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Understanding and Measuring Linear–NonLinear Thinking Style for Enhanced Management Education and Professional Practice
Abstract
Various past studies compete and seemingly contradict one another in their presentation of valuable alternatives to rational and logical thinking for improving decision making and problem solving. We contribute here to an integration of past research and propose and test a multifaceted construct of thinking style based on two primary dimensions: linear thinking (e.g., rationality, logic, analytic thinking) and nonlinear thinking (e.g., intuition, insight, creativity). We present and validate in four separate studies a self-report diagnostic instrument (Linear-Nonlinear Thinking Style Profile or LNTSP) for measuring an individual's linear and nonlinear thinking style profile. Validation study results across student, professional, and managerial samples reveal a 4-factor model of linear and nonlinear thinking style involving the manner in which individuals attend to a particular kind of information source (internal vs. external) and subsequent linear versus nonlinear processing of that information. The results also indicate that the LNTSP has acceptable convergent validity vis-a-vis two commonly used and conceptually related instruments, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Cognitive Style Index, as well as external validity and face validity across students from different academic major programs (e.g., liberal arts vs. business and engineering), individuals from distinctly different professional careers (i.e., professional actors and accountants), and managerial and professional workshop participants. We discuss implications of these results for future research, as well as possible beneficial use of the LNTSP for management education and business practice.
... Style of thinking, in general, refers to a manner of using mental abilities to do daily activities, such as problem solving and overcoming challenges [28], and is relatively stable over time [29]. According to Vance et al. [30], there are, in general, two distinct types of thinking, namely linear and nonlinear. Entrepreneurs with a linear style of thinking rely more on tangible data and facts; they process the data and information through conscious and rational logic in order to make a final decision. ...
... This type of entrepreneur has a high capability for solving organizational problems in more creative ways [5]. Furthermore, individuals with a non-rational style of thinking have a high tendency to be imaginative [30], which may enable them to simultaneously analyze a special situation from different perspectives. The ability to imagine different aspects of the same object-technology progress, for instance-makes it possible to foresee how the probable changes in the object may or may not influence a given situation. ...
... In the third and fourth hypotheses, we expected that newly established firms by entrepreneurs with a linear style of thinking would focus more on internal environmental factors, and newly established firms by entrepreneurs with nonlinear thinking would be more oriented towards external environmental factors. We build our arguments on the basis of several studies, mostly in the context of business ethics [30,61]. In this regard, Fleming [61] argues that an individual with a linear or rational thinking style emphasizes highly the specifics of a situation when making an important decision. ...
Styles of thinking set different paths for an entrepreneur's perception and strategic action. In order to understand the environmental consequences of a thinking style, we investigated the relations between entrepreneurs' linear and nonlinear styles of thinking with their perception of environmental uncertainty in their businesses. Furthermore, we tested the effect of the entrepreneurs' linear and nonlinear style of thinking on their newly established firms' orientation towards preserving the surrounding internal and external environment. Entrepreneurs with linear or rational thinking styles prefer more tangible data, information, facts, and analytical tools, and entrepreneurs with nonlinear or non-rational thinking styles rely more on internal feelings, impressions, imagination, creativity, and sensations when making important organizational decisions. By using cross-sectional survey data from 144 entrepreneurs in post-sanction Iran (2016-2017), we found that entrepreneurs with a linear style of thinking, in comparison to entrepreneurs with a nonlinear style of thinking, perceive a higher level of environmental state, effect, and response uncertainty in their business context. Furthermore, our survey results reveal that newly established firms by entrepreneurs with nonlinear styles of thinking have a more external environmental orientation, while newly established firms by entrepreneurs with a linear style of thinking have a more internal environmental orientation. Recognizing this contingency advances our understanding of how entrepreneurs perceive and enact their environments.
... More recently, however, Groves et al. (2008) underscored the importance of the balance between linear and nonlinear thinking style in making ethical decisions. Utilizing the Linear/Nonlinear Thinking Style Profile (LNTSP) developed by Vance et al. (2007), they demonstrated that managers utilizing a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style tend to make more ethical decisions, compared to managers with a predominantly linear or nonlinear thinking style. In line with the literature that has increasingly advocated thinking style models that capture both linear and nonlinear elements (Gaudine and Thorne 2001;Parker and Stacey 1994;Siggelkow and Rivkin 2005), Groves et al. (2008, p. 307) proposed that managers with a balanced thinking style, defined as ''the utilization of mental abilities that relies on both linear and nonlinear information processing,'' will proceed through Rest's (1986) four stages of ethical decision-making model (i.e., ethical awareness, judgment, intent and behavior), and therefore, demonstrate more ethical behavior, compared to those relying in a less complex sense on either linear or nonlinear thinking style when addressing ethical decisions. ...
... The Linear/Nonlinear Thinking Style Profile (LNTSP) developed by Vance et al. (2007) was adopted in this study. This profile shows strong convergent validity as well as strong external and face validity across student, managerial and professional samples (Groves et al. 2008). ...
... Moreover, EIS was positively correlated with LDM and IIS was positively associated with NDM. These relationships among the LNTSP dimensions are expected and natural as individuals who tend to adopt either a linear or nonlinear preference for information sources are also likely to prefer a corresponding linear or nonlinear approach to processing information for decision-making (Groves et al. 2008;Vance et al. 2007). Table 3 presents our results of Korean managers' responses to five ethical dilemmas, along with the results from Fritzsche et al. (1995) that conducted the same survey with 83 Korean managers during the 1990s. ...
This study investigates the relationship among ethical philosophy, thinking style, and managerial ethical decision-making. Based on the premise that business ethics is a function of culture and time, we attempt to explore two important questions as to whether the national differences in managerial ethical philosophies remain over time and whether the relationship between thinking style and ethical decision-making is consistent across different national contexts. We conducted a survey on Korean managers’ ethical decision-making and thinking style and made a cross-cultural, cross-temporal comparison with the results presented by previous studies that surveyed Korean and US managers with the same questionnaire at different points in time. Our analysis revealed that Korean managers have become more reliant on rule utilitarianism for ethical decision-making over the last two decades, which is dominantly used by US managers, corroborating our convergence hypothesis built on social contracts theory. However, as opposed to previous research, we found that managers with a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style do not necessarily make more ethical decisions compared to those with a predominantly linear or nonlinear thinking style. This study contributes to international business ethics literature by presenting a theoretical framework that may explain the convergence of ethical philosophies employed by managers in different national contexts over time, and that the relationship between thinking style and managerial ethical decision-making may not be universal, but contingent on contextual factors.
... To assess the extent to which Chinese and U.S. students use a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style, as well as the resulting impact on their ethical decision-making, we employed a model and measure that captures the extent of utilization of linear and nonlinear thinking modes, including predominant linear thinking, predominant nonlinear thinking, and balanced or versatile linear/nonlinear thinking. The self-report Linear/ Nonlinear Thinking Style Profile (LNTSP) instrument has shown strong convergent, external, and face validity across student majors, professional, and managerial samples; the LNTSP also has demonstrated predictive validity in workplace and professional contexts (Groves, Vance, & Choi 2011, Vance et al. 2007. ...
... The LNTSP instrument (Vance et al. 2007) contains two sets of paired forced-choice items and corresponding scales of measurement. The item pair sets are based upon the two complementary thinking styles of our balanced thinking model: linear thinking as a preference for attending to and making decisions from external data, information, and facts; and nonlinear thinking as a preference for attending to and making decisions from internal feelings, impressions, and sensations. ...
... Before conducting hypothesis testing, it was first necessary to verify the factor structure of the LNTSP (Vance et al. 2007). Utilizing Amos software (Arbuckle & Wothke 1999), confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the fit of the four-dimensional LNTSP model to the data. ...
This study provides a comparison of thinking style and ethical decision-making patterns between 386 U.S. students and 506 students from the People's Republic of China enrolled in undergraduate business education in their respective countries. Contrary to our expectations, the Chinese students demonstrated a significantly greater linear thinking style compared to American students. As hypothesized, both Chinese and U.S. students possessing a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style profile demonstrated greater ethical intent across a series of ethics vignettes. Chinese students also were more likely to adopt an act utilitarian rationale, an ethical philosophy that in practice may violate government regulations or social rules to benefit one's family instead of society for explaining their decisions across the vignettes. We conclude with a discussion of important theoretical as well as practical and potential future implications based on this comparative study.
... Thinking style has been defined as one's preferred manner of using mental abilities to govern daily activities, including understanding and solving problems and challenges (Sternberg, 1997(Sternberg, , 1988. Consistent with existing two-part definitions of general thinking style and modes of thinking that involve (1) attending to an information source and (2) processing that information for subsequent decision-making (Zhang, 2002;Sternberg, 1997;Sternberg and Grigorenko, 1995), Vance et al. (2007) define linear thinking style as a preference for attending to external data and facts, and processing this information through conscious logic and rational thinking to form knowledge, understanding, or a decision for guiding subsequent action. Linear thinkers are characterized by a reliance on analytical methodology to solve complex problems by breaking apart a system into distinct pieces so that they can be analyzed and understood separately, and then unified to form a more predictable system. ...
... When their objective, data-driven, logical analyses conflict with their feelings, emotions, and intuition concerning important workplace decisions, linear thinkers primarily will give precedence to the former when attending to information sources and processing such information for subsequent decisionmaking. Vance et al. (2007) further define nonlinear thinking style as a preference for attending to internal feelings, impressions, intuition, and sensations, and processing this information (both consciously and subconsciously) to form insight or understanding for guiding subsequent action. Nonlinear thinkers are characterized by paying sharp attention to feelings, intuition, and physical sensations when making important workplace and career decisions. ...
... All participants completed the Linear/Nonlinear Thinking Style Profile (LNTSP) (Vance et al., 2007), a 26-item, four-dimensional, forced-choice self-report measure of thinking style. The LNTSP is comprised of two types of forced-choice items, including five pairs of statements describing alternative behaviors (10 total items) and eight pairs of alternative words or phrases that influence decision-making (16 total items). ...
... Effective decisionmaking involves identifying unfamiliar, complex, and high-stake decisions and, when faced with such decisions, applying a logical decision process. Individuals who possess high levels of reflective thinking style use logical decision processes such as information gathering, analytical thinking, and hypothetical thinking across decision situations (e.g., Betsch, 2004;Vance et al., 2007). Therefore, because work behavior (except completely routinized behavior) is the result of decision-making processes (Dalal et al., 2010), individual differences in employees' reflective thinking style should predict their task performance. ...
... Creativity and innovation on the job are the sum of "the process, outcomes, and products of attempts" to initiate novel and better ways to conduct tasks; creativity and innovation involve the generation and implementation, respectively, of novel ideas (Anderson et al., 2014(Anderson et al., , p. 1298. Characteristics associated with the reflective thinking style, such as the tendency to engage in deliberation and mental simulation about issues (e.g., Epstein et al., 1996) and the tendency to generate multiple alternatives and use a systematic decision method when facing decisions (e.g., Vance et al., 2007) should help in identifying work methods that need improvement as well as in generating and implementing novel ideas for improvement. Reflective thinking style is also related to the use of working memory (Stanovich, 2009), which is critical in enhancing creative performance (De Dreu et al., 2008). ...
We conducted a meta‐analysis to examine the relations of individual differences in reflective (or rational) and intuitive thinking styles with workplace task performance. We meta‐analyzed 113 effect sizes from 71 independent samples (N = 11,713). Results indicate that reflective thinking style has a positive and non‐zero meta‐analytic relation with task performance (ρ = .213). This positive relation is stronger in environments characterized by higher task complexity, greater importance of creativity and innovation for work tasks, and higher time pressure associated with work tasks. Intuitive thinking style, conversely, has a very small but positive meta‐analytic relation with task performance (ρ = .051), and this relation is stronger in environments characterized by higher task complexity. Finally, incremental validity analyses reveal that reflective thinking style explains unique variance in task performance, beyond conscientiousness and intelligence (general mental ability). Overall, this meta‐analysis demonstrates that reflective thinking style is an important antecedent to task performance.
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... It begins with and assertion and after the application of evidence and reason ends with a conclusion. Without incorporating feedback, its application fits most analytical requirements similar to a linear model (Kannen, et al., 2007;Vance, et al., 2007;Groves, Vance & Choi, 2011). With the incorporation of feedback and the inclusion of implications and assumption, it more closely resembles a systems model. ...
... From an operations perspective the elements of a system are Input, Process, Output, and Feed Back (Business, 2016;Heizer & Render, 2014). These elements are interdependent, interconnected, and interrelated (Kim, 1999;Vance, et al., 2007). ...
Critical thinking is recognized as an extremely important tool in determining ones beliefs and actions. However, a standardized process of evaluating information seems to be lacking. We look at critical thinking as a precursor to both an analytical thinking style and a systemic thinking style. We begin with a definition of Critical Thinking and continue with the advantages and disadvantages of Analytical Thinking. We then make the case for Systemic Thinking as a model for Critical Thinking. Our model combines the operations model of a system (Business, 2016; Heizer & Render, 2014) with the systems thinking model (Atwater & Pittman, 2006; Laszlo, 1996; Meadows, 2008; Paul & Elder, 2006; Senge, 2007) to make a simplified version of evaluating information as a guide to belief or action.
Systems thinking is described as thinking outside the box of analytical thinking.
... This article sets out a theoretical framework to encourage a debate about the managerial imagination and its implications for HRM. The article comes from reflections on my reading (Martin, 2010;Schon, 1983;Spender, 2007;Vance, Groves, Paik, & Kindler, 2007) and experience as a researcher and teacher on this subject: It includes examples in which the author has been involved in a formal setting and informal experience. ...
... Such a business environment requires managers and HR professionals to reach beyond linear thinking involving rationality, analysis, logic, reason, and prediction based on cause and effect (Siggelkow & Rivkin, 2005). To complement such thinking, recent writers have advocated the importance of nonlinear thinking (Vance et al., 2007), which includes imagination. ...
This article analyzes the links between imagination and human resource management. The concept imagination has received little scholarly attention within the field of management, despite its potential to inform a number of lines of inquiry. At the present time, much of the research literature on imagination is confined to the visual arts, literature, and education. Human resource (HR) professionals could play a part in aligning employees with organizational goals and bring about organizational change if they developed their thinking in a more imaginative way. Developing managerial imagination can help solve the dilemmas and contradictions they face. A diagram is developed, which maps the development of the personnel function and offers four possibilities within a framework. They are biography, personal framing, history, and social structure. The outcome of this analysis provides a development of the personnel function one of which is a globally imaginative HR management. Within such a framework, the concept of “the imaginative performer” is discussed. The implications of combining imagination with management may provide a theoretical and practical way to understanding HR management.
... Although subsequent decades of cognitive style research have brought numerous types and styles of information processing, most of these can be categorized as either intuition based or analysis based (Kozhevnikov, Evans, & Kosslyn, 2014). Researchers have considerable options for assessing individual differences in intuition and analysis (e.g., Allinson & Hayes, 1996;Betsch, 2004;Cools & Van den Broeck, 2007;Epstein et al., 1996;Harren, 1978;Nygren, 2000;Scott & Bruce, 1995;Sjöberg, 2003;Vance, Groves, Paik & Kindler, 2007). There is, however, a lack of consensus about the theoretical relation between the constructs. ...
... The thinking style characterized by relying on an analytical method to understand the whole by breaking it into parts and assuming that relationships between variables are unidimensional and linear Linear/nonlinear thinking style profile (Vance et al., 2007) Constructs defined as intuition Intuitive decision-making style ...
... Although the education and training of auditors can be seen as a particular example of management learning and education (thereafter MLE), their education and development has received virtually no attention in management education journals. A search over the past twenty years in AMLE, Management Learning, Journal of Management Education and International Journal of Management Education found no articles that discuss the education of auditors and just three articles that refer to accounting students (Burdon & Munro, 2017;Rodgers, Simon &Gabrielsson, 2017 andVance et al, 2007). ...
The education and training of internal auditors is an example of management learning which has received limited attention in management education journals. This paper presents the lessons from an action research inquiry designed to reconfigure the Internal Auditing function to address the problem of a conformance mindset and compliance-based approach. We show how cultivating a ‘reflexive mindset’ becomes a critical catalyst in developing an Internal Auditing approach that leads to the identification of misconduct, conduct risk and deficiencies in the organization’s conduct risk management and governance frameworks. We contribute to advance reflexivity as a practice that can support the reconfiguration of management functions like Internal Auditing, not only by readjusting operating routines but also by encouraging internal auditors to critically (re)consider how their activities may contribute to the common good of the organization’s members and customers.
... In the literature, the key arguments that support the concept of opportunity creation or discovery appear to involve different decision-making modes (Maine, 2015). Furthermore, decision-making is usually generated by the combined influence of linear and non-linear thinking styles, thereby leading to an intrinsic psychological plan that guides problem-solving (Vance et al., 2007;Zhang et al., 2010). ...
Entrepreneurial networks are important for the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities and development in the context of social media. This exploratory research investigates the relationships in entrepreneurial networks, by considering decision-making, and entrepreneurial opportunities, and focusing on the role of decision-making in the relationship between entrepreneurial networks and entrepreneurial opportunities. Using data from 512 Chinese entrepreneurial firms, hierarchical regression analyses and structural equation modeling are employed to create a mediation model that links entrepreneurial networks to entrepreneurial opportunities through decision-making. Our findings are as follows: (1) heterogeneous networks are positively related to innovative opportunities, and homogeneous networks are positively related to imitative opportunities; (2) heterogeneous networks positively affect non-linear decision-making (non-linear DM) while homogeneous networks positively influence linear decision-making (linear DM); (3) positive relationships exist between non-linear DM and innovative opportunities and between linear DM and imitative opportunities; and (4) non-linear DM fully mediates between heterogeneous networks and innovative opportunities, and linear DM partially mediates between homogeneous networks and imitative opportunities. This paper contributes to literature on entrepreneurship by broadening understanding of the mechanisms of entrepreneurial opportunity formation in emerging markets and provides important insights for entrepreneurs and policymakers.
... Research on managerial cognition and thinking theory has advanced by developing more complex approaches that integrate both linear decision-making and information-processing styles, with nonlinear thinking which includes intuition, insight, creativity, and other forms of subconscious or unconscious information (Dane & Pratt, 2007;Vance, Groves, Paik & Kindler, H. 2007); these push leaders to utilize multiple forms of information-processing and decisionmaking. ...
... These are the law of identity (If anything is true, then it is true, i.e. identical with itself), the law of non-contradiction (It is an impossibility for a statement to be true and false at the same time), and the law of the excluded middle (Between the two members of a contradiction, there is no middle term, i.e. if one statement is true then the other must be false) (Peng and Nisbett 1999). Later, Western analytic thinking was influenced by the Newtonian worldview, a reductionist tradition that regards any system as a collection of separable elements (Vance et al. 2007). The fundamental assumption of reductionism is that any system, phenomenon, or object is equivalent to the sum of its constitutive elements that can be examined separately and then re-assembled to create an understood whole. ...
This article seeks to synthesise three fields of inquiry-management studies, linguistics and cognitive psychology-to explore an arguably emerging phenomenon of global management knowledge (MK) impoverishment. To this end, three literatures are reviewed and interrogated for the insights they may provide into the underlying factors affecting global MK: trends in knowledge production, Englishisation of management scholarship and the culturally determined differences in cognition. Arguments are developed through descriptive investigation, discussion and analysis. The central proposition of this article is that the politics of knowledge production, the hegemony of English as the dominant language of management studies and the variations in thinking styles are synergistically interlinked in a way that facilitates Anglophone homogenisation of management research and potentially leads to global MK impoverishment. The ways of addressing the situation are discussed.
... Empirical research showed that decision-making styles also capture different dynamics, including creativity (Vance, Groves, Paik, & Kindler, 2007) and presumably divergent thinking. Scott and Bruce (1995) showed that the intuitive decision-making style correlated positively with ratings of innovativeness, whereas both the rational and the dependent decision-making styles correlated negatively with ratings of innovativeness or innovative behavior. ...
Divergent thinking involves the ability to find many different and new responses or solutions to open-ended problems. The ability to think divergently has been associated with different cognitive processes, including intuitive and rational thinking styles. However, research has not specifically addressed the extent to which divergent thinking is associated to decision-making styles, which involve habits to react in a certain way in specific decisional contexts. The present study was devoted to explore the relationships between verbal and visual divergent thinking, assessed using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, and decision-making styles (e.g., rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous), assessed using the General Decision-Making Style inventory.
The scores of both verbal and visual divergent thinking (e.g., fluency, flexibility, originality;
elaboration only for visual divergent thinking) were converted in z-scores and summed separately in order to get verbal and visual composite creative indices. Results revealed that only and rational decision-making style predicted both creative indices. This finding confirms the key role of rationality during the creative process. Possible explanations for the lack of significance of intuitive decision-making style are presented. Future research directions are also discussed.
... Die Forscher haben beträchtliche Möglichkeiten, individuelle Unterschiede in der Intuition und Analyse zu bewerten (z. B. Allinson & Hayes, 1996;Betsch, 2004;Cools & van den Broeck, 2007;Epstein et al., 1996;Harren, 1978;Nygren, 2000;Scott & Bruce, 1995;Sjöberg, 2003;Vance et al., 2007). Es besteht jedoch kein Konsens über die theoretische Beziehung zwischen den Konstrukten. ...
In der deutschen Literatur wird das Thema Intuition noch nicht differenziert in seinen wichtigen Facetten betrachtet.
Bislang wird Intuition vornehmlich auf Basis der Arbeiten von Prof. Gigerenzer, als Erfahrungsintuition bzw. heuristische Entscheidungen auf Basis sog. Daumenregeln beschrieben. Amerikanische Forschungsarbeiten werden bislang weniger
berücksichtigt. Häufig wird unter Intuition das sog., unbegründete Bauchgefühl untersucht (Prof. Klein). Diese Arbeiten gehen sogar soweit, dass antitipatorische Entscheidungen einbezogen werden (Dr. Radin). Daher soll in dieser Studie die Intuition dreigeteilt untersucht werden, um auch die wirklich unbewussten, intuitiven Entscheidungen einzubeziehen. Dieser Ansatz ist besonders innovativ, weil zum Thema Intuition bisher nur Studien auf Basis von Einzeltheorien im Vergleich zur Rationalität vorliegen. In diesem
Forschungsprojekt sollen vier wichtige, unterschiedliche Entscheidungsgrundlagen (RHIBA) erstmals zusammenhängend im Vergleich erforscht werden:
(R) Rationale, kognitive Entscheidungsfindung,
(H) Heuristische Entscheidungen („Faustregeln“),
(I) Intuitive Entscheidungen bzw. das sog. Bauchgefühl oder (P) die unbegründete
Entscheidung
(A) Antizipation) RHIA. Das Fehlen einer solchen zusammenhängenden Untersuchung mag in der Komplexität des Versuchsaufbaus liegen. Für die Forschung und insbesondere die Entwicklung von Anwendungsfeldern wäre das Gelingen eines solchen Prototypens von entscheidender Bedeutung.
... This diversity supports nonlinear thinking in a group setting, which, if unhindered, allows a greater range of possible solutions to be considered. Nonlinear thinking in a group allows thought to flow, increasing the potential outcomes for problem solving (Vance, Groves, Paik, & Kindler, 2007). Nonlinear thinkers often approach problems starting from an area in which they are most comfortable. ...
... System 2 is based on rational knowledge and rational thinking. Vance et al. (2007), and Groves et al. (2008) associate linear thinking to the operational way of System 2, based on rational knowledge. In their perspective, linear thinking is defined as a "preference for attending to external data and facts, and processing this information through conscious logic and rational thinking to form knowledge, understanding, or a decision for guiding subsequent action" (Vance et al., 2007, p. 170). ...
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the limitations induced in Knowledge Management by the processes of linearization and discretization, which happen frequently in decision-making. Linearization is a result of applying linear thinking models in decision-making, regardless of the complexity of knowledge management phenomena. Knowledge and all the other intangible resources are nonlinear entities and they should be evaluated with nonlinear metrics. However, in many situations managers use simple solutions based on linear thinking models and get large errors in their decision-making, with significant negative consequences in management. Also, linear thinking model is dominant in legislation, which may lead to significant errors in managerial decision-making. Discretization is a process in which an entity with a continuous representation, like a knowledge field, is transformed into a piecewise entity to be handled more easily. Also, social media uses discretized systems for different evaluations which should be interpreted accordingly. For instance, counting the number of “like” on Facebook for a certain message or image may lead to the conclusion that friendship is proportional with the number of “friends”, which might not be in concordance with reality. Knowledge management is a complex activity dealing with knowledge, which means nonlinear entities. Using linear thinking models and discretization methods in evaluations and decision-making may lead to significant errors and negative consequences.
... Asimismo, las formas para llevar a cabo la decisión se conforman de dos figu ras, por un lado del pensamiento lineal donde se contempla información externa y se realiza un proceso racional, y por otro lado, en la no lineal, donde se utilizan fuentes internas y características particulares de las personas tomadoras de deci siones (Vance, Groves, Paik y Kindler, 2007). De igual manera se tienen distintos estilos para tomarlas: decisivo, flexible, jerárquico e integrador. ...
El aporte del estudio dirigido por la doctora Gizelle Guadalupe Macías González es el resultado del acucioso seguimiento a la trayectoria de 19 casos de empresas familiares avícolas de la región de Los Altos de Jalisco, México, y el acercamiento a sus historias empresariales en voz de sus participantes, quienes relatan su conformación así como las dinámicas de gestión administrativa que les dieron origen.
El texto presenta la riqueza de su complejidad, indagando en las prácticas familiares y organizacionales; asimismo, resalta la cultura empresarial de Tepatitlán de Morelos en el mismo estado, donde la actividad avícola ha sido la más relevante.
A través de la exploración genealógica se reconocen los tipos de familias, sus transiciones evolutivas y la transferencia intergeneracional de conocimiento dentro de la formulación de su continuidad. El éxito se deriva de su gestión asociativa y sus formas de diversificación, basadas en estrategias para generar ventajas competitivas conforme a sus procesos organizacionales.
Vale la pena recorrer estas páginas que nos acercan a una de las regiones económicas que se ha convertido en un referente nacional en la producción avícola y su industrialización. Sirvan además los resultados aquí presentados para continuar construyendo la historia económica de Los Altos de Jalisco.
... In the literature, there are two different perspectives concerning the meaning of linear thinking. For Groves et al. (2008) and Vance et al. (2007) linear thinking is identical with rational thinking, a perspective coming from the famous Cartesian dualism of mind of body (Russel, 1972). Their model de-fines linear thinking style as "a preference for (1) attending to external tangible data and facts, and (2) processing this information through conscious logic and rational thinking to form knowledge, understanding, or a decision for guiding subsequent action" (Groves et al., 2008;p. ...
The purpose of this chapter is to explain our perception of time by using metaphorical thinking and to show how we understand the concept of future within the framework of time, complexity and uncertainty. Strategies are built for future actions and understanding the nature and the content of future becomes important. Human mind developed, during its historical existence, a series of metaphors able to suggest new semantic dimensions of time and its role in structuring the future. Among all these metaphors those based on space are essential since time and space have been integrated by scientists in a complex n-dimensional space concept. Time specialization became, thus, the main cognitive pattern in dealing with time and the future. Due to the complexity of future it is important to explain the way we correlate variables describing events and phenomena, which means to address the linearity and nonlinearity paradigms. The chapter ends up by presenting the semantic dynamics of uncertainty and its role in defining probable futures, where we define corporate strategic objectives and design strategies able to achieve them.
... Business awareness includes approaching problems with a business perspective and understanding sales, marketing management techniques, and sales incentive systems (Graen, 2009). Successful business awareness is framed in terms of sales performance (Sujan, Weitz, & Kumar, 1994;Vance, Groves, Paik, & Kindler, 2007), sales performance using longitudinal field testing (VandeWalle, Brown, Cron, & Slocum Jr., 1999), and sales performance combined with self-efficacy (Bolander, Bonney, & Satornino, 2014;Knight, Mich, & Manion, 2014;Krishnan, Netemeyer, & Boles, 2002). Additionally, Wong's Emotional Intelligence Scale (WEIS) found that "incremental validity" exists between the subject's emotional intelligence and sales performance (Wong, 2007, p. 144 ...
Sales engineering or technical sales programs bridge engineering and business to educate engineering students in sales specific to their discipline. Students develop business awareness through such programs, providing the sales workforce with technically knowledgeable salespeople. The following study analyzed cohorts of students enrolled in a technical sales for engineers course to assess the changing perceptions and attitudes of engineering students toward technical sales. Students reported statistically significant changes in perceptions regarding interest, need, and rank of current ability toward technical sales and social skills after completing the course. Student perceptions of sales skills being innate and ingrained decreased. Group analysis – enrollment in the sales minor or previous sales experience – revealed expected differences including higher ranked prior ability and initial interest in sales. A separate analysis of 20 technical sales skills at the end of the course was used to highlight the level students perceived they had achieved each skill.
... Despite the criticism on the theories of cognitive styles, it is worth noting that there are evidences from scholars who have addressed the influences of cognitive styles on the perception, learning, problem solving, decision making, communication, interpersonal functioning, and creativity in managerial field (Hayes and Allison, 1994;Sadler-Smith, 1998). Even though the vast number of instruments identified in the literatures may affect the validity and reliability of the methods of assessment, a number of instruments used in business and management research provide systematic and rigorous assessments of individual's cognitive style such as Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in Myers's (as cited in Cofield, Moseley, Hall & Ecclestone, 2004), Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) (Kirton, 1976), Cognitive Style Index (CSI) (Allinson & Hayes, 1996), Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI) (Epstein et al., 1996), Cognitive Style Indicator (CoSI) (Cools & Van den Broeck, 2007), and Linear/Non-linear Thinking Styles Profile (LNTSP) (Vance et al., 2007;Armstrong et al., 2012). Among the six instruments identified, the Cognitive Style Indicator (CoSI) by Cools and Van den Broeck (2007) is still at early stage of use and development, but the instrument demonstrates some promising and supportive findings to be used in both academic setting and practice. ...
A large and growing body of literature focuses on the project manager’s technical issues while ignoring the
so-called soft project management. This study proposes that there is a need to extend management practices for
project management from a human-related factor by incorporating the cognitive styles in the decision-making
process towards the accomplishment of a successful project. The study aims to introduce the concept of
cognitive styles in decision making by project managers. Furthermore, it takes up a discussion on the definition
and types and roles of cognitive styles by linking these styles with project manager’s decision making behaviour.
A questionnaire-based survey using Cognitive Style Instrument (CoSI), covering 110 project managers in the
construction industry, was used to determine the cognitive styles among Malaysian project managers. The paper
provides the empirical findings that reveal that Malaysian project managers used Cognitive Style on a daily basis
in their project environment. Planning Style was the most preferred style, followed by Knowing Style and
Creating Style. This study is significant both for researchers and practitioners to shed light upon the ways in
which project managers organise and process information and make judgements from a psychological
perspective. Moreover, this study contributes more generally to the evolving understanding of the human
intellect process in project management. This paper introduces the concept of Cognitive Styles as an important
human-related factor for project managers, contributing to the body of project manager’s soft skills.
... Intuiting is also spontaneous, meaning that it does not require effort and cannot be produced at will. (Hadamard, 1954;Isaack, 1978: 918) Finally, intuiting is alogical, meaning that it does not necessarily contradict the rules of logic but also does not follow them (Barnard, 1938: 301 ff), because it is arational (Bergson, 1946;Popper, 1968;Rowan, 1986: 84) due to its informal, unstructured (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982: 124) and non-linear nature (Vance et al., 2007). ...
In this paper we look into the modes for enhancing intuition suggested in the literature. Our starting point is that although the various intuition-enhancing techniques often work, it is rarely clear why. This also makes more systematic development of further techniques more difficult. First we provide a quick overview of the features of intuition followed by reviewing the intuition-enhancement techniques from the literature. We attempt grouping these techniques into coherent categories by speculating (in the style of Gestalt psychology drawing on well-known phenomena, empirical studies as well as lessons from the history of art and science) about why they work and relating them to the features of intuition to help deeper understanding and also to make identifying areas where further techniques would be needed. We do not currently aim for a final model that classifies all the intuition-enhancement techniques, we only want to make the first step on this road. For our exploration we conceptualise intuition only at the level of knowledge, disregarding the bodily, emotional and spiritual levels. We do acknowledge, however, that intuitive knowledge is also often accompanied by somatic effects and affective charge as these may be useful from the viewpoint of the intuition-enhancement techniques.
... Bir toplumu yönetmede nasıl farklı yaklaşımlar var ise, bireylerin de aynı şekilde yeteneklerini kullanırken izledikleri farklı yaklaşımlar bulunmakta ve bu yaklaşımlar da düşünce tarzları olarak ifade edilmektedir (Higgings ve Zhang, 2009). Bir başka ifade ile bireylerin günlük hayatta karşılaştıkları problemleri anlamak ve zorlukların üstesinden gelebilmek adına tercih ettikleri zihinsel kabiliyetlerini kullanabilmesi anlamına gelmektedir (Vance, Groves ve Kindler, 2007). Cools (2010), düşünce tarzlarının davranış üzerinde yeteneklerden daha büyük bir etkiye sahip olduğuna dikkat çekmektedir. ...
Efficiency and fairness in the payment and incentive systems is known to be
effective on the job outcomes such as employee satisfaction, loyalty and performance.
The main purpose of this study is to search for the applicability of job evaluation
techniques, which has the philosophy of equal pay for equal work, in service industry
influentially, then to propose a job evaluation technique for service organizations. With
this purpose, a five star hotel case is used to illustrate to discuss the advantages of the
propoed approach. At the end of evaluation of ten different jobs through the
combination of quality function deployment and thinking styles of employees, jobs that
require legislative, executive and hierarchic thinking styles were determined as the most
valuable jobs relaive to the compared ones. The relative weights in the house of quality
were mentioned to be used as ratio when determining the payments and intentives
... Likewise, decision styles are a subset of linear and nonlinear thinking styles, which capture a multidimensional set of dynamics, including creativity, life changes, and information processing (Vance, Groves, Paik, & Kindler, 2007). The main difference between these individual differences is the breadth of the constructs, with linear and nonlinear thinking styles representing a broader domain that relates to various elements of information processing than decision styles, which are narrowly focused on decision-making behaviors. ...
Decision styles reflect the typical manner by which individuals make decisions. The purpose of this research was to develop and validate a decision style scale that addresses conceptual and psychometric problems with current measures. The resulting 10-item scale captures a broad range of the rational and intuitive styles construct domain. Results from 5 independent samples provide initial support for the dimensionality and reliability of the new scale, as demonstrated by a clear factor structure and high internal consistency. In addition, our results show evidence of convergent and discriminant validity through expected patterns of correlations across decision-making individual differences and the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) Big Five traits. Research domains that would benefit from incorporating the concept of decision styles are discussed.
... Reductionism, the concept that "the system is equal to the sum of its parts", is the linear and rigid approach of traditional management and research that allows us to understand complicated systems (Plummer and Armitage, 2007;Vance et al., 2007). Yet its application to complex systems has resulted in the degradation of social-ecological systems Blann et al., 2003;Walker and Salt, 2006). ...
... Groves (2011) empirically studied entrepreneurial cognition of entrepreneurs and concluded that the successful entrepreneurs have a versatile balance of the nonlinear thinking with more rational linear thinking. This landmark study finds differences in 219 professionals (not students), which includes 39 Vance et al. (2007). This study is relevant to this proposal as it uses the same instrument to see the balance in Indian entrepreneurs. ...
In the state-of-the art An Agenda for Future Research, Corbett and McMullen (2011) summarize the current state of the research in the following words - “Despite its many achievements, learning at the connection of free enterprise and cognition has focused primarily on the consequences of what happens when an industrialist profit from various cognitive characteristics, resources, or other dispositions. As such, cognitive study in free enterprise continues to experience from narrow theoretical articulations and weak theoretical practicalities that lower its role to the managerial sciences.”According to Santos and Eisenhardt (2004)“ entrepreneurs categorize innovative opportunities for the conception of worth, and construct a market around those opportunities” triumphant chance appreciation leads to successful start-ups and leads to the vibrancy of economy. However, very little work has been done in this field (Mitchell et al., 2014).
... A criticism noted by several scholars is EBM's privileging of rationality and the scientific method in managers' decision processes (eg Bartenuk, 2014;Learmonth, 2006Learmonth, , 2008Tourish, 2013). Philosophically this privileging is problematic because it ignores multiple epistemologies in conducting management research (Learmonth, 2006); pragmatically it is problematic because overemphasising rationality as a mode of knowing downplays intuition, which is important for creative problem solving, innovation and effective decision-making in dynamic organisational environments (Sadler-Smith and Burke, 2009;Sadler-Smith and Shefy, 2007;Sinclair and Ashkanasy, 2005;Taggart and Robey, 1981;Vance, Groves, Paik and Kindler, 2007). These problems are illustrated by Erez and Grant's (2014) call to teach managers to 'separate data from intuition' when making EBM decisions. ...
Evidence-based management (EBM) has been subject to a number of persuasive critiques in recent years. Concerns have been raised that: EBM over-privileges rationality as a ba- sis for decision-making; ‘scientific’ evidence is insufficient and incomplete as a basis for management practice; understanding of how EBM actually plays out in practice is lim- ited; and, although ideas were originally taken from evidence-based medicine, individual- situated expertise has been forgotten in the transfer. To address these concerns, the au- thors adopted an approach of ‘opening up’ the decision process, the decision-maker and the context (Langley et al. (1995). ‘Opening up decision making: the view from the black stool’, Organization Science, 6, pp. 260–279). The empirical investigation focuses on an EBM decision process involving an operations management problem in a hospital emer- gency department in Australia. Based on interview and archival research, it describes how an EBM decision process was enacted by a physician manager. It identifies the role of ‘fit’ between the decision-maker and the organizational context in enabling an evidence-based process and develops insights for EBM theory and practice.
... Thinking style is defined as "one's preferred manner of using mental abilities to govern daily activities, including understanding and solving problems and challenges" (Vance et al., 2007, 168). Research has shown that successful entrepreneurs utilize a balance of both linear thinking (encompassing rational, logical, and analytical tendencies) and nonlinear thinking (consisting of intuitive, insightful, and creative thought) (Groves et al., 2008;Vance et al., 2007). ...
Entrepreneurs tend to think differently, juggling different thinking styles more easily than others. They are comfortable with both linear and non-linear thinking, and both causal and effectual logic. In order to help students develop diverse entrepreneurial thinking skills, teachers must employ unique educational strategies. This article provides educators with an engaging open-market trading card activity that was created to help students identify and overcome barriers to entrepreneurial thinking. Designed for strategy and entrepreneurship classes at the undergraduate and graduate level, this activity challenges students’ mental models and sets the stage for a fruitful discussion about entrepreneurial thinking.
To all Developmentalists, the undeniable failure rates for Developmental Interventions across the paradigms of Psychology, Organizational Science and Economics, which range from 50% for the former to 100% for the latter, should be truly shocking; and while they are alarming in their own right, they also signal a fundamental paradigmatic deficit, and it is one that is already acknowledged across the board, because, across each domain, the same fundamental remedy for the common deficit has been prescribed, and that remedy is “Learning”, whether it is as Learning Life, Learning Organization, Learning Region, Learning Economy or more recently by Nobel Economist Joe Stiglitz, Learning Society, which he refers to as the only viable long-run Government strategy. However, he and his co-author Bruce Greenwald, like others, have had little option but to defer the operationalizing of this Vision to Psychology; and even though there is such demand for a model of Developmental Learning from both outside Psychology and also internally, from prominent Psychologists such as Dan McAdams, no such model has been devised – until now.
UDT is peer-reviewed as equally valid and operationalizable across each of these paradigms, i.e., for developmental diagnosis and intervention for people, organizations and also macro socio-economic systems such as regions and nations. The modelling for each of these three levels of system – already understood as micro-, meso- and macro socio-economic system – is presented in four different volumes with the emphasis in Vol. 1, on the Psychology behind the model and what it brings to the discipline in terms of both theory and practice.
The model comprises of 7 Levels encompassing a sequence of 15 Developmental Phases through which humans naturally learn developmentally, and these Phases correspond with – but also complete – existing models of both natural and interventionist development, so that, in effect, each school is shown to have been seeing some of the same patterns, but through different lenses, and based on different and ultimately, limiting assumptions. UDT also shows how such developmental learning stalls along this progression in well-established patterns of corresponding Habituation Stages such as Groupthink at (2a), and how progression or degradation is affected by the Attractors of ultimate Maturity and Immaturity. The Levels are called Inversion, Critical, Equilibrial, Operational, Complexity, Creativity and finally, Leadership where the ultimate Maturization Phase is called Regenerative Leadership which encompasses Regenerative Eco-System – a concept that applies equally as e.g., Family, Organization or Economy where the system produces offspring that are integratively independent but networked whether as children, spin-off enterprises or enterprise clusters, respectively.
Along these Phases, functional dimensions called Construct Capabilities, that are significant to a system’s maturization can be diagnosed and developed. Failure rates are shown to be either due to interventions being overpitched relative to the previously undiagnosable learning level of the system, or through missing any of the Phases. Diagnosis with UDT optimizes traction for interventions which also gain in terms of sustainability from the normatively prescribed developmental process through the Phases. Critically, the model differentiates between systems, including people, who can take on board developmental intervention as a “next-Phase” process, from those who need radical process starting at Phase (1a); while concluding that much of the success reported across Developmentalism is dependent on the maturity of the client system (person or organization) in the first place.
In Psychology, such methodology can be used discretely through frameworks that are introduced; or more broadly, the model can provide an overarching architecture to guide and offer completion to established clinical process in practice, and it can also provide structure and discipline to more recent methods such as Open Dialogue with which it already shows considerable correspondence. One example of correspondence is that between the lowest Level’s three Stages of Habituation with DSM-5’s three Clusters of Personality-Disorders, and UDT can be seen to add considerable value to understanding and profiling them as well as operationalizing recovery, and particular attention is given to Narcissistic Personality Disorder – the prevalence of which is reported in terms of being an epidemic in prevailing Western society. It is also shown how the lowest Stage (1a) is always a drag on development in a process called Inversion that also finds common ground with established theory; and unfortunately, it is also shown that Inversion is very clearly observable in the demise of families and organizations, but is also evident in many prevailing threats to Democratic systems.
Many other issues are elaborated. For example, the concepts of Linear, Lateral and Integrative Mindset Configurations are already established to different degrees in Psychology and the other paradigms, but each are now extended considerably. They are now shown to be critical in different Phases of Development while Habituation patterns for each are associated with different stages, so that the understanding of how each shapes Personality and Culture and then leads to distinctive debilitating friction in systems, is greatly enhanced. Similarly, the concept of Culture which is seen as the collective equivalent of Mindset is transformed. The best existing theory delineates ten different types which map directly onto the hierarchy, and in the order in which they are shown to relate to higher productivity and returns for both organizations and nations alike; so again, UDT finds construct validity through correspondence with existing modelling, while at the same time bringing completion (with five other culture types), as well as operationalization of what has been a most troublesome but nebulously-operationalized concept.
The new model is shown to illuminate many other issues in society. The demise of grand theory and religion are implicated in the rise of Post-Modernist Skepticism, disrespect for authority, rise of authoritarianism, etc., which all poses an existential threat to Democracy and international order. UDT clearly shows the immaturity of all of the fallen theories and religions, and Vol. 1 introduces how Vol. 3 focuses on re-establishing, modelling, and operationalizing Emotional Maturity to bolster family life and counter failure in this area as measured by family breakup; and also, a model of Spiritual Maturity that has been eroded by different Religions that are, in turn, shown to have been shaped by particular different immature Mindsets and Cultures, and where failure is measured in terms of the catastrophic damage of religious conflict at the macro level but also Inversion at all levels of society.
Furthermore, it is proposed that UDT can provide a broad platform to build the called-for Learning Society, but as a Phase on the journey toward an optimal Regenerative Society, especially if re-enforced by UDT modelling outlined across all 4 Volumes.
The conclusion arises that UDT offers a single means of unifying a disjointed paradigm in Psychology, fulfils Psychology’s obligation to other paradigms, and facilitates it taking its rightful place at the center of world affairs that at all levels of our world can now benefit from working developmentally in congruence with human nature rather than antagonizing it.
UNITARY DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY AND ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT, VOL. 2: A MODEL OF DEVELOPMENTAL LEARNING FOR CHANGE, AGILITY AND RESILIENCE
Myles Sweeney BA (Psychol.), MBS (Finance), PH.D (Business & Economic Psychol.)
To all Developmentalists, the failure rates for Developmental Interventions across the paradigms of Psychology, Organizational Science and Economics that range from 75% to 100% and verified beyond doubt for organizations in five dense pages in Managing Change by Burnes (2017, x-xiv), should be truly shocking; and while alarming in their own right, they also signal a fundamentally paradigmatic problem that is acknowledged across the board, e.g., in Economics where the leading Developmentalist Jeffrey Sachs refers to the paucity of the models of human-nature available to it, and on which Economics is actually based. Furthermore, across each domain, the same fundamental remedy has been prescribed – i.e., “Learning”, whether it is as Learning Life, Learning Organization, Learning Region, Learning Economy or more recently by Nobel Economist Joe Stiglitz, Learning Society which he even refers to as the only viable Government strategy. However, even though there is such external demand – as well as internal demand from prominent Psychologists such as Dan McAdams who have called for an integration of the theories from various schools to generate a normative model of personality and developmental learning – no such model has been devised – until now!
UDT is a model that not only answers the need in Psychology, but is equally valid and operationalizable across each of these paradigms, i.e., for developmental analysis and intervention for people, organizations, societies and economic systems such as nations when each are defined as Micro-, Meso- and Macro- Socio-Economic Systems as well as sub-systems such as Teams or Regions. The modeling for each of the three levels of system is presented in four different volumes with Vol. 1 dedicated to the Psychology behind the model and what it brings to the discipline in practice; Vol. 2 shows how its application to Organization Development advances prevailing practice; Vol. 3 addresses Societal systems such as Family, Education and Justice; and Vol. 4 does the same for Macro-Economic Development.
The model comprises a sequence of Developmental Phases through which humans naturally learn developmentally, and these phases correspond with – but also complete – existing models, whether that learning is the natural development of a young person or a developmental intervention in an organization. The model also shows how learning stalls in well-established patterns of corresponding Habituation Stages such as Groupthink in organizations which corresponds to Identification Habituation for individuals growing up within restrictive parameters of a parent’s identity. These Phases are grouped into seven Levels and from Immaturity to Maturity, they are called Inversion, Critical, Equilibrial, Operational, Complexity, Creativity and Leadership. The ultimate Level is divided into the Phases of Integrative Leadership and finally Regenerative Leadership which encompasses the ultimate expression of Maturity which is the Regenerative Eco-System whether referring to a family with that Level of parenting or an organization that seamlessly and without friction facilitates Spin-Off Enterprises, M&As, etc.
Along these Phases, Construct Capabilities that are significant to a system’s purpose can be assessed, and development occurs prescriptively along these Capabilities. Failure rates are shown to be either due to interventions being overpitched relative to the previously undiagnosable Learning Level/Change-Capacity of the system, or through missing any of the Phases. UDT diagnosis optimizes Traction for interventions which also gain Sustainability from the normatively prescribed Phases. Such methodology can be used in stand-alone interventions, or to guide and offer structure to post-modern approaches such as “Dialogue” methodologies.
Construct Validity is shown in the degree to which UDT corresponds with modelling from across schools such as Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism, Cognitive Psychology, and Humanist Psychology and also developmental modelling across Organizational Science and Economics. For example, in Psychology, uniquely, the three Stages of Level (1) correspond to DSM-5’s three Clusters of Personality-Disorders and adds value to understanding them. More importantly for OD, it is shown how this Level of Habituated Mindset/Culture is always a permanent drag on development in a process called Inversion that also finds common ground with established theory, and is very clearly observable in the demise of organizations, and the only defence is the internal processes of Regenerative Leadership which cyclically refreshes the developmental process for Capabilities.
Other issues that are elaborated include Linear, Lateral and Integrative Mindset/Culture
with each associated with different Phases of Development and Habituation patterns along the hierarchy. Newly understood is the fact that all human systems are existentially either Linear or Lateral and must build Integrative capacity as well as remaining aware of their underlying biases. While Linearity brings positives such as Purpose and Discipline, its negatives include features such as 1-Dimensionalism, Exclusive Goal Focus, Command and Control, and Red Tape across the Levels such as Self-Destructive Exploitation (1a), Autocracy (2a), Silos (2b), and finally, Bureaucracy (4b) which is the highest Level of Maturity available to Linear-based Culture, which is averse to Change and Creativity. Laterality has strengths related to Change, Social Conscience and Creativity, but is associated with deficits such as Neurotic obstruction of Goal achievement (1b), Paralysis by Analysis (1c), Chronic Inclusiveness (3), Over-Connectedness (5) and Creativity without market connectedness (6).
Most significantly, Culture which is regularly cited as the main intrinsic reason for OD/CM failure and has only been so poorly understood as, e.g., “the way we do things around here” is newly defined in terms of Habituated Stages which correspond to those Cultures described in the most advanced modeling on the subject, but of course, as with all Construct Correspondence, the UDT model fills in gaps and offers a complete and operationalizable solution to the Culture problem. This line of research also critically shows that the UDT Phases are positively correlated with Returns and Productivity for organizations and nations alike. This also suggests that Culture Change which typically focuses on personal issues like Values, Assumptions, Beliefs, becomes another normative praxis-based OD intervention focusing on maturing Capabilities.
UDT similarly transforms the concept of Agility which is shown as its highest three Levels. A a case study of an exemplar Agile Company is examined in detail to show how the organization’s Philosophy, Growth Patterns and prevailing functionalities map onto essential elements of the UDT modeling which ultimately offers a methodology to achieve such Agility for all organizations through their own planning, effort and intrinsic progression rather than trying to simply copy elements of such Complexity. Only 22% of organizations reach these Levels which average 30% premium, but a critical fundamental insight is the finding that systems functioning in the non-Agile Division of the Model (i.e., 78% of organizations) have limited intrinsic Integrative capacity and therefore must begin every CM/OD intervention at the beginning of the normative process rather than use a simple Next-Step strategy which is the typical prevailing approach.
It is also shown how the UDT diagnosis can predict Resilience and how its developmental process builds the espoused combination with increased Agility whereby Resilience progresses from planned responses through the Phases to a capacity at Level 7 for an organization to re-invent itself as required in the face of adversity, and surely, this is the key lesson about Resilience from the Covid Pandemic. Case studies are offered to show how the UDT modeling of maturation and inversion corresponds with historical examples of both successful growth and degradation, as well as good and bad interventions.
For organizations, the model is used in 3 ways: as a Discussion Tool or simple Catalyst for change; as a process of discrete Change Management; and as a more systemic diagnostic-and-developmental intervention for e.g., Team Development, Organization Development, Digital Transformation, M&A Integration, etc.; and examples are offered where the model has been successfully used for each of the three levels of intervention.
Objective:
Decision-making styles form the backbone of effective decision-making and show promise as an important construct that warrants further attention. We investigated what is known about decision-making styles among patients and the general population in a health care setting.
Methods:
We used Arksey and O'Malley's framework and searched PubMed and CINAHL databases using relevant combinations of keywords and subject headings. Articles were limited to those published in English up to February 2020.
Results:
Sixteen articles met the inclusion criteria. We found that decision-making styles were described as role preferences or personality, psychological, and cognitive factors that influence decision-making. In the identified studies, the evidence was scarce regarding decision-making styles as the foundation for effective decision-making. Moreover, most studies were vague in the description of decision-making styles, offered little explanation of the concept, and varied substantially in the terminology, numbers, and types of decision-making styles and measurement methods.
Conclusions:
Decision-making styles, as a dynamic process, have received little attention in health care and are rarely addressed in health communication research or investigations of decision-making support. Other frameworks that are not directly related to decision-making styles were used in most analyzed studies.
Practice implications:
Decision-making styles in health care should be reinterpreted as a dynamic process that can be developed or changed.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to theoretically link design thinking with behavioural strategy, using empirical results that relate three cognitive dimensions: design thinking personality traits, cognitive passive resistance and linear thinking, and, consequently, determine: if there is a negative relationship between design thinking traits and cognitive passive resistance and if this relationship is mediated by linear thinking.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a quantitative methodology of covariance-based structural equation modelling. The data were collected from a three-scale, self-completed questionnaire, which was constructed using the existing modelling of the academic literature. The questionnaire was validated by confirmatory factor analysis and applied to a sample of 342 professional engineering and business graduates in Colombia.
Findings
The results of the structural equation modelling demonstrate a negative relationship between design thinking traits and cognitive passive resistance, and this relationship is mediated by linear thinking. These findings link design thinking and behavioural strategy and build new foundations for future studies, providing further theoretical support to the academic literature’s discussion of the relationship between design thinking and theories of managerial practices and innovation management.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of this study is the subjectivity of the answers because of potential bias from the respondents in completing the questionnaire. Another limitation is that the research was conducted only in the context of Colombia, so it is recommended that other studies be carried to generalise the results. This study has several theoretical implications. This study contributes to existing research on design thinking, evidencing a promising field of study to support it theoretically, such as the behavioural strategy. This study also contributes to the literature on innovation management deepening into a field of study that has received less attention in the literature, such as passive cognitive resistance to innovation. Likewise, this study presents a theoretical contribution to the dual process of cognition, proposing a new dimension to the construction of the multidimensional concept of nonlinear thinking. This study also contributes to the behavioural strategy field, evidencing a growing area of application in strategic management, such as design thinking. Finally, this research also proposes the development of a new research avenue about the concept of knowledge hiding as a possible source of innovation resistance.
Practical implications
This research also has implications for business and engineering education and practice. This study’s results suggest that before implementing an organisational initiative such as design thinking, which seeks to change people's behaviour, it is necessary to approach it as a cognitive process and develop strategies to mitigate passive cognitive resistance to change. This research’s results also present implications for business and engineering education, evidencing the need to include other perspectives of thinking that allow non-designers to develop creative thinking.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first quantitative study on design thinking as a business management concept using linear thinking of non-designers to relate design thinking traits with cognitive passive resistance. This research provides theoretical and empirical support for framing design thinking within the field of behavioural strategy.
Cognitive styles are commonly studied constructs in cognitive psychology. It can be argued that measurement of these styles in the past had significant shortcomings in validity and reliability. The theory of analytic and holistic cognitive styles followed from traditional research of cognitive styles and attempted to overcome these shortcomings. Unfortunately, the psychometric properties of its measurement methods in many cases were debatable or not reported. New statistical approaches, such as analysis of reaction times, have been reported in the recent literature but remain overlooked by current research on analytic and holistic cognitive styles. The aim of this pre-registered study was to verify the psychometric properties (i.e., factor structure, split-half reliability, test-retest reliability, discriminant validity with intelligence and personality, and divergent, concurrent and predictive validity) of several methods routinely applied in the field. We developed/adapted six methods, and selected several types frequently applied in cognitive style research: self-report questionnaires, methods based on rod-and-frame test principles, embedded figures, and methods based on hierarchical figures. The analysis was conducted on 392 Czech participants, with two data collection waves. The results indicate that the use of self-report questionnaires and methods based on the rod-and-frame principle may be unreliable, demonstrating unsatisfactory factor structure and no absence of association with intelligence. The use of embedded and hierarchical figures is recommended. Because the concurrent and divergent validity of the methods did not correspond with the original two-dimensional theory, we formulated a new three-level hierarchical model of analytic and holistic cognitive styles which better described our empirical findings.
Purpose – The study aimed to relate cognitive styles (CS), self-handicapping (SH) behaviors and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) present in an agroindustry of Santa Catarina. These aspects, within the same perspective, presents alternatives in the human capital management and as something new, in order to create and expand knowledge.Design/methodology/approach – The research was descriptive, quantitative, survey, and had statistical procedures. The respondents were 46 administrative employees of this agroindustry.Findings – The results indicate the predominance of employees with quasi-analytical (31%) and adaptive (28%) cognitive styles. Low SH indexes in the surveyed agroindustry were examined, demonstrating the engagement in the search for the results expected. The EO was moderate, evidencing a conservative stance of the company. No significant differences were observed in the relationship between the constructs of CS, SH and EO. However, the relationship between SH, EO and gender confirmed significant differences. Higher SH indices were observed among males, and a higher EO index in females. This difference disappears, statistically, in the other relationships. The conclusion is that reason prevails in the decision-making process, with a commitment focused on achieving the results, with a more conservative than entrepreneurial attitude.Practical implications – The study of the relationship of Cognitive Style, Self-Handicapping, and Entrepreneurial Orientation, within the understanding of Human Capital Management, constitutes a new perspective, making it possible to broaden the understanding of the theme in terms of administrative practice.Originality/value – Studying Cognitive Style, Self-Handicapping, and Entrepreneurial Orientation, in the context of Human Capital Management, in an agroindustry, presents itself as original and valuable research, contributing to the Administration Theory.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to unpack the underlying mechanisms of entrepreneurs’ passion, orientation, and behavior by investigating the role of rational and non-rational cognitive elements. Building on dual process theory and socio-intuitionism, a conceptual model is proposed in order to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial orientation (EO), and strategic entrepreneurship behavior (SEB). Specifically, entrepreneurs’ linear thinking styles (System 2) and non-linear thinking styles (System 1) are hypothesized as being significant moderators of such a relationship.
Design/methodology/approach – Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) is used to empirically validate the proposed conceptual model and test the moderating hypotheses on a sample of 300 entrepreneurs actively involved in European small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Findings – Entrepreneurial passion is shown to be a significant antecedent of EO which, in turn, strongly influences SEB. Moreover, entrepreneurs’ linear thinking style positively moderates the EO-SEB relationship, but not the link between passion and EO. Instead, a non-linear thinking style positively moderates the relationship between passion and EO, but not the links between EO and SEB.
Practical implications – Entrepreneurs should trust their non-linear thinking style – related to affective/emotive and intuitive information processing systems – to foster the effect of their entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial orientation. Furthermore, entrepreneurs should rely on a linear thinking style, namely the rational and deliberative cognitive processes, to enhance the impact of their entrepreneurial orientation on strategic entrepreneurship behavior.
Originality/value – Dual process theory and socio-intuitionism are integrated to simultaneously investigate the effect of non-rational and rational cognitive mechanisms on entrepreneurs’ orientation and behavior. Moreover, the proposed model is empirically tested on a sample of entrepreneurs working in SMEs located in Europe, which have received little attention from entrepreneurship scholars in comparison to their US counterparts. Our findings suggest important implications for entrepreneurs, policy makers, and entrepreneurial universities educators.
The authors focus on a fashion brand, Patagonia, to study green demarketing advertising in the fashion industry, a strategy for enhancing sustainability by encouraging consumers to avoid buying unneeded products. The study shows that green demarketing advertising positively affects consumer attitudes and behavior intentions in consumers who have either analytic or intuitive cognitive styles. All cognitive styles react most positively to concrete rather than abstract demarketing advertisements. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
RESEARCH SUMMARY
This study employs textual coding techniques to investigate 25 creation and discovery opportunities using entrepreneurs’ startup interviews. Based on Austrian economics and social constructionism theoretical arguments, we identified four casual conditions: social bonds, social bridges, prior knowledge, and past start‐up experience. These causal conditions are analyzed using Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Results indicate that creation opportunities are associated with social bonds, prior knowledge, and lack of prior entrepreneurial experience. Alternatively, discovery opportunities are associated with prior knowledge, social bonds, and social bridges. Our empirical findings demonstrate the differences in social and human capital configurations associated with forming creation and discovery opportunities.
MANAGERIAL SUMMARY
In an effort to better understand how creation and discovery opportunities arise, we investigated and compared likely factors including: close relationships, distant relationships, prior knowledge about related markets and industries, and past start‐up experience. Results show that creation opportunities are associated with close relationships, prior knowledge about related markets and industries, and lack of prior entrepreneurial experience. Discovery opportunities are associated with prior knowledge about related markets and industries, close relationships, and distant relationships. Our findings begin to describe how different types of opportunities are realized. Specifically, particular forms of human and social capital may be needed for generating differing types of opportunities.
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Now that we appreciate that entrepreneurial creativity might be relatively well supported as a potentially predictive theory by the empirical literature, other questions may occur to us. How well does this general scientific theory compare with other existing general scientific theories? To what extent does the theory of entrepreneurial creativity have broad explanatory power, explaining entrepreneurial success?
The aim of the paper is to contribute to call for, on one hand, systematizing the research on creativity in terms of linking ontological, epistemological, and methodological issues – specifically, for a heuristic framework combining individual, team, and organizational level, creativity facets at every level, and the antecedents of those facets at every level of analysis, as well as, on the other hand, for more focus on unifying methodology and on qualitative research methods in that field as it seems that dominant quantitative research methodology does not help investigate on one hand contextual factors influencing creativity processes and, on the other hand, the aggregation that occur amongst creativity levels. The aim has been realized through extensive literature studies and in the part concerning creativity methodology review – systematic literature review. Consequently, as the overarching findings of the paper, particular postulates concerning the creativity construct research have been formulated.
To more effectively address challenges of our increasingly global workplace, this chapter presents a promising fusion of two important areas of applied research: knowledge management and talent management. The mixture of these two conceptual orientations into a theoretical hybrid for directing future global business practice, which we call “smart global talent management,” merges the strengths of each approach, yet combined they also are able to surmount the shortcomings of each. We first will examine the strengths and limitations of each individual approach and then discuss the important advantages of our merged conceptual model for directing future research and practice in human resource management within a global context.
The aim of this second chapter is to present a review of literature on critical thinking and on intellectual styles in order to point out the potential intersections between critical thinking and intellect. These pages are directed toward an integration of intellectual ability, learning style, personality and achievement motivation as predictors of the decision-making process. We point out the main factors affecting decision processes in the current complex scenario recalling some concepts illustrated in “Decision Making in the Social Sciences”. Far from the normative approach, we present insights on the adaptive nature of the decision-making process in our complex society: people adapt according the age, the experience, the contexts, and the role we play.
This study validates the use of an Australian-designed but Bahasa Indonesian-translated thinking style inventory (Sofo, 2004). A sample of employees (n=183) from three Indonesian industries (manufacturing, retail and services) volunteered to participate in the research. The participants responded to a range of questions designed to explore their thinking, a key element of literacy learning. Results indicated that the translated version of the TSI is reliable and valid for assessing the thinking styles of the Indonesian participants (Cronbach a scores ranging from 0.78 to 0.86). Results supported the Theory of Reality Construction as a general theory of intellectual styles that applies to both academic and non-academic settings. This study discusses some insights of the thinking style preferences of employees in Indonesia and validates the contribution of thinking styles in organizational contexts.©Common Ground, Francesco Sofo, Renny Budijanto.
The purpose of this chapter is to critically analyze the universities as knowledge intensive learning organizations. It is axiomatic that universities are knowledge organizations since by their own nature universities create, acquire, and transfer knowledge in complex ways. They are knowledge intensive organizations since the density of knowledge field and the dynamics of knowledge processing are much greater than many other organizations. Since learning is one of the major processes within any university, people may consider universities as being by definition learning organizations. This idea induced by a semantic halo effect may lead to a major error. Although a university is an organization based on learning processes, it is not necessary a learning organization. This paper performs a functional analysis of the specific knowledge processes in order to identify the necessary conditions for a generic university to become a learning organization.
• Recognizing opportunities for accomplishing goals within a team context
The essential problem in entrepreneurship is improving the performance of entrepreneurs. The most important theories will be the ones that most enable us to predict and then ultimately influence entrepreneurial performance. This book develops a new and more accurate theory of entrepreneurial performance based in entrepreneurial creativity. The field of entrepreneurship has a long tradition of expecting entrepreneurial performance to be influenced by creativity, tracing back even before the pioneering work of Joseph Schumpeter (1883 to 1950), who defined entrepreneurship as creative-destruction—creating the new by supplanting or destroying the old. Subsequently, psychologist Robert Sternberg defined creativity as broadly encompassing creative aspects of personality, motivation, intellect, thinking style and relevant knowledge. Using Sternberg’s definition of creativity, the authors reviewed the evidence directly linking entrepreneurial creativity and entrepreneurial performance, concluding that the linkage is both statistically and practically significant. In order to scientifically tie entrepreneurship to creativity the book pursues a number of major objectives: In parts one and two, the authors remind us of our scientific challenge in the light of the depressing levels of performance typically to be found in the real world of entrepreneurship and explores the limitations of the dominant paradigms driving research in the field of entrepreneurship today. In part three, they bring together existing evidence to demonstrate the predictive and explanatory powers of creativity in relation to entrepreneurship. In part four, they further explore correlations between creativity and entrepreneurial performance at the individual and macro or society, levels. In summary, the book offers a bold predictive theory linking entrepreneurial creativity to entrepreneurial performance, however neither as boldly as a definitional linkage nor as timidly as one in a hundred or so factors potentially explaining entrepreneurial performance. This result is a general scientific theory that offers a serious challenge to entrepreneurial scholars who are pursuing other means for understanding the causality of entrepreneurial performance.
Over 50 years of research on cognitive style has converged on the importance of individual differences in use of intuition and analysis. This program of research is characterized, however, by two incompatible perspectives about the relation between intuition and analysis. The distinction concerns whether intuition and analysis are opposite poles of a single dimension or whether they are orthogonal constructs. Two studies report meta-analytic investigations of the relation between intuition and analysis. A meta-analysis of the existing research base (k = 80; n = 27 501) showed that intuition and analysis are uncorrelated. A second meta-analysis of combinations of subscales from different cognitive style measures (n = 511) supported the results of the first meta-analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis also supported the existence of two uncorrelated constructs. Overall, the findings support the view that intuition and analysis are independent constructs, rather than opposite ends of a bipolar continuum. In addition, the findings suggest measures of analysis or rationality are not interchangeable. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effects of diversity in team members' rational and intuitive cognitive styles on team outcomes were investigated in a moderated-mediation model, exploring conflict management as a moderator and cohesion as a mediator. The negative effects of diversity on cohesion were moderated by conflict management, such that diversity harmed cohesion when conflict management was low but had no effect when conflict management was high. Cohesion mediated the relationship between the interaction of cognitive diversity and conflict management on team viability but not task performance. Implications for practice include promoting cognitive diversity and conflict management training in diverse teams. Suggestions for future research include expanding the sample and utilizing causal research designs.
Over the past two decades there has been a shift in the career literature from the view of a career as being a linear progression of job responsibilities within an industry, to that of a ‘boundaryless’, competency-based exploration that evolves in unexpected ways. This article argues that core constructs from ‘new science’ (non-linearity, interdependence and emergence) can provide a useful theoretical foundation for understanding the current dynamics of career behavior. The article also discusses implications of these constructs for career development practice and its contexts.
This series of studies describes the development of a measure of emotional intelligence based on the model of emotional intelligence developed by Salovey and Mayer [Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9, 185–211.]. A pool of 62 items represented the different dimensions of the model. A factor analysis of the responses of 346 participants suggested the creation of a 33-item scale. Additional studies showed the 33-item measure to have good internal consistency and testretest reliability. Validation studies showed that scores on the 33-item measure 1.(a) correlated with eight of nine theoretically related constructs, including alexithymia, attention to feelings, clarity of feelings, mood repair, optimism and impulse control;2.(b) predicted first-year college grades;3.(c) were significantly higher for therapists than for therapy clients or for prisoners;4.(d) were significantly higher for females than males, consistent with prior findings in studies of emotional skills;5.(e) were not related to cognitive ability and6.(f) were associated with the openness to experience trait of the big five personality dimensions.
Purpose
Describes how The F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College features creativity as one of the early and essential components of its innovative two‐year MBA program.
Design/methodology/approach
Article reports on the indicators that the program is a success.
Findings
For corporations seeking creativity in new hires, MBA graduates who have completed the “Creativity stream” offer increased confidence in their ability to express themselves creatively; willingness to accept ambiguity and the uncertainty of process as part of discovery; openness to alternatives ways of seeing a problem, solution, or scenario; and renewed trust in themselves and their potential as creative thinkers.
Research limitations/implications
Employer survey results suggest that there is a link between Babson MBAs’ success at producing more and better creative solutions on the job and their exposure to creative process in the “Creativity stream”.
Practical implications
There is only limited evidence that arts experiences as part of corporate creativity training are noticeably beneficial, but Unilever's management contends that such training leads to changed perceptions and better decisions.
Originality/value
Creativity training can help employees and their managers develop new approaches to resolving corporate challenges.
Information processing style, often termed cognitive style, has gained prominence in the organizational behavior literature as researchers use it as a basis for studying decision making behavior, conflict, strategy development, and group processes. However, the many operational definitions and measures of cognitive style have produced inconsistent and confusing results. This study tested the interrelationship among four measures of this construct: the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, the Group Embedded Figures Test, the Learning Styles Inventory, and the Decision Style Inventory. Measures that appeared to be conceptually linked through their underlying theories were compared. Results indicate that the various measures are not strongly interrelated and appear to be measuring different aspects of information processing and decision making. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
We use an innovative technique to examine an enduring but recently neglected question: How do environmental turbulence and complexity affect the appropriate formal design of organizations? We construct an agent-based simulation in which multidepartment firms with different designs face environments whose turbulence and complexity we control. The model's results produce two sets of testable hypotheses. One set pinpoints formal designs that cope well with three different environments: turbulent settings, in which firms must improve their performance speedily; complex environments, in which firms must search broadly; and settings with both turbulence and complexity, in which firms must balance speed and search. The results shed new light on longstanding notions such as equifinality. The other set of hypotheses argues that the impact of individual design elements on speed and search often depends delicately on specific powers granted to department heads, creating effects that run contrary to conventional wisdom and intuition. Ample processing power at the bottom of a firm, for instance, can slow down the improvement and narrow the search of the firm as a whole. Differences arise between our results and conventional wisdom when conventional thinking fails to account for the powers of department heads - powers to withhold information about departmental options, to control decision-making agendas, to veto firmwide alternatives, and to take unilateral action. Our results suggest how future empirical studies of organizational design might be fruitfully coupled with rigorous agent-based modeling efforts.
Drawing on the foundational theories of John Dewey and Kurt Lewin, we examine recent developments in theory and research on experiential learning and explore how this work can enhance experiential learning in higher education. We introduce the concept of learning space as a framework for understanding the interface between student learning styles and the institutional learning environment. We illustrate the use of the learning space framework in three case studies of longitudinal institutional development. Finally, we present principles for the enhancement of experiential learning in higher education and suggest how experiential learning can be applied throughout the educational environment by institutional development programs, including longitudinal outcome assessment, curriculum development, student development, and faculty development.
Instructional methods in today's classroom are sometimes based on the notion of cerebral dominance. However, the link between hemispheric laterality and education practice is highly questionable. One instrument used by teachers to assess individual differences in cerebral dominance is a paper-and-pencil survey called Your Style of Learning and Thinking (SOLAT; Torrance, Reynolds, Riegel, & Ball, 1977). In this study, the authors explored the psychometric properties of the SOLAT in three phases. In the first phase, the authors examined SOLAT's construct validity. Contrary to cerebral dominance theory, a principal factor analysis revealed a seven-factor solution. The second phase was conducted to determine the SOLAT's internal consistency and test-retest reliability coefficients. As expected, these analyses generated low to moderate correlations. In the final phase, the authors further examined the SOLAT's construct validity by comparing the performance of brain-injured versus normal adults. With one exception, there were no significant differences. The results of this study did not support the notion of hemisphericity, at least not as measured by the SOLAT. Therefore, educators should not use the SOLAT to categorize students in terms of their preferred mode of processing information.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; Myers & McCaulley, 1985) was evaluated from the perspectives of Jung's theory of psychological types and the five-factor model of personality as measured by self-reports and peer ratings on the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI; Costa & McCrae, 1985b). Data were provided by 267 men and 201 women ages 19 to 93. Consistent with earlier research and evaluations, there was no support for the view that the MBTI measures truly dichotomous preferences or qualitatively distinct types; instead, the instrument measures four relatively independent dimensions. The interpretation of the Judging-Perceiving index was also called into question. The data suggest that Jung's theory is either incorrect or inadequately operationalized by the MBTI and cannot provide a sound basis for interpreting it. However, correlational analyses showed that the four MBTI indices did measure aspects of four of the five major dimensions of normal personality. The five-factor model provides an alternative basis for interpreting MBTI findings within a broader, more commonly shared conceptual framework.
Two experiments were conducted with a hybrid procedure that involved a battery of indirect criterion tests designed to study the activation and metacognition of inaccessible stored information. In each experiment, subjects first attempted to recall some rare target words in response to a series of definitions meant to cue retrieval from long-term semantic memory. For the words that could not be recalled initially, the subjects rated their feelings of knowing. They then performed a lexical-decision task in which the target words and other control words were presented. Reaction times were measured as a function of the feeling-of-knowing ratings and the length of the interval between the initial exposure to the definitions and the subsequent lexical decisions. Faster decisions occurred for the target words than for the controls, especially when strong feelings of knowing had been expressed about the targets. Similar facilitation was obtained in a subsequent old-new recognition task. It appears that unsuccessful attempts to retrieve inaccessible stored information prime the later recognition of the information through a process of spreading activation. Such activation may sensitize people to future occurrences of stimulus inputs needed for insightful solutions of semantically rich problems.
The author investigated the relationship of thinking styles to modes of thinking. Participants were 371 freshmen (aged 18 and 19) from the University of Hong Kong. Participants responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory (R. J. Sternnberg & R. K. Wagner, 1992) and the Style of Learning and Thinking (Youth Form; E. P. Torrance, B. McCarthy, & M. T. Kolesinski, 1988). A major finding was that creativity generating and complex thinking styles were significantly positively correlated with the holistic mode of thinking but significantly negatively correlated with the analytic mode of thinking. Thinking styles that denote the tendency to norm favoring and simplistic information processing were significantly positively correlated with the analytic mode of thinking and significantly negatively correlated with the holistic mode of thinking. In a preliminary conclusion, it appears that the thinking style construct overlaps the mode of thinking construct. Implications of this finding for teachers and researchers are delineated.
Divergent thinking tests are probably the most commonly used measure of children's potential for creative thinking. Divergent thinking is not synonymous with creative thinking, but the research presented in this volume suggests that divergent thinking is an important component of the creative process. This research also suggests that divergent thinking tests are not perfect measures (just as IQ tests are not perfect measures of intelligence), but they are useful estimates of the potential for creative thought.
There are a number of unanswered questions about children's divergent thinking and creativity. Several of these are addressed throughout this book, and may be identified as themes in the research.
One of the themes in this book is that the capacity for divergent thinking may not be normally distributed across all levels of ability.
There are several concerns one must recognize when conducting or evaluating the empirical research on the distribution of creativity.
My research addresses the distribution issue in its demonstrating that ideational originality and flexibility are more reliable and valid in gifted children than nongifted children.
A second theme in this book was introduced in Wallach and Kogan's "Modes of Thinking in Young Children." Wallach and Kogan suggested that divergent thinking is influenced by the conditions under which it is assessed.
A third theme of this book is methodological.
A final theme is that divergent thinking is important for both "basic" and "applied" research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The decision making process is an important aspect of the managerial function that is becoming increasingly complex due to technological and global impacts. It is essential, therefore, to understand why various managers approach the decision making process differently. One area that is related to how managers perceive and process the information that is associated with decision making, is that of decision style.
It is not enough, however, to explore decision style in isolation, as some of the decisions that managers make often entail ethical components concerning the ability to balance the interests of diverse groups. Moral reasoning is therefore important for every manager, and could impact the decision style that is employed by such managers. The relationship between managerial decision style and moral development is one that could provide unique insights into the area of decision making, yet it is an area that has remained relatively unexplored.
Using Alan Rowe's Decision Style Inventory (DSI), in conjunction with James Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT), the purpose of this study was to ascertain the relationship between decision style and moral development among U.S. managers.
The findings of this study of 270 managers suggest that there is a relationship between higher directive decision style scores and lower principled reasoning scores. Since the focus of individuals who demonstrate a directive decision style is on task completion, perhaps the consideration of the many alternatives that are necessary to reason at a more ethically attuned level is neglected. Managers who exhibit a directive decision style might be responsible for the management of non-managerial populations of workers, and in such a capacity, set the ethical tones and examples for employees to follow. Since training and educational interventions in the area of ethics have been shown to increase moral development scores, those managers who are identified as displaying a directive decision style might benefit from such training.
Despite its wide use as a tool to enhance leadership development, the current way in which the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is administered provides limited value to managers. This paper reviews how to interpret the MBTI, examines some of its conceptual and psychometric weaknesses, and identifies its misuse in leadership development. Inconsistencies between Jung's (1923/1971) conceptual study, upon which the MBTI is based, and how the instrument was developed and applied are examined. To improve the administration and interpretation of the MBTI in leadership development users of the MBTI are advised to make careful assessments of type when raw scores are "slight" for any dimension, analyze how organizations as "strong situations" can overcome the predicted behavior of type, and consider the potential interaction of needs with type and its potential impact on managerial behavior. Users may also consider the adoption of the "Big Five " model of personality as a substitute for the MBTI.
Human resource development is conceptualized here in terms of levels of action: representations, experience, relations, and communities. Functionality is taken as a hallmark of good human resource development in these. Yet reflecting on what works, and on innovations in human resource development, factors other than those associated with functionality seem to matter: imagination and creativity. To understand and explore these, an aesthetic perspective on human resource development is proposed. How the aesthetic exists and lives in human resource development is described here as a quadrant, with imagination and creativity existing in the form of imported metaphors, design thinking, development epistemology, and the aesthetics of organization. The implications of this combining of an under-standing of the functional and the aesthetic for theorizing and practicing human resource development are outlined.
Improvisational theatre techniques can help management educators enhance class discussion and role-play, build teamwork, encourage risk taking, and stimulate creativity. This article draws from the existing body of work on improvisation found in organization theory and creates a framework for improvisation’s use in the management classroom. Specific exercises are presented and their benefits are discussed.
Educators know that variables beyond abilities affect students’ performance in school and their interactions with their teachers. Thinking styles are such a variable. Thinking styles are preferred ways of thinking. They are not abilities but rather preferred ways of expressing these abilities. Both students and teachers vary in thinking styles, and in systematic ways. For example, teachers tend to match the stylistic pattern of the school, and students to match the stylistic pattern of their teachers. Teachers tend to overestimate the extent to which their students match their own styles, and also evaluate more favorably students whose styles match their own. Thus, teachers are more likely to identify as “gifted” not only high ability students, but those who match them stylistically. Research for this article was supported under the Javits Act Program (Grant #R206R00001) as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement of the US Department of Education. Grantees undertaking such projects are encouraged to express freely their professional judgments. This article, therefore, does not necessarily represent positions or policies of the Government and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Managers recognize that they must satisfy a variety of demands, some contradictory. The authors investigated this circumstance using Quinn and Rohrbaugh's competing values model. They report the findings of a study that identified and measured the four competing values (internal process value, rational goal value, human relations value, and open system value) across organizations and investigated whether contextual and structural variables were systematically associated with those value sets.
Data were gathered from a large sample of United States Air Force Commands. Results showed that the operating units pursued the four values defined by the model, but did not emphasize them equally. Certain environmental characteristics (information and resource scarcity and technological uncertainty) and aspects of the units' technology (their task routineness, workflow interdependence, and training complexity) were associated with organizational value sets. The values emphasized were associated in turn with the coordinating structure (vertical or horizontal coordination) adopted by the units.
The study attempted to move the competing values model beyond theoretical concepts. The results confirm the competing values at work in organizations and also suggest that value sets differ from unit to unit. Certain patterns of values appear to exist within particular environmental and technological contexts. These findings indicate tradeoffs among values. Emphasizing some values may hamper pursuit of others. So when managers decide to give priority to programs designed to strengthen to the human relations value, efficiency and short-term profitability may drop off. Managers must be aware of this shifting balance. They must evaluate whether prescriptions for organizational success make sense. Decisions should reflect the organization's value structure (and its deficiencies), its technology, its environment, and its structure as well as show these elements fit together.
Connectivity, the control parameter in a nonlinear dynamics model of team performance is mathematically linked to the ratio of positivity to negativity (P/N) in team interaction. By knowing the P/N ratio it is possible to run the nonlinear dynamics model that will portray what types of dynamics are possible for a team. These dynamics are of three types: point attractor, limit cycle, and complexor (complex order, or “chaotic” in the mathematical sense). Low performance teams end up in point attractor dynamics, medium perfomance teams in limit cycle dynamics, and high performance teams in complexor dynamics.
This study examined the nature of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) extraversion-introversion (El) and judging-perceiving (JP) subscales. The MBTI, Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-5), and the EASI-III were given to 185 subjects. All subscale scores for each instrument were entered into a principal component factor analysis with orthogonal rotation. Results support the MBTI-EI scale as a measure of sociability and the MBTI-JP scale as a measure of impulsivity. Convergent and divergent validity of these scales was provided as expected, although the constructs differ from those cited in the MBTI manual (Myers, 1962). Implications are discussed.
Based on theoretical and mathematical principles of chaos theory, we argue that the customary social science goals of "prediction" and "control" of systems behavior are sometimes, if not usually, unobtainable. Specifically, chaos theory shows how it is possible for nearly identical entities embedded in identical environments to exhibit radically different behaviors, even when the underlying systems are extremely simple and completely deterministic. Furthermore, chaos theory arguments are general enough to apply to any type of entity, including individuals, groups, and organizations, and therefore they are relevant to a large domain of social science problems. As a result, this paper concludes with six familiar claims about the study of social phenomena for which chaos theory provides new theoretical arguments.
This paper provides a review of research into the relationships between psychological types, as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and managerial attributes, behaviors and effectiveness. The literature review includes an examination of the psychometric properties of the MBTI and the contributions and limitations of research on psychological types. Next, key findings are discussed and used to advance propositions that relate psychological type to diverse topics such as risk tolerance, problem solving, information systems design, conflict management and leadership. We conclude with a research agenda that advocates: (I) the exploration of potential psychometric refinements of the MBTI, (2) more rigorous research designs, and (3) a broadening of the scope of managerial research into type.
Complexity science may be described as a feminine science because it demands holistic thinking, something that women are generally better at than men. A total of 50 women leaders in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK were interviewed, women who displayed what is called “third possibility leadership”, that is they were able to hold masculine and feminine values and behaviors in dynamic balance. Finds that they displayed characteristics in common: they were “paradoxical”, they gathered people together, they were “wholistic” thinkers, and they displayed well-developed “relational intelligence”. Although they were effective leaders, their style of leadership was often invisible, and even demeaned, for socio-cultural reasons.
The personal characteristics of users of accounting information are largely ignored in both internal and external financial reporting. Explores these differences, to identify the characteristics most likely to impact on management decision making, the successful implementation of accounting systems and the successful communication of financial messages. Reviews the evidence relating to the impact of gender, personality types and cognitive style and considers their impact in accounting environments.
Overall market entry conditions are fundamental to management success and of increasing importance in today's corporate world. This paper outlines the critical role that metaphors could play in facilitating learning evident in Disneyland Paris. Through the lens of a series of metaphors various insights relating to Disneyland Paris's cultural and political realities would be revealed. Key findings include the central role that specific metaphors could play in developing a successful international market presence and in revealing cultural communication patterns. Metaphors could provide the ultimate conceptual/educational framework in developing a flexible learning organisation.
A data matrix is said to be ipsative when the sum of the scores obtained over the variables for each subject is a constant. In this article, a general type of ipsative data known as partially additive ipsative data (PAID) is defined. Ordinary additive ipsative data (All311 is a special case. Due to the specific nature of the research design or measurement process, the observed vector is X PAID with an underlying nonipsative vector y. It is shown that if the underlying distribution of y is multivariate normal with structured covariance matrix Σ = Σ(Θ), the observed X will have a degenerate normal distribution. As a result, ordinary maximum likelihood estimation of Θ cannot be carried out directly. A transformation of X is suggested so that the transformed vector X* = BX will have a nonsingular density and restricted maximum likelihood (REML) estimation can be applied. A simulation study is conducted to investigate the effect of sample size and other model characteristics on the performance of the ML estimators and the sampling behavior of the goodness of fit statistic. It is found that REML estimates are in general close to the true parameter values, but they have larger dard errors as compared with the ordinary MLE based on y. The test statistic is well behaved when sample size is large enough. Moreover, the likelihood of obtaining a convergent solution depends on a number of factors such as sample size, number of indicators per latent factor, and degree of ipsativity. Finally, statistical decisions (reject or not reject the hypothesized model) based on X* are in general consistent with that based on y.
This paper examines an ancient historical event that has profound implications regarding the role of organizational culture in facilitating spontaneous organizational reconfiguration. Xenophon's Anabasis documents the successful retreat of a Greek army trapped in Persia in a setting that is comparable to the hypercompetition of today. Spontaneous reconfiguration is seen here to be a vital survival element in hypercompetitive environments, past and present. As a result, a historical case is used as a time-bridge to reveal the importance of rapid and substantive organizational redesign when confronting highly competitive and quickly shifting environments. The Anabasis is also used to animate several of Gareth Morgan's (1986) metaphors. In particular, metaphors pertaining to a biological organism, the brain, and culture are used to parallel the Greek emphasis on body, mind, and spirit. While Xenophon's army is depicted here in terms of being an organic, biological organism, as well as a brain with holographic properties, it is culture that emerges as the truly defining metaphor. The Creek supraculture appears to have played a vital role in facilitating nearly instantaneous organizational restructuring. This was a culture that emphasized an integrative balance between the ethic of community and individuality. Such redesigning properties were essential for an isolated, leaderless army which faced a variety of hostile competitors, rapidly shifting environmental conditions, and starvation. The culture metaphor enables us to see how widely shared values and beliefs can facilitate an organic type of behavioral programming capable of enabling Xenophon's army to transcend the formal attributes of organizational structure. Ultimately, it was culture, not strategy, qualitative and informal properties, not well defined roles and structures, that produced the Creek success. Contemporary organizations that attempt to become more horizontally focused. team oriented, and process driven are adopting a paradigm that is now 2,400 years old. Toynbee would not be surprised: What light have we that we can project upon the darkness of the future? We have the precious light of experience. which has always been Mankind's guide to action in public, as in private affairs. No sensible person. of course, has ever imagined that a mechanical application of past experience to present problems will grind out automatic solutions of these. Experience gives us enigmatic hints, not blueprinted instructions. Yet these hints are invaluable, since they are the only light on the future that we can bring to bear, and where the future that is in question is a society's not an individual's the experience of other societies has the same significance for us as the experience of our contemporaries and our elders is the ordering of our personal lives.
For the past ten years the management literature has increasingly discussed the concept of learning organizations. Yet, more that a decade later, few organizations have figured out how to create the structures and processes necessary to assure continuous learning. This article purports that this problem can be attributed to the mental models of those leading contemporary organizations. Learning organizations quite simply cannot be created by those who either consciously or unconsciously operate under the traditional, mechanistic organizational paradigm. If leaders are to create authentic learning organizations, they must adapt a new way of viewing reality – a new paradigm or mental model. The authors suggest that the new science theories of chaos, complexity, and quantum mechanics provide the foundation for a new way of thinking about organizations. They demonstrate the relevance of these theories for those who wish to create learning organizations and present a new-science-based skill set that enables twenty-first-century leaders to move beyond organizational adaptation to proactive change and continuous learning.
A break in the attentive activity devoted to a problem may eventually facilitate the solution process. This phenomenon is known by the name incubation. A new hypothesis regarding the incubation mechanism is suggested. It is based on analysis of the structure of insight problems and their solution process. According to this hypothesis, no activity takes place during the break. The break's only function is to divert the solver's attention from the problem, thus releasing her mind from the grip of a false organizing assumption. This enables the solver to apply a new organizing assumption to the problem's components upon returning to the problem. The numbers of experimental studies that confirm the existence of the incubation phenomenon, and those that do not support it, are roughly equal, thus the primary experimental aim of the study is to improve the methodology of manipulating the break. This was done by starting the break only after an impasse has been reached. The results indicate that the break improves performance in insight problem solving, but its length does not make a difference. This supports the suggested hypothesis and does not support hypotheses that postulate unconscious ongoing processes during the break.
A personality, motivation, or interest questionnaire is said to be ipsative when the sum of the scores obtained over the attributes or scales measured for each respondent is a constant. With normative scaling, the respondent selects 1 option for a range of graded responses to each item. Investigations with simulated data demonstrate that ipsative scores can be factored soundly, that reliability data are not overestimated, and that under moderate conditions of central tendency bias in normative items, ipsative scores correlate better with hypothetical "true" scores than the normative form. When replicated on real data, a high correlation was found between ipsative and normative scale scores. Ipsative scaling did not produce spuriously high reliabilities; both normative and ipsative data showed sensible and significant correlations with external rating criteria. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Comments on the article by P. Saville and E. Willson (see record
1992-04008-001), which claimed that ipsative scores can be used legitimately to estimate reliabilities and validities, that these scores can be factored soundly using principal components analysis, and that individuals can be compared validly on a scale-by-scale basis. Analysis of theoretical and actual data empirically verifies that factor analyses of ipsative data suffer from imposed multicollinearity. High intercorrelations between scoring types cannot be used as an estimate of alternate form reliability, and the lack of information retained in ipsative scores does not permit them to be used as substitutes for normative scores. An example of appropriate analysis of ipsative data using multinomial statistical techniques is provided. These techniques are more appropriate because ipsative scores contain only categorical information across individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Discusses 4 issues related to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) that appear to need theoretical clarification and discussion. Differences between Jungian theory (Jung, 1971) and Myers's theory (I. B. Myers and P. B. Myers, 1980) are described, as well as the resulting implications for the operationalization of the theory with the MBTI. The 4 areas discussed are whether the Judging-Perceiving dimension can determine the dominant function, the attitude of the auxiliary, and whether it is antagonistic to and/or complementary to the dominant, whether everybody is a type, and the potential difficulties of using the MBTI outside the context of the overall Jungian theory of the psyche. Use of the MBTI may be counterproductive if it is divorced from Jungian theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Discusses the relative merits of ipsative measurement for multiscale psychometric instruments. Standard psychometric analyses are found to be inappropriate with small numbers of scales, or sets of scales with strong positive intercorrelations. However, for larger sets of scales (around 30) with low average intercorrelations, ipsative data seem to provide robust statistical results in reliability analyses but not under factor analysis. It is said that with more scales and for more individuals, normative and ipsative profiles are likely to be similar, and can be interpreted in the same manner. The author concludes that it may be that the choice between normative and ipsative measurement, based on forced-choice responses, is between a small amount of distortion to a large number of profiles or a large amount of distortion to a small number of profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Describes 3 changes and 1 new development for the 2nd generation Little Jiffy method of exploratory factor analysis. A computer algorithm based on the addition and revision is presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article looks at the
Interrelationship of analysis and creative thinking, which are two of the five factors previously identified as critical for strategic success.
Shows how a deficiency of either factor can lead to defective strategies.
Suggests that analysis is not always objective, and that it can be heavily influenced by behavioural considerations.
Examines other issues in analysis and the role of techniques.
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Strategic flexibility, both in its conceptual and practical form, has often fallen prey to criticism for the failure to manifest itself in terms of concrete steps of application and structured design. Constant non-linear change, toying with managerial competence and emotional intelligence skills, aggravates and makes this discussion all the more pertinent.
Quantification and analysis of strategic flexibility have been cumbersome to accomplish. This paper aspires to supplement the existing literature by defining strategic flexibility as indispensable in times of turbulence and ongoing change.
A parallel drawn between organizations and living systems, and their resistance patterns to environmental shocks originating from change, will serve as a background platform to the discussion, as well as an argumentative tool towards refuting the allegation that flexibility in strategy formulation equates to lack of strategic orientation.
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Almost 1000 adults participated in the development of the Cognitive Style Index (CSI), a new measure designed specifically for use with managerial and professional groups. the objectives of the study were, first, to produce a psychome-trically sound instrument suitable for application in large-scale organizational studies, and second, through its development, to confirm empirically the generic intuition-analysis dimension of cognitive style. Findings suggest that each objective was largely fulfilled. At a time when there is a burgeoning interest in intuition as a basis for decision making and problem solving in organizations, the CSI would appear to be a notable addition to the small collection of measures appropriate for survey research.
There is a widely held belief that systems thinking is an answer to the increasing complexity of the world as well as the workplace. Despite strong interest and assertions, however, the relationship between systems thinking and complex decision making has received scant attention in the literature. Using Richmond's (1997) classification scheme as the theoretical base, this paper investigates the link between systems thinking and complex decision making using Verbal Protocol Analysis (VPA) methodology. The findings of the study indicate that while the degree of systems thinking does matter, certain types of systemic thinking would be more relevant to performance. Further, evidence shows that the subject's approach to the problem is also a highly pertinent factor in task performance, in that better performers displayed a distinctive pattern of thought that differed from that of the poor performers. Better performing subjects attempted to gain an understanding of the system structure before they proceeded to develop strategies and take action. The findings revealed a cyclical thought pattern that was consistently followed by better performing participants. This pattern, termed the CPA cycle, consists of three distinct phases of conception, planning, and action. This research contributes to the fields of systems thinking and complex decision making by integrating knowledge and methodology from several disciplines including psychology, management and IT. Specific contributions include a novel research methodology and, in particular, operationalization of the systems thinking paradigm, as well as identification of disaggregated factors affecting complex decision making. The managerial and organizational implications of the research are compelling and invite further research in this nascent field. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In Section I, I criticize the view, implied by the concept of rational economic man, that feelings are inherently opposed to rationality. I attempt to show that emotions or feelings are essential to the proper functioning of reason, rational objectivity, and practical rationality or rational decision making. In addition, I argue that emotions can help to resolve certain ethical dilemmas. In Section II, I consider business writers who criticize business for overemphasizing the head at the expense of feelings or the heart. In Section III, I discuss the connection between material self-interest (as manifested in trade) – a concept of rational economic man – and business virtues.
Recent business headlines, particularly those related to the collapsed energy-trading giant, Enron and its auditor, Arthur Andersen raise concerns about accountants'' ethical reasoning. We propose, and provide evidence from 90 new auditors from Big-Five accounting firms, that a selection-socialization effect exists in the accounting profession that results in hiring accountants with disproportionately higher levels of the Sensing/Thinking (ST) cognitive style. This finding is important and relevant because we also find that the ST cognitive style is associated with relatively low levels of ethical reasoning, regardless of gender. This finding implies a need for emphasis on the ethical training of accountants. The results also suggest that accounting firms should consider recruiting accountants with cognitive styles associated with relatively higher levels of ethical reasoning.
This research examines the relationships among leader self-concept based dispositional attributes (i.e., self-consciousness, self-monitoring, and purpose-in-life) with ratings of charismatic leadership. Questionnaires were used to collect data from different sources: 64 managers rated themselves on self-concept based dispositional attributes, while 194 subordinates assessed their manager's leadership style. Results indicated that leader private self-consciousness, self-monitoring, and purpose-in-life were positively related to charismatic leadership. Leader purpose-in-life was negatively related to both private and public self-consciousness. Private self-consciousness was positively related to self-monitoring. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.
Recently researchers have debated the nature and significance of the cognitive style construct as a basis for understanding individual differences in behaviour in organizations. Two rival theoretical traditions prevail, one group of scholars arguing that cognitive style is best conceived within complex, multidimensional frameworks, others contending that the various facets of style can be meaningfully subsumed under a single, overarching dimension. The Allinson-Hayes Cognitive Style Index (CSI) is a 38-item instrument, predicated on the unitarist conception of the construct. This paper presents theoretical and methodological arguments as to why the previously hypothesized unifactoral structure of the CSI is potentially found wanting. Two variants (oblique versus orthogonal factors) of an alternative twofactor model, comprising separate analytic and intuitive dimensions, are developed and the results are reported of a series of principal components and confirmatory factor analyses (N =939) designed to overcome the limitations of previous research into the factor structure of the CSI. The results strongly indicate that the twofactor model with correlated factors provides a better approximation of responses to the CSI than previously reported unifactoral solutions. In the light of these findings we propose a revised scoring procedure, in which the analysis and intuition items are treated as separate scales, and consider the implications for future theory-building, research and practice.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 1995. Typescript (photocopy). Vita. Includes bibliographical references.
Emotional intelligence (EI) has been an emerging topic for psychological, educational, and management researchers and consultants in recent years. Unfortunately, there have been relatively few empirical studies on EI conducted with scientific rigor, especially in Asia. A recent study clarified the definition of EI as a set of mental abilities related to emotions, and developed a self-report EI measure by demonstrating the relationships between EI and life satisfaction, job performance, and job satisfaction for Chinese respondents. To facilitate future EI research and EI-related human resource practices in Asia, we develop an alternative EI measure in this series of four studies using forced choice items. Scenarios with alternative responses showing different levels of EI were generated in the first study, and 20 items were selected empirically. In the second study, pairs of abilities were generated and 20 EI items were paired with various ability facets. In the third study, we examined the social desirability of the 40 items developed in the first two studies. In the fourth study, these 40 EI items were cross-validated. The results indicated that this forced choice EI-scale had acceptable convergent, discriminant and predictive validity using life satisfaction, job performance, and job satisfaction as criterion variables. We discussed the implications of our findings in the conclusion.