabilities in firms’ efforts to navigate uncertainty. The dissertation adopts a qualitative research strategy; the empirical data are based on 40 managerial interviews representing different firm sizes and industries. The main findings of the dissertation show that a quick and agile response to market changes requires a strong market orientation, which is manifested in the active collection, sharing and utilization of market information in decision-making. Effectual decision-making logic, in turn, contributes to an organization’s dynamic capability to sense market changes, capture them quickly, and make the necessary changes to an organization’s structures and processes. In addition, the company's customer focus became a significant resource in times of uncertainty. The dissertation contributes to the literature by providing a multidimensional framework for managing uncertainty and identifying a number of managerially relevant activities within each dimension that, when combined, can help firms successfully navigate uncertainty.