The Uncertainty Worskshop at Columbia University will bring together a select number of social scientists on September 7th-8th 2007 for a cross-disciplinary debate about how economic actors make decisions with limited knowledge. It is organized by professors Daniel Beunza from Columbia Business School, and David Stark from Columbia's Sociology Department.

The study of uncertainty has sparked renewed interest across the social sciences. The concept, based on the seminal work of Frank Knight (1921), denotes situations in which decisions are made "with partial knowledge of the world."  

How do market actors confront uncertainty? Lacking an exhaustive account of the future, resourceful economic actors turn to mental models of their environments, to social cues, to their social networks, or construct calcuculative devices. Understanding how these processes shape decision-making can provide a key novel perspective on how market actors value assets, managers formulate strategies, investors create financial bubbles or resource-rich countries remain impoverished.

The workshop will discuss these and other issues by bringing together fifteen leading researchers across the areas of sociology, economics and management, in the format of a small-sized workshop.