Intuition and rationality: a study on strategic decision making in small business

Abstract

The literature about the process of decision making reflects the predominance of approaches based on unlimited rationality and bounded rationality, ie, rationality in one side and intuition in another. However, more recently a new perspective has emerged, according to which it is necessary integration between deliberate thinking, conscious, and instinctive, pointing to the existence of a continuum and not a dichotomy between the approaches. This paper aims to investigate which approach, rational or intuitive, the small business uses to make strategic decisions. For this we conducted a survey with 45 small business associated with Commercial and Business Association of Sergipe - ACESE. The results suggest the use of an integrated approach to decision making on the part of the companies surveyed and a slight tendency rational along the continuum between the approaches.