Intuition, prayer, and managerial decision‐making processes: a religion‐based framework

Abstract

Purpose

Executives are challenged every day to make important decisions that affect the performance of their business enterprises and, as a result, the success of their own careers. Based on that scenario, one cannot expect that only the rational approach works like a panacea for all managerial problems. This paper aims to propose that the best solution tends to embrace a complementary or integrated decision‐making approach.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper seeks to demonstrate that the convergence between rational and non‐rational decision‐making processes can be optimized by integrating several religious tenets.

Findings

The paper finds strong evidence that a religion‐based framework might enrich the sensitive topic of decision‐making processes in organizations.

Practical implications

Overall, the paper strives to show that intuition and prayer are two faces of the same coin, and argues that both forms of decision processes (e.g. rational and non‐rational analysis) might coexist perfectly in an integrative frame.

Originality/value

The article proposes prayer as a transcendent coping mechanism whereby executives might refine their intuition flux. As a result, it depicts a conceptual framework encapsulating all those constructs.

Citation

Ferreira Vasconcelos, A. (2009), "Intuition, prayer, and managerial decision‐making processes: a religion‐based framework", Management Decision, Vol. 47 No. 6, pp. 930-949. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740910966668