Intuition i beslutsfattande
En studie om det intuitiva beslutsfattandet och dess påverkande faktorer vid Akademiska sjukhuset i Uppsala
Managers operating within the dynamic society of today are said to rely on intuition when effective and quick decisions are to be made. This skill or phenomenon has aroused an interest within the academic world of management whom has explored intuition, its relation to decision making and its influencing factors, especially in the private sector. Intuitive decision making is however not isolated solely to this sector but also involved in decision making associated to the public sector. Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to investigate whether managers at the hospital Akademiska in Uppsala involve intuition in decision making and to what extent the factors time, amount of information, individual experience and decision complexity influence the intuition.The theoretical framework includes academic research regarding how intuition and rationality affect decisions, the concept of intuition and factors influencing the intuitiveness of decision making. Furthermore the theoretical discussion explores intuition connected to leadership, negative aspects of intuitive decisions and a comparison between different factors that separates public and private sector in terms of decision making. The study was conducted using a quantitative research method. Information was collected through a web based survey sent to 225 managers at the hospital Akademiska in Uppsala and the response rate was 56 %. The results from the survey indicated that intuition is involved in the majority of decisions taken by the managers at the hospital. The conclusions were that the managers at Akademiska tend to take more intuitive decisions when they are under time pressure and when facing complex decision situations. The results also revealed that larger amounts of information and different experience levels did not influence how intuitive managers are in their decision making. Research regarding the human intuition, connected to decision making, can be associated with difficulties concerning the measurement of intuition. However, the results of this study show that situational factors can influence to what extent managers use intuition in decision making, even in the public sector.