Decisionmaking under uncertainty: Banking locations in central and easternEurope

One of the fictions of the banking industry is that the decisions taken are based on precise observations of economic reality. This paper looks behind this presupposition and gives a microanalytical perspective on the managem ent of uncertainty using decisions on branchlocations as an example. This p aper conceptualizes the theoretical framework in the discussion of behavior al and neo-institutional research in organization theory It recontextualize s the management of uncertainty as a procedure which generates knowledge. T he procedures of inventarization, classification, and interpretation of geo graphical space are analyzed as ecographic knowlege. It is shown that the b asis of expert knowledge does not lie in an efficient model of information technology and that forms of representation which simplify and homogenize a re chosen to produce evidence for the decision-making process. The rhetoric al practice of the representation of geographical space is analyzed in two forms: numerical representation, on the one hand, and cartographic represen tation, on the other.