Analysis or intuition? Reframing the decision-making styles debate in technological settings

Abstract

Purpose The debate over intuitive vs analytical decision-making styles began almost 40 years ago and had yet to deliver definite answers. The debate – however – has led to divergent theoretical stances and empirical results. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of these information processing styles in customer-related decision-making in the context of mobile technologies. Design/methodology/approach The hypotheses are derived from the contrasting theoretical propositions and empirical evidence present in the debate around decision-making styles. The study also introduces and investigates the moderating role of environmental dynamism (ED). Analyses and results are based on survey research that involves 251 managers with responsibility for organizational decision-making processes. Findings The study’s findings suggest that both intuitive and analytical styles are relevant in the actual context characterized by mobile technologies. Intuition still plays a central role in managers’ decision-making processes, but when the industry environment is highly dynamic analytical information processing also plays an essential role in supporting organizational responsiveness and performance. Practical implications This study can help managers in reconsidering the way in which they employ analytical or intuitive information processing activities inside their decision making at different levels of ED. Originality/value The novelty of this paper relies on testing hypothesis simultaneously developed by both the theoretical stances favorable to intuitive and to analytical information processing. Besides, it tests these hypotheses in the actual empirical context characterized by a transformed scenario in terms of data availability.

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