When to talk and when to keep it to yourself? strategies for legitimating managerial intuitions in an organisational context

C. Le Gousse and Isabelle Bouty
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Isabelle Bouty: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: The purpose of this study is to explore the strategies deployed by managers in organisations to legitimate their intuitions. Managerial prac-tice is a continual process of emergence and integration of problems and projects, and by which managers navigate a complex world. To do so, they rely partly on their intuitions, whose effectiveness has largely been demonstrated in the literature. However, the rational model is still considered the optimal cognition and decision-making process in organisations. The persistence of the myth of rationality compels managers to deploy strategies to legitimate their intuitions. But these strategies are poorly understood. The aim of this study therefore was to describe them. For this purpose, we collected 191 accounts of episodes where managers legitimated their intuitions. Our analysis of these accounts revealed seven intuition legitimation strategies. Some of these strategies had not previously been identified in the institu-tional literature (personalisation, transparency, exploration and compound strategy). For others which had already been partly described (rationalisation, manipulation and relational strategy), we show that managers deploy new modes. These results contribute to the knowl-edge of legitimation strategies from a conceptual point of view. They also shed some light on the mistrust of intuition that still prevails in organisations, despite its importance

Keywords: Intuition; Legitimation; Expertise; Manager (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ppm
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Published in M@n@gement, 2024, 27 (1)

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