Submitted by: Submitted by tcrahalla
Views: 534
Words: 445
Pages: 2
Category: Other Topics
Date Submitted: 02/06/2011 08:10 PM
Article Review
Behling, O. & Eckel, L. (1991). Making sense of intuition. Academy of Management Executive, 5(1), 46-54.
Synopsis
Behling and Eckel discuss the use of intuitive management decision making and how those who write about it conceptualize intuition in at least six separate ways. The six ways they write about are intuition as: a paranormal power; a personality trait; an unconscious process; a set of actions; distilled experiences; and a residual category. The authors describe the differences and implications of these six ways, as well as the usefulness of intuition as a managerial tool.
Critique
The experts who advocate intuitive decision making are the same people who are creating confusion by their differing views on its conceptualization. Beyond their agreement that intuition equates to choices made without formal analysis, they have little in common. This reader agrees with the authors’ claim that this confusion limits the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of intuitive decision making. Given this article was written in 1991, this reader questions if additional research has been done, possibly clearing up some of this confusion, in recent years.
This reader agrees that intuition as a paranormal power and intuition as a residual category appear to be of little practical use. In this article, the other four conceptualizations are considered to be more practical, but this reader feels that intuition as a set of actions, as well as intuition as distilled experiences, are the most practical. The example in the article stated that successful intuitive managers skip levels and see information from key employees regardless of their rank. In this reader’s current position, this action is very useful when gathering information. This reader agrees that distilled experiences and utilizing past decisions help in identifying solutions without resorting to analysis. This reader feels this would be more applicable for senior management who...