IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jomorg/v15y2009i01p31-46_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ambiguity tolerance and accurate assessment of self-efficacy in a complex decision task

Author

Listed:
  • Endres, Megan L
  • Chowdhury, Sanjib
  • Milner, Morgan

Abstract

Organizational decision making requires the ability to process ambiguous information while dealing with overload and conflicting requirements. Although researchers agree that ambiguity tolerance is a critical skill for making high-quality complex decisions, few have investigated the effects of ambiguity tolerance on self-efficacy to make complex decisions. In the current experiment, 151 participants were randomly assigned to either a moderate complexity or high complexity decision task. Ambiguity tolerance moderated the relationships between task complexity and self-efficacy, and between task complexity and the accuracy of self-efficacy in predicting future performance. In the highly complex task, individuals with a higher tolerance for ambiguity reported higher self-efficacy and more accurate self-efficacy versus individuals with lower tolerance for ambiguity. In the moderately complex task, tolerance for ambiguity had no effects on self-efficacy or accuracy. Implications for research and practice are presented, along with study limitations.

Suggested Citation

  • Endres, Megan L & Chowdhury, Sanjib & Milner, Morgan, 2009. "Ambiguity tolerance and accurate assessment of self-efficacy in a complex decision task," Journal of Management & Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 31-46, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jomorg:v:15:y:2009:i:01:p:31-46_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1833367200002868/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kaye Knight & Amanda Kenny & Ruth Endacott, 2016. "From expert generalists to ambiguity masters: using ambiguity tolerance theory to redefine the practice of rural nurses," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(11-12), pages 1757-1765, June.
    2. Yi Xue & Zhonggen Yu, 2023. "Bibliometric Analysis of Ambiguity Tolerance: Unearthing Its Role in Sustainable Language Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-21, August.
    3. Yangyi Kwon & Jhong Yun (Joy) Kim & Andrew Keane, 2020. "The Structural Relationship among Career-Related Mentoring, Ambiguity Tolerance, and Job Search Effort and Behavior of Korean College Students," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Innocenti, Stefania & Cowan, Robin, 2019. "Self-efficacy beliefs and imitation: A two-armed bandit experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 156-172.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jomorg:v:15:y:2009:i:01:p:31-46_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jmo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.