The Ecological Rationality of Heuristics: Implications for Decision-Making under Uncertainty in Construction

The formal use of heuristics as a strategy for dealing with decision-making under uncertainty by engineers has been typically overlooked when procuring construction projects, even though they have been shown to deliver better decision outcomes than statistical (including probabilistic and stochastic) and machine learning approaches. Considering the prevailing gap in practice, this paper draws upon the theoretical framing of ecological rationality to raise awareness of the influential role heuristics can play in decision-making under uncertainty when procuring construction projects. The paper suggests that to realize the benefits of heuristics, research is needed to fundamentally focus on understanding the context (i.e., what, why, how, and when) within which decisions are made under uncertainty and to develop and design decision-making strategies for new situations that arise while managing construction projects. This paper’s contributions are twofold: (1) a new perspective for engineers to deal with uncertainty through the lens of ecological rationality is proposed; and (2) a pathway for engineers to begin to explore how the benefits of heuristics can be realized is presented.