How Firms Navigate Market Uncertainty. Under Changing Market Conditions A study of the U.S. Electric Vehicle Market

Sammanfattning

This thesis addresses how firms navigate market uncertainty under changing market conditions, studied through the case of the U.S electric vehicle market. The market has shifted rapidly from a predictable growth trajectory to a volatile environment shaped by tariff escalation, incentive removal, and regulatory unpredictability, creating difficulties for firms in knowing how to respond. Drawing on nine semi-structured interviews across the automotive value chain, the study finds that firms navigate uncertainty through continuous scanning, structurally selective interpretation, and portfolios of co-existing response postures rather than single dominant strategies. The study proposes that firms benefit from treating interpretive diversity across the value chain as an informational asset, investing in mechanisms that capture the temporal information advantage of front-line actors, and deploying dynamic capabilities in a defensive mode, termed defensive reconfiguring, that prioritizes preserving strategic optionality over aggressive commitment. These recommendations are limited by the study's reliance on a single focal case during a specific period of heightened volatility, the retrospective character of interview data, and uneven representation across actor categories, which constrain the generalizability of findings to other firms, industries, and market conditions.