Wisdom, Uncertainty, and Ambiguity: A Study of Management Decisions as Based on Theories and Validated by Research Methods

Wisdom, uncertainty, and ambiguity will always exist in management decisions. One danger for firms lies in managers making decisions that are based on faulty theories acquired through personal experience or learned from experience of others. Often, these decisions don’t generate the expected outcome and may even put the future of the firm at risk. To avoid this risk, managers are required to become wiser, more discerning, and more appropriately skeptical toward simplistic formulas and quick-fix remedies (as explained by Rosenzweig, 2007). In this paper, the author discusses types of business research and their philosophical assumptions, the strength and weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative research methods, the benefits of combining both methods, and the trustworthiness of research methods in general for validating the management theories used by managers in their decision-making.