‘What happens when you intuit?’: Understanding human resource practitioners’ subjective experience of intuition through a novel linguistic method

Abstract

The objective of this research was to understand the phenomenon of intuition from the perspective of the intuitor. Against a background of a steadily growing interest in intuition in managerial decision research, and inclining towards a phenomenological stance, the research used a novel linguistic method based on ‘de-nominalization’ to access participants’ (124 human resource practitioners) experiences of intuition. Based on an analysis of responses to the question ‘What happens when you intuit?’, the article: defines intuition based on participants’ subjective experiences; reveals the subjective experience of intuition as comprising three phases − ‘intuiting’, ‘intuition’ and ‘implementing’; uncovers two aspects of intuitive affect − ‘bodily awareness’ and ‘cognitive awareness’; and establishes that participants use primary metaphors to articulate their experiences of intuition. The article outlines the theoretical implications and practical relevance of these findings, and makes suggestions for further qualitative phenomenological studies of intuition.