When to Talk and When to Keep It to yourself? Strategies for Legitimating Managerial Intuitions in An Organisational Context

Christian Le Gousse; Isabelle Bouty

doi:10.37725/mgmt.2024.9274

Christian Le Gousse Epta Group and CEMR-Dauphine, Paris, France
Isabelle Bouty UMR CNRS 7088, Dauphine recherches en management (DRM), Université Paris Dauphine PSL, Paris, France

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37725/mgmt.2024.9274

Keywords: Intuition, Legitimation, Expertise, Manager

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the strategies deployed by managers in organisations to legitimate their intuitions. Managerial practice 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 institutional 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 knowledge 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.

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Author Biographies

Christian Le Gousse, Epta Group and CEMR-Dauphine, Paris, France

Christian Le Gousse, Executive PhD Dauphine-PSL, is Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer of EPTA Group. He has over 35 years international experience in the world of refrigeration equipment for food retailers. He is passionate about the decision-making process of managers, in particular their use of intuition, which was the topic of his Executive PhD. His ambition is to bring together academic knowledge and managerial practice.

Isabelle Bouty, UMR CNRS 7088, Dauphine recherches en management (DRM), Université Paris Dauphine PSL, Paris, France

Isabelle Bouty is a full professor of organizational and strategic management at Paris Dauphine-PSL, France. Her research explores the relationships between the individual, collective and organizational levels in organizational and strategic processes, adopting a practical and process-based approach. Her work has appeared in such journals as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Studies, Human Relations, M@n@gement and Management Learning, as well as in book chapters.

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