The Dynamics of Intuition and Analysis in Managerial and Organizational Decision Making

Abstract

This article contributes to the growing body of research and scholarship in management and organization studies (MOS) concerning the dynamics and impact of conscious and nonconscious cognitive processes on individual and collective behavior in the workplace. Dual-process theories have occupied the center ground of this literature. However, in recent years, the field of psychology, in which these theories originated, has differentiated two fundamentally different categories of dual-process theory—default-interventionist and parallel-competitive. These alternative conceptions are predicated on incommensurable assumptions but MOS researchers are seemingly oblivious of this important distinction, risking the development of a body of work that is fundamentally incoherent, being predicated on psychological foundations that are untenable. Whereas default-interventionist accounts have tended to dominate MOS, we argue that parallel-competitive formulations offer a more nuanced and realistic depiction of organizational decision makers who, as thinking and feeling beings, are as reliant on inspiration and the skillful management of emotion and intuition, as on cold, calculative cognition. We explore the implications of our arguments for multiple streams of research, spanning strategic management, entrepreneurship, organizational behavior, and human resource management, united by the desire to explicate more comprehensively the behavioral microfoundations and neural substrates of managerial and organizational decision making.