“Playing by ear” . . . “in an incessant din of reasons”: Chester Barnard and the history of intuition in management thought

Abstract

In the closing decades of the twentieth, and at the start of the twenty‐first, centuries, attention has again turned to the critical role of intuition in effective managerial decision making. This paper examines the history of intuition in management thought by tracing its origins to Chester I. Barnard. This paper reveals not only the intellectual roots linking Barnard’s conceptualization of intuition in management thought to, among others, the influential works of the economist and sociologist, Vilfredo Pareto; Lawrence Henderson’s influence on Barnard through Henderson’s leadership and direction of the Harvard Pareto Circle; the works of the early pragmatist John Dewey; Humphrey’s The Nature of Learning; and Koffka’s Principles of Gestalt Psychology. Further, Barnard’s conceptualization of intuition foreshadowed by nearly two decades nearly all of Polanyi’s thinking and elaboration of tacit knowledge. This paper also examines Barnard’s and Simon’s differing views on intuition and provides a brief overview of contemporary research on intuition in managerial decision making.