Atlanta, GA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/27/2009 -- A new study published at Argosy University’s school of business showed that Hong Kong managers with more than 10 years management experience are less intuitive in their decision making than US supervisors with over 10 years supervisory experience. The study had four different management categories including supervisors, managers, executives and business owners.

The researcher (Isola, 2009) surveyed 100 participants from each country involved in the comparative study. In commenting on the findings of the study, Dr Isola said this finding could represent a significant departure from conventional thinking. While the few studies in this specialized area of International Business Management has remained inconclusive, one would at least expect the Chinese to be more intuitive in their decision making given their very high score on Hofstede’s LTO (Long term orientation) index.

Managerial decision making has always being a subject of intense academic discuss. What is the most effective way of choosing between alternatives in managing companies? Should the company’s new plant be located in New Jersey or Guangzhou? In answering these questions management scholars focused on the rational approach for several years. The idea of utilizing intuitive skills to make such decisions is a recent phenomenon and it remains largely unpopular.

Peter Drucker (1967) identified six major steps that should be followed by executives making decisions for their companies. In 2004, he presented another paper that further narrowed the whole process to three steps. Both approaches emphasized rational decision making processes. However, more and more studies are showing that effective executives are more intuitive in their managerial decision making than rational especially when faced with dynamic environments.

The findings of this new study show a significant relationship between administrative managers’ reported use of intuition and their country of operation. Administrative managers in Hong Kong’s reported use of intuition in decision making was significantly lower than US managers reported use of intuition in decision making. American administrative managers were less rational in making managerial decisions than their Hong Kong counterparts.

The study discovered that United States managers/ leaders were less cogent in making managerial decisions than Hong Kong leaders/managers in twenty of twenty-two categories. The full report is available at http://www.cool-books.org

Dr Isola is a management professor at Brown Mackie College, Atlanta, Ga.

Isola O. Busuyi,
Department of Business & Accounting
Brown Mackie College, Atlanta
404-799-4529