Intuitive Decision-making Styles Research Articles

Principalship in an Indonesian school context: can principal decision-making styles significantly predict teacher job satisfaction?

This paper examines relationships between teacher-perceived principal decision-making styles and teacher job satisfaction in schools in Lampung Province, Indonesia. We use the General Decision-making Style instrument, the Job Satisfaction Survey and a demographic questionnaire developed for this study. Our findings show that: 12 out of the 15 relationships tested were significant; rational, intuitive, dependent and avoidant decision-making styles were significant predictors of teacher job satisfaction; and these are still significant predictors after the possible effects of gender, marital status, teacher certification and school location are controlled for.

The influence of mood on attitude–behavior consistency

Attitudes and preferences do not always prove to be good predictors of actual behavior. Following the call for moderating variables to get a better idea of when and for whom attitude–behavior consistency exists, the current paper focuses on mood as a potential situational moderator. Results from three online studies demonstrate that (1) mood significantly affects attitude–behavior consistency, (2) not the decision style that mood activates (i.e., a deliberative style under negative mood versus an intuitive decision style under positive mood), but a fit in decision style respondents use during attitude formation and decision making underlies this mood effect, and (3) this mood effect holds for individuals who tend to experience their emotions intensively (i.e., high affect intensity individuals), but reverses for individuals who experience their emotions less intensively (i.e., low affect intensity individuals).

대학생의 진로의사결정유형에 따른 진로의식성숙

본 연구의 목적은 대학생들의 진로의사결정유형과 진로의식성숙정도를 파악하고, 진로의사결정유형에 따른 진로의식성숙에서의 차이를 알아봄으로써 진로지도에 도움이 될 수 있는 지침개발의 기초자료로 제공하고자 함이다. 본 연구의 대상은 6개 대학에 재학 중인 대학생 223명이다. 대학생들의 진로의사결정유형에서 합리적 의사결정점수가 가장 높았고, 다음으로 직관적 의사결정, 의존적 의사결정 순으로 나타났다. 진로의식성숙에서 스스로 진로를 정하는 진로독립성, 진로관여성은 높은데 비해 직업선택에 대한 긍정적인 태도나 진로타협성은 낮은 것으로 나타났다. 학년에 따른 진로의식 성숙에서는 2, 3학년에 비해 1, 4학년이 진로결정성이 높은 것으로 나타났다. 사회경제적 수준에 따른 진로의식 성숙에서도 상류층은 하류층에 비해 진로결정성이 높았으나 진로독립성은 낮았다. 진로의사결정유형에 따른 진로의식성숙에서는 합리적 의사결정유형집단이 의존적 의사결정유형집단에 비해 진로독립성이 높고 직업 선택의 태도가 긍정적이었다. 본 연구는 대학생의 의사결정유형에 따른 진로의식성숙의 차이를 보여 진로지도에서 의사결정유형의 중요성을 인식시켰으며, 더불어 대학교 취업교육현장에서 진로의식성숙을 함양하기 위한 개입 방안을 모색하는데 도움이 될 것이다. The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in university student's career maturity according to general characteristics(for example, gender, grade, and SES) and undergraduate student's career decision-making styles. A scale measuring the career decision-making styles(Harren, 1984) and career maturity(Crites, 1978) was administered to 223 university students around the capital city. The data were analyzed using Cronbach's <TEX>${\alpha}$</TEX> tests, means, standard deviations, One-way MANOVAs, and Multiple Discriminant Analyses. The results of this study were as follows: 1. There was not significant difference by gender in career maturity. But there were significant differences by grade and SES in career maturity. Freshmen and Senior exhibited higher career decision-making attitude than sophomores and juniors. High-SES group showed higher career decision-making attitude and lower career independence. 2. There were significant differences by career decision-making styles in career maturity. 51.1% of our samples were rational decision-making styles, 30.0% of our samples were intuitive decision-making styles, and 18.8% of our samples were dependent decision-making styles. Undergraduate students with rational decision-making styles showed more positive career choice behavior and higher career independence than undergraduate students dependent decision-making styles.

Cognitive misfit and firm growth in technology-oriented SMEs

In this study, we examine how the founding owner-managers’ cognitive style, levels of formalisation in their firms, and the interaction of these two variables (cognitive misfit) are related to firm growth in technology-oriented SMEs. We found that an intuitive decision-making style, higher levels of formalisation, and their interaction were significantly associated with firm growth over a five-year period. There has been a recent surge of interest in entrepreneurs’ cognition (Mitchell et al., 2002, 2007) and the role of context on cognitive processes (Baron, 1998). Our findings suggest that incorporating individual cognition within a PO fit approach from the field of organisational behaviour can further our understanding of the key role of the founding owner-managers play in the subsequent growth of their firms. The implications of these findings for practitioners, researchers, and policy makers are developed.

Matching Owner-Managers' Cognitive Style and Organizational Demands in Family Firms

Based on survey responses from 159 owners-managers in small, family firms, we examined the association between specific individual characteristics, firm characteristics, and the individual psychosocial outcomes of satisfaction, intentions to exit, and perceived fit. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated higher satisfaction, lower intentions to exit, and higher perceived fit for owner-managers whose dominant decision-making style complemented the levels of formalization in their firms. More specifically, the results suggested that owner-managers with intuitive decision-making styles were better fitted to the demands corresponding to less structured firm environments than their analytic counterparts. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Does Executive Intuition Matter? An Empirical Analysis of Its Relationship With Nonprofit Organization Financial Performance

This study tests the relationship between a chief executive’s intuitive decision style and financial measures of nonprofit organization performance. Providing additional support for earlier theories that emphasized top managers’ ability to influence change in their organizations, executive intuition was found to be significantly associated with three of the six financial performance outcomes examined in this study. Executive intuition was a significant and positive predictor of both fiscal performance measures and one of two public support measures. Implications and future research ideas are offered.

Relating Decision Making Styles to Predicting Selfefficacy and a Generalized Expectation of Success and Failure

The theoretical and applied distinction between a propensity toward a more intuitive decision style versus a more analytical style has gained prominence in recent years. A self-report measure, the Decision Making Styles Inventory, is presented and is shown to differentiate among those who endorse an analytical, an intuitive, or an avoidant, regret-based decision style. Results from one study, a horse race betting task, indicated that those who endorsed a decision style, particularly those endorsing a flexible analytical and intuitive style, performed better on the task than those who did not. A second study clearly showed that decision style was related to self reports of self-efficacy, optimism, and self-regard. These results suggest that having either an analytical, intuitive or combined decision style is beneficial to the decision maker.

Cognitive Style and the Management of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

A long-standing dilemma in theories of management surrounds the question of whether effective managerial action is better served by ‘rational analysis’ or ‘creative intuition’. In the present article, analysis and intuition are conceived within a framework of cognitive style in which a distinction is drawn between the processing of information (rational and intuitive) and the organizing of information in memory (local and global). Such styles are thought to affect a range of management behaviours (including decision-making). The relationship between managers’ cognitive styles and firm performance was examined from a contingency perspective in which environmental instability was hypothesized as moderating the relationship between style and performance. The study was based upon data obtained from owner-managers and managing directors of small and medium-sized firms in two contrasting sectors. There was a positive relationship between intuitive decision style and contemporaneous financial and non-financial performance that did not appear to be moderated by environmental instability. Furthermore, a statistically significant relationship between intuitive decision style and subsequent financial performance was observed. The implications of these findings for theories of cognitive style, the management of small and medium-sized enterprises, and for the practice of management development in such firms are discussed.

Decision-making style: habit, style or both?

The purpose of this study was to explore the relations between individual decision-making styles as measured by the General Decision-making Style (GDMS) test, developed by Scott and Bruce (1995), and some mental abilities theoretically related to decision-making. Participants were 206 Swedish military officers from all services. The multiple regression analysis showed that the Rational, Dependent and Avoidant, but not the Intuitive and Spontaneous decision-making styles could be partly predicted from scores on the Self-esteem Scales (Forsman & Johnson, 1996) and from scores on the Action Control Scales (Kuhl, 1994). The result indicates that decision-making style is not only reflective of habits and thinking practices as proposed in earlier research. Decision-making style also involves basic self-evaluation and the general ability to initiate and maintain intentions (i.e. self-regulation). This calls for a wider definition of the term decision-making style, a holistic definition that takes the whole individual into consideration.

Psychological Type, Decision-Making Style, and Reactions to Structured Career Interventions

The authors investigated the reactions of 50 career undecided women to a structured career intervention that identified barriers to career decision making, led participants through a systematic consideration of their vocational interests, and helped them formulate provisional college major and occupational choices. At follow up (3 weeks after the intervention), women whose primary focus was on inner experiencing and ideas (i.e., introversion) and those who used a rational decision-making style reported greater benefits from the intervention than women who (a) emphasized flexibility and spontaneity in dealing with the outerworld (i.e., perceiving), (b) used a dependent or intuitive decision-making style, or (c) who used an external information processing style.

Decision-Making Style: The Development and Assessment of a New Measure

A multistage, four sample study was conducted to develop a conceptually consistent and psychometrically sound measure of decision-making style. Construct definitions were developed from prior theory, and items were written to assess rational, avoidant, intuitive, and dependent decision-making styles. A series of principal-axis factor analyses with varimax rotation and subsequent item analyses were conducted to develop four conceptually distinct scales with acceptable internal consistency (alpha ranging from .68 to .94) and a stable factor structure. In the process of scale development, a fifth style (spontaneous) was identified. Tests for independence among the five decision-making style scales and concurrent validity analyses were conducted. Finally, discussion of the new instrument with reference to the extant literature is provided.

Decision-making styles and vocational maturity: An alternative perspective

This study examined the relationship between decision-making styles and vocational maturity with a focus on the current discrepancy between research and theory regarding the utility of rational decision making. While rational decision making has been central to many theoretical formulations in career development, recent research findings have not unequivocally supported this proposition. Based on the assumption that rational decision making would be more important to those individuals who do not have access to many of the traditional sources of vocational maturity, this study attempted to account for the inconsistency between research and theory by systematically considering relevant population attributes. The results of this investigation were consistent across two independent samples of community college students, in that a reliance upon the rational style was the only significant decision-making style predictor of vocational maturity; the dependent and intuitive decision-making styles did not add significant increments to the regression equations. The discussion highlighted the advantages of viewing theory, research, and practice in career decision making from a perspective that explicitly incorporates relevant attributes of given populations.

A factor analytic investigation of career decision-making styles

The purpose of this study was to examine the factorial validity of the decision-making style scales of the Assessment of Career Decision Making (ACDM-DMS). These scales are designed to measure rational, intuitive, and dependent decision-making styles. The responses of 819 undergraduate students were subjected to an exploratory iterative principal components factor analysis. Three factors were retained as the most clearly defined, interpretable solution. After orthogonal rotation, the factor structure that emerged corresponded closely to the three rationally constructed scales of the ACDM-DMS. Although gender differences were observed at the item and scale levels, the factor pattern was substantially similar for both sexes.

Career development of special populations: A framework for research

In view of the recent interest in the career behaviors of diverse groups of individuals, this article presents a model for conducting research on the career development of special populations. Available research paradigms are reviewed in terms of their potential impact on such efforts. An alternative framework, designed to make maximum use of available data sources while minimizing potential theoretical bias, is offered. An illustration of research conducted within the recommended framework is presented in which the impact of a variety of career-related variables on the attitudinal and cognitive aspects of vocational maturity is examined from the perspective of two special population groups, disabled and disadvantaged college students. Drawing upon previous research findings, variables under consideration included level of scholastic achievement and endorsement of rational, intuitive, and dependent decision-making styles. Also included were two population-specific variables related to the characteristics of membership in each of the two special groups. The regression analyses conducted to explore the relationships between vocational maturity and these predictor variables indicate, in general, that variance in the attitudinal and cognitive factors of vocational maturity can be at least partially explained by the variables considered. However, the relative contributions of the predictors and the resulting proportions of variance explained differs according to which population and which criterion factor is under examination. These findings are compared with those emerging from previous research, and implications for future efforts are discussed.

Instruction in career decision making and decision-making styles.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differential effectiveness of two distinct career decision-making interventions and decision-making styles on certainty of vocational choice and changes in vocational maturity. Students were randomly assigned to (a) an intuitive intervention, (b) a rational intervention, (c) attention-placebo, or (d) no-treatment control groups. Students were classified as having either a rational, intuitive, or dependent decision-making style, and styles distributed themselves evenly across the four groups. Results indicated that decision-making style contributed to vocational maturity and certainty of vocational choice, and both interventions resulted in increases on both dependent measures. Rational decision makers did best with the rational intervention, whereas intuitive decision makers did best with the intuitive interventions. Thus, both styles can be considered as effective. Dependent decision makers have an ineffective style, demonstrating decreases on both dependent measures in all groups.