Collective Intuition: Implications for Improved Decision Making and Organizational Learning

Abstract

This article establishes the foundation for research on collective intuition through a study of decision making and organizational learning processes in police senior management teams. We conceptualize collective intuition as independently formed judgement based on domain-specific knowledge, experience and cognitive ability, shared and interpreted collectively. We contribute to intuition research, which has tended to focus its attention at the individual level, by studying intuition collectively in team settings. From a dual-process perspective, we investigate how expert intuition and deliberation affect decision making and learning at various levels of the organization. Furthermore, we contribute to organizational learning research by offering an empirically derived elaboration of the foundational 4I framework, identifying additional 'feed-forward' and 'feedback' loop processes, and thereby providing a more complete account of this organizational learning model. Bridging a variety of relevant but previously unconnected literatures via our focal concept of collective intuition, our research provides a foundation for future studies of this vitally important but under-researched organizational phenomenon. We offer theoretical and practical implications whereby expert intuitions can be developed and leveraged collectively as valuable sources of organizational knowledge and learning, and contribute to improved decision making in organizations.

Uncertainty, strategic sensemaking and organisational failure in the art market: What went wrong with LVMH's investment in Phillips auctioneers?

“…Adam, 2014;Bennett, 2003;Schepp, 2001;Vogel, 2001) suggest that LVMH failed with Phillips because of Arnault's insistence on competing within the high-end auction market, following a top-down approach to goal-setting and strategic direction that constrained the strategic fit (Clark & Rowlinson, 2004). A limitation of this analysis, which could be addressed in future research by using interviews within an organisation, is whether high strategic sensemaking is likely to be supported by a culture of openness and tolerance, based on norms that encourage decentralised decision-making and collective cognition (Akinci & Sadler-Smith, 2018).…”

Paradoxes and Dual Processes: A Review and Synthesis

“…The important body of qualitative work that has emerged in this field recently could expand its repertoire of methods for capturing intuitive and analytical processing and the tensions that play out between them (to date, researchers have tended to use such techniques to study intuition in isolation from analysis). Such methods include the Critical Incident Technique (Akinci ), the various methods for recovering or capturing intuitive episodes reviewed and critiqued by Hodgkinson and Sadler‐Smith (), and the use of such methods in focus group settings for capturing collective intuitions (Akinci and Sadler‐Smith ). For a comprehensive review of relevant qualitative and quantitative methods that could be used by paradox researchers to study intuition, see the edited handbook by Sinclair ().…”

“…Object-level Figure 2. Object and meta-levels illustrating the nestedness of intuition and analysis paradox Source: adapted from Nelson (1996) settings for capturing collective intuitions (Akinci and Sadler-Smith 2018). For a comprehensive review of relevant qualitative and quantitative methods that could be used by paradox researchers to study intuition, see the edited handbook by Sinclair (2014).…”

A case study of disaster decision‐making in the presence of anomalies and absence of recognition

“…He wanted to reassure his team and simultaneously address any concerns. The commander also stated that he was using the entire team as a “sounding board” for his own position and therefore validating his own initial intuitive judgement (Akinci & Sadler‐Smith, 2019). In addition, it was also his belief that the reason the team were in Japan was ultimately to provide humanitarian relief to the Japanese people.…”