Inter-organizational uncertainty: a proposition of conceptual definition and its constituent attributes

Abstract

Studies on innovation management have demonstrated that organizations adopt more open and collaborative attitudes to develop innovations in an increasingly dynamic and competitive environment. Technological, regulatory, and marketing changes arise that raise doubts about the return on investments in R&D projects. However, there is still a lack of insights into how to manage uncertainty, lack of insights into how to mitigate inter-organizational uncertainty, and how this can impact collaborative practices during the project lifecycle. Antecedent studies present confusing results, this may be a reflection of the generic conceptual application of uncertainty without considering that uncertainty is a phenomenon constructed from attributes. The proposal of the conceptual definition of inter-organizational uncertainty was elaborated from the conceptual bibliographic method based on the primary uncertainty to cover the organizational, inter-organizational, and collective levels. The results show four equivalence terms to uncertainty and sixteen attributes that can characterize uncertainty in organizations. These results provide a better understanding of how to deal with uncertainty by combining strategies for each attribute identified in innovative projects.