Intuition and pharmaceutical research: the case of AstraZeneca

Abstract

The role of intuition receives little attention in the literature on organizational creativity. This paper describes a study of the role of intuition and its implications for organizational creativity within pharmaceutical research. The study applies French philosopher Bergson's philosophy of intuition. The study is based on a series of interviews with employees in pre‐clinical research (discovery) in a major pharmaceutical company; in this context, creativity is defined as an organization's ability to bring forth a new candidate drug in the gastrointestinal and cardiovascular therapy areas. This paper concludes that intuition is a resource that facilitates new drug development. Pharmaceutical researchers perceive the roles of intuition and creativity as intertwined in ground‐breaking innovations. However intuition is a controversial phenomenon in the organization because it opposes reductionistic and analytical forms of thinking, which are highly prized in new drug development. Bergson's philosophy may form a fruitful foundation from which intuition and its relevance for organizational creativity can be exploited.