STARLING, Grover

A model of inexact reasoning in administration - New York : Marcel Dekker, 1987

This paper suggests a model for understanding the character of managerial intuition and offers experimental evidence lending support to it .Verbal protocols were used to examine the information processing strategies used by subjects in reaching a decision. Subjects were divided into two groups, experts and students. It is proposed that (a) decision making by successful executives results not so much from rigorous or exact analysis as it does from the way in which information is organized in the mind of the executive, (b) the dichotomy of decision making styles into rational and intuitive is misleading, and (c) decision making styles change over time. A better integration of research in administrative decision behaviour with the methodology and theory of cognitive science is advocated