This study addresses the question of how strategists use intuiting practices in the process of sensing, navigating and creating strategic opportunities. Existing literature highlights the significant role and nature of intuition in strategy from a theoretical cognitive perspective, but does not examine intuition empirically as a practice utilised by strategists. We undertook a two-year longitudinal study of seven strategists in high-technology firms as they attempted to progress new strategic opportunities. Using abductive analysis of the resulting data, we found that when navigating novel opportunities the practitioners’ intuiting practices were predominantly based on unfolding creative and social types of intuition, as opposed to a rapid expertise-based intuition, previously thought to be the dominant type. We extend existing typologies to propose a dynamic cyclic model of unfolding intuiting practice in the opportunity navigation process. This model draws on dual process theory and includes phases of intimation, investigation, validation and incubation. We found that strategists cycle through these different phases in order to navigate novel spaces, leading to continuation or abandonment of the opportunity development.

本研究解决了战略家如何在感知、导航和创造战略机会的过程中使用直觉实践的问题。现有文献从理论认知的角度强调了直觉在战略中的重要作用和性质，但没有将直觉作为战略家使用的实践进行实证检验。我们对高科技公司的七位战略家进行了为期两年的纵向研究，因为他们试图推进新的战略机遇。通过对结果数据进行溯因分析，我们发现，在探索新机遇时，从业者的直觉实践主要基于展开的创造性和社会直觉类型，而不是基于快速专业知识的直觉，之前被认为是主要类型。我们扩展了现有的类型学，提出了一个在机会导航过程中展开直觉实践的动态循环模型。该模型借鉴了双过程理论，包括暗示、调查、验证和孵化阶段。我们发现战略家会在这些不同的阶段中循环，以探索新的空间，从而导致机会开发的继续或放弃。