CONCEPT
Ambiguity as Organizational Resource
March's argument that ambiguity — not knowing what the question is — enables exploration, and that its premature resolution by AI forecloses the interpretive alternatives from which genuine organizational novelty emerges.
Most organizations treat ambiguity as a problem to be eliminated. March spent decades arguing the assumption is not merely wrong but dangerous — that ambiguity, properly understood, is one of the most valuable resources an organization possesses, and that the drive to eliminate it produces organizations that are clear, decisive, and unable to adapt. The argument distinguishes ambiguity from uncertainty. Uncertainty is the condition of not knowing which of several well-defined outcomes will occur; organizations handle it through probability, scenario planning, expected-value calculation. Ambiguity is a different and more fundamental condition — not knowing what the question is, having multiple equally plausible interpretations of the same situation, none of which can be validated with available information. Ambiguity is not uncertainty about the answer; it is uncertainty about the question. AI resolves ambiguity with an efficiency that March's framework identifies as structurally dangerous.
In The You On AI Field Guide
March and Olsen argued in Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations (1976)