Strobl, Andreas and Shepherd, Neil and Lou, Bowen (2025) Intuition and TMT Strategic Decision-Making : The Role of Cognitive Diversity and Socio-Behavioral Integration. In: 25th European Academy of Management Conference (EURAM), 2025-06-23.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Top managers regularly rely on intuition in managing the complexity underlying strategic decisions. While the prominence of intuition in driving strategic decisions of Top Management Teams (TMTs) is widely accepted, its value is subject to debate. Empirical findings are mixed ranging from positive, negative, to nonsignificant effects. A reason for these inconsistencies stems from the fact that intuition is an individual level cognitive process, but strategic decisions are typically made by teams, not individuals. Existing research largely neglects TMT dynamics shaping the outcomes of individual intuitive judgements during strategic decision making. Drawing from upper echelons theory, we explore how TMT cognitive diversity and socio-behavioral integration determine the relationship between intuition and comprehensiveness, a core SDM process linked to firm performance. Based on multi-informant survey and objective data about 117 strategic decisions, we show that while cognitive diversity facilitates the integration of intuitive judgements into comprehensive decision-making, socio-behavioral integration has the opposite effect. These results offer new surprising insights into the role of social and cognitive processes in SDM, advancing understanding of how intuition works in teams.