Managerial intuition and the development of executive support systems

摘要

Managerial intuition is a well-recognized cognitive ability butstill poorly understood for the purpose of developing effectiveExecutive Support Systems (ESS). This paper reviews research oncognition involved in intuition. The review shows that, in everydaydecision making, executives are not passive choice makers but areactive sensemakers who rely on perception, action, and imaginisticreasoning to arrive at solutions to problems. The combination ofthese cognitive resources appears to be seamless. Furthermore, theknowledge needed for problem solving is distributed between themanager's mind and the surrounding world. As a result, managers'intuition can be effective in handling dynamic, ill-structuredproblem situations. To develop an ESS that fits thisperception--action ecology of the manager's life in a hectic world,we must go beyond the emphasis of the tasks' functionalities. Theauthor proposes an ecological model of managerial intuition andrecommends methodologies that focus the analysis on the interplaybetween the manager and their environment. He also suggestsguidelines to improve the ESS development such that the powerfulintuition of managers and the analytic capability of the computer maybe combined.