A training programme for entrepreneurial intuition

Abstract

Entrepreneurs face many situations that are fraught with uncertainty, and they are frequently constrained to make decisions under time pressure and limited or inaccurate information. Under such conditions, the rapid and holistic nature of intuition is likely to be more effective than slower, detail-oriented analysis. Most entrepreneurs – including novices – are able to engage in analysis (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 2005), but intuition in the context of entrepreneurship has been found to derive from domain-relevant experience, such that experienced entrepreneurs are better able to employ intuition, and with superior effects (e.g., Baldacchino et al., 2022). Various authors (Hogarth, 2001; Klein, 2004; Sadler-Smith, 2010; Sadler-Smith & Shefy, 2004, 2007) have suggested that individuals might not need to wait until they gain experience in order to develop their intuition, and they proposed various ways to enhance one’s ability to engage in effective intuitive processing. However, these works were not intended specifically for entrepreneurs and, considering the domain-specificity of intuition, there was a gap in the literature on how to develop entrepreneurial intuition. This gap was partly addressed by Baldacchino (2019), who proposed a training programme outline composed of six steps, namely (1) recognise intuition, (2) explore intuition, (3) enable intuition, (4) strengthen intuition, (5) challenge intuition, and (6) blend intuition with analysis. This consolidated much of the earlier work (cited above), but it was only a descriptive overview of what such a programme could include. In this presentation, we discuss how we further developed the six-step outline into a fleshed-out training programme including learning outcomes, training content and practice activities tailored specifically for the entrepreneurship domain. We hope that by providing further details on our training programme and by highlighting its effectiveness, we can encourage more educators, training providers and entrepreneurs to take on the challenge of developing entrepreneurial intuition.