17.

Facilitating intuitive decision-making and

an entrepreneurial mindset in corporate
culture – a case study
L. Murray Gillin

Most scholars agree that what differentiates entrepreneurs from other actors in
the economy is their behaviour (Bradley et al., 2011). Dane and Pratt (2007: 48)
highlight significant aspects of entrepreneurial behaviour as “the interplay between
rational and intuitive decision making”. Likewise, in terms of the cognitive basis
of making moral judgments and decisions, social psychologist Haidt (2013: 53)
identifies the crucial components as “intuition and reasoning”. Within this context,
Kreuger (2007) emphasizes the significance of entrepreneurial intentions, entre-
preneurial attitudes, deep cognitive structures and deep beliefs. All these findings
demonstrate the importance of a holistic view of entrepreneurial behaviour, oppor-
tunity focus, decision making and the spiritual/moral understandings that drive the
successful entrepreneur’s mindset.
Creating new products through opportunity recognition and creative
decision-making processes is the ‘front-end’ of innovation (Hyppänen, 2013).
Indeed, co-creation practices (Frow et al., 2016; Sarasvathy & Venkataraman,
2011) emphasize collaboration and interaction among multiple actors through the
integration of human, material and financial resources to deliver value propositions
perceived by the customer/user as innovation. Such perceptions of added value in the
marketplace are seen as elements resulting from intuitive insight and decisive actions,
associated with entrepreneurial behaviour and expressed as a corporate-wide culture
(Malewska, 2019). The identified creativity and cognitive style are associated with
individual differences in perceiving, behaving and solving problems (Ming-Huei et
al., 2015), and as such are critical to the majority of high performing global industries
and business executives (Henry & de Bruin, 2011). Intuitive decision-making behav-
iours that contribute to effective entrepreneurship and innovation include insight/
perceiving, gut feel, intuition, “knowing” a decision is right, solving problems,
taking decisions and relating to others – and what is referred to as non-local intuition
(Armstrong et al., 2012; Bradley et al., 2011; La Pira & Gillin, 2006; Sadler-Smith
& Shefy, 2004).
Examples of such decision making surrounding opportunity recognition, crea-
tivity, intuition and divergent thinking (reasoning) have largely been studied from
a cognitive perspective using both conscious and unconscious processes, including
pattern recognition and memory retrieval (Akinci, 2014; Mitchell et al., 2002, 2005;
Shane, 2003). Importantly, Blume and Covin (2011) argue for caution when attribut-

228
 Facilitating intuitive decision-making 229

ing intuition in decision-making as decisions around venture creation are influenced

by a number of factors. However, Cunha (2007) suggests the rational view of deci-
sion making needs to be harmonized with the intuitive and improvisational modes
in order to provide a richer and more integrated understanding of entrepreneurial
behaviour. Significantly, Dane and Pratt (2007) have concluded that the practice of
intuitive decision-making may be more relevant to executive decision makers dealing
with strategy, investment and related management issues. Both Kickul et al. (2010)
and Dane and Pratt (2007) also observe that intuition pertains less to learning the
process but more to the way how learning and information is accessed and practised.
Therefore, the effective use of explicit and implicit learning philosophies to influence
intuitive decision-making practice depends on establishing a rigorous and complex
cognitive framework. Intuitive perception, in this respect, enables decision makers
to process cues from sensed opportunities and behave entrepreneurially in delivering
innovations in the marketplace.
The presented case reviews how a strategic intervention within a large middle-market
financial services partnership in Melbourne, Australia, using an in-house delivered
university post-graduate entrepreneurship education program, cultivates an entre-
preneurial mindset and an effective innovation culture amongst company staff.
The intervention produces a measured change in staff decision-making style from
analytical to a more intuitive style. Also assessed is the resulting management style
(entrepreneurial mindset) and how it impacts the firm’s internal environment, strate-
gic motivation and performance.

ENTREPRENEURIAL COGNITIVE STYLE

Organizational psychologists identify entrepreneurial behaviour, or cultural expres-

sion in terms of ‘individual cognitive style’ (Allinson, et al., 2000; Armstrong et al.,
2012; Norris & Epstein, 2011), as including the following characteristics: individual
differences in perceiving reality, responding to opportunities, solving problems, and
taking decisions arising from intuitive thinking or information processing outside of
awareness by automatically learning from experience (i.e., experiential processing).
Nandram et al. (2018) objectivize these perceptions and subtle cues (both internal
and external) in terms of conscious emotions, thoughts, perceptions and information.
In considering distinctions between expert and novice entrepreneurs, Wang et al.
(2018) identify cognitively based intuition (seeing the bigger picture, sense making)
and affectively based intuition (gut feeling) as needed for effective decision making
in innovation. Such cognitive intuition is more strongly exhibited by expert entrepre-
neurs. Both aspects (cognitive and affect) are not in conflict or exclusive but work
simultaneously (Akinci & Sadler-Smith, 2012; Dane & Pratt, 2007; Hodgkinson et
al., 2009; Sinclair et al., 2009). Other aspects of entrepreneurial intuition, such as the
level of faith in intuition (Hicks et al., 2010) and the quantum approach to ‘non-local’
intuition (electrophysiology measures), are not the focus of this chapter but were
reviewed elsewhere (see Bradley et al., 2011).
230 Handbook of intuition research as practice

In seeking to further understand an entrepreneur’s propensity for intuitive

decision-making, this discussion is based on both cognitive and affective elements
being part of the same experiential system. Sinclair et al. (2009) argue that formal
mental simulation contributes creativity to an entrepreneurial business venture.
Perhaps this can be called an ‘entrepreneurial mindset’. Sinclair (2010) has proposed
the term ‘intuitive foresight’ as a forward-looking intuition. Blume and Covin (2011)
identify eight factors associated with the strength of an entrepreneur’s attributions
to intuition when making a venture founding decision. One of these factors – the
strength of the entrepreneur’s intuitive cognitive style, is contingent upon the indi-
vidual’s perception that intuition is an acceptable basis for decision making. In
reference to strategic cognition, Narayanan et al. (2011) portray strategy formulation
as a complex activity consisting of scanning, sense making and decision making,
with the structure and process of cognition significantly influencing the framing of
decisions. In considering our understanding of the role of culture/ entrepreneurial
behaviour in delivering effective innovations, Chaston and Sadler‐Smith (2012)
suggest a greater need to focus attention on the unique attributes of creative entrepre-
neurs and their effects on organizational process and performance. Such a focus may
also be studied under the concept of entrepreneurial mindset.

Choice of Cognitive Style Index (CSI)

Given the cognitive underpinnings (discussed above) of the entrepreneurial mindset,

entrepreneurial decision-making, entrepreneurial culture and other similar concep-
tualizations of entrepreneurial cognitions (Akinci & Sadler-Smith, 2013; Allinson
et al., 2000; Armstrong et al., 2012; Chaston & Sadler-Smith, 2012; Haynie et al.,
2010), it is appropriate to consider the choice of the ‘Cognitive Style Index’ (CSI) as
a tool for this study to measure (or as a proxy for) the propensity of entrepreneurial
decision-making behaviour and its relationship with culture.
The self-administered index (CSI: Allison & Hayes, 1996) is designed to test
the participant’s propensity for ‘intuitive decision-making’ compared to ‘analytic
decision-making’ on a continuum from one extreme to the other, with the premise
that successful entrepreneurs would be skewed towards the intuitive decision-making
end of the continuum (Allinson & Hayes, 2012). Alternatively, Hodgkinson and
Sadler-Smith (2003a, 2003b) view the propensity for intuitive and analytic cognition
as representing two poles where a person may not be just high on one and low on the
other (as suggested by the continuum model), but also high on both or low on both at
the same time. This alternative view, or ‘dual-process’, has been described by Evans
(2003: 458) as “two minds in one brain”.
Hodgkinson et al. (2009) have reviewed differences in the continuum versus
dual-process models to describe decision-making style associated with the dimensions
of intuition/experientiality and analysis/rationality and concluded the dual-process
model has a more convincing theoretical basis. That said, their findings show that for
CSI, the analytical and intuitive factors appear to overlap and interrelate, thus limit-
 Facilitating intuitive decision-making 231

ing any absolute use of CSI values (derived from Allinson & Hayes’, 1996 concept)
in cognitive style research.
Over many years, the author has used the CSI measure (Allinson & Hayes, 2012)
to initially screen and identify serial entrepreneurs participating in a study of ‘heart
rate variability’, intuition and opportunity decision-making (La Pira & Gillin, 2006).
From 2003 to 2019 some 300 serial entrepreneurs, post-graduate students studying
entrepreneurship and interested managers seeking to improve the entrepreneurial
behaviour/culture inside their organizations have completed a CSI measure. Analysis
and interpretation of these results found the CSI score to be a robust and reliable
indicator of entrepreneurial intent. Given this finding, and the need to maintain
consistency with these previous studies, all measures of decision-making style in this
study are based on the standard CSI measure (Allinson & Hayes, 1996).

ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET

Entrepreneurial mindset (EM) (Haynie et al., 2010; Ireland et al., 2003; Shepherd
et al., 2010) is a way of thinking about opportunities and effective innovation that
surface in the firm’s external and internal environment. By adopting an entrepre-
neurial mindset, Ireland et al. (2003) claim managers increase their ability to both
recognize opportunities and facilitate necessary resources to ‘make-it-happen’. This
outcome results in an entrepreneurial culture and effective entrepreneurial leader-
ship impacting the firm’s strategic management, innovation and wealth creation. In
considering how entrepreneurial either an individual’s mindset or an organization’s
culture is, Shepherd et al. (2010: 60) comment that “interdependencies exist between
the manager’s mindset and the staff/organisation culture such that entrepreneurial
culture and entrepreneurial mindset are inextricably interwoven”. Similarly, in con-
sidering the concept of cognition and decision- making, Haidt (2013: 52) finds that
emotions/gut feel/intuition and reasoning form a continuum of information process-
ing where “contrasting emotion with cognition is therefore pointless”.
In seeking to measure entrepreneurial mindset, Davis et al. (2015) developed
the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile (EMP), comprising a large set of individ-
ual characteristics including entrepreneurial personality and associated skill sets.
A meta-analysis (Stewart & Roth, 2007) of the link between ‘achievement moti-
vation’ and ‘entrepreneurial status’ found that entrepreneurs demonstrated reliably
higher achievement motivation than managers. In addition, entrepreneurs demon-
strated a higher ‘risk propensity’ than managers. In each case growth-oriented entre-
preneurs were characterized by significantly greater levels of EM than managers. It
is noted by Davis et al. (2015) that these results are based on an almost total reliance
on self-report data.
Using the ‘opportunity screening tool’ template, developed by Timmons et al.
(2011), Hazelton and Gillin (2019) adapted this tool for the self-assessment of EM
amongst selected nursing trailblazers in the health industry and also for senior part-
ners associated with the financial services partnership reviewed in the presented case.
232 Handbook of intuition research as practice

Four dimensions: leadership, decision making, behaviour and awareness, were used
to describe entrepreneurial performance. Each dimension was scaled, as indicated in
Figure 17.1, to measure the propensity for action on a five-point scale.

Figure 17.1 Entrepreneurial dimensions associated with evaluated personal

propensities

The implication for displaying these action styles is to provide holistic understanding
of the selected partner’s entrepreneurial mindset as achieved after participation in an
entrepreneurial learning pedagogy. Such information refers to the partner’s personal
development, and by extension, corporate entrepreneurial behaviour that contributes
to effective innovations that are valued by the partners in the partnership together
with clients of the firm.
The use of an EMP, as Davis et al. (2015) conclude, can provide would-be entre-
preneurs with a greater insight into how their entrepreneurial motives and skills
might affect outcomes; it can be valuable for organizations when constructing entre-
preneurial teams; and it can enable university staff to develop teaching programs
that help students understand EM as a concept and use it to grasp their own unique
entrepreneurial being.
 Facilitating intuitive decision-making 233

ENTREPRENEURIAL EDUCAITON INTERNVENTION:

A CASE STUDY

The studied financial services firm is a partnership in Melbourne, Australia, providing

financial and corporate advisory services to the ‘middle-market’ and family-based
businesses. This 30-year-old firm (600 staff) faces ongoing change and business
disruptions, including compliance conformity, technology changes, speed of regu-
latory change and an aging population. In 2010 the firm recognized the need to seek
an appropriate strategy, identify ways to continue to be successful, learn quickly, be
ahead of the game and see change coming rather than simply reacting to it.
Following an internal entrepreneurial health audit identifying the firm’s need for
more effective staff creativity and cross-discipline teamwork (Gillin et al., 2018), the
partners chose to invest in an education intervention where the focus would not be on
general management skills but on the development of creative skills and practices,
nurturing an entrepreneurial culture that identifies opportunities and effectively
delivers innovations needed in the marketplace. One partner noted:

We’ve always been an entrepreneurial firm with a strong entrepreneurial legacy from the
founding partners. The intervention will reinforce that entrepreneurial behaviour; it’s the
next natural step. (Partner 6)

Based on a specification for post-graduate entrepreneurial education at the Master’s

level and accredited by AACSB, the supporting brief included the following
requirements: provide a nested group of post-graduate award programs at Graduate
Certificate, Graduate Diploma and Master’s level; deliver quality and integrated
learning through a team of experienced professors, inspiring pracademics and
dynamic entrepreneurs, using a portfolio of learning practices (Neck et al., 2014);
apply the concept of theory for practice sake rather than theory for theory sake;
integrate curriculum design with academic materials, experiential learning, entrepre-
neurial theory, practice and experience; teach from in-house and external case studies
in the Harvard style; incorporate an applied research project selected from firm/client
identified opportunities; use the block teaching mode to meet staff availability; direct
students to search for opportunities to evaluate early in the first term; seek application
of learning to in-house business practice and/or with family business clients; teach
innovation as the ‘tool’ of the entrepreneur where innovation is defined as “the
process that endows a recognized opportunity with the capacity to add value to an
already existent invention, product, process or service and at a price a customer will
pay” (author definition); and develop an international dimension to entrepreneurship.
The selected provider was the Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and
Innovation Centre (ECIC) at the University of Adelaide (2011‒2016). Since 2017 the
provider is the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (AGSE), Swinburne
University of Technology. All contracted staff, teaching in the Melbourne office of
the partnership, were highly experienced with a proven track record for delivering
behavioural change from the applied learning methods. In particular, each staff
234 Handbook of intuition research as practice

member was academically qualified at PhD/Master’s level, passionate to exchange

knowledge and practice, inspirational in presentation, and committed to a holistic
mindset in entrepreneurial education. Emphasis was placed on staff developing
the human dimensions – intellectual, emotional; and spiritual – to further effective
decision making and entrepreneurial behaviour. Learning practices included use of
creative tools and mindsets to both identify and evaluate opportunities; workshops
with practising serial entrepreneurs; exercises and practice in emotional and spiritual
intelligence; student case writing of corporate entrepreneurial outcomes; ethical dis-
cussions around entrepreneurial mindset and the dimensions of leadership, decision
making, behaviour and awareness.
On average, the student cohort for each yearly intake (for a seven-year period)
was around 20 comprising partners, principals and senior managers of the firm. The
groups ranged in age from 32 to 54 years, were predominantly male (overall 20 per
cent female) and mainly Caucasian. Some 120 students completed various levels
of the program (40 Graduate Certificates, 60 Graduate Diplomas and 20 Master’s
degrees). All students completed a CSI survey on entry and repeated it after exiting
the courses and gaining further experience in the firm. In addition, structured inter-
views were conducted with a selection of partners to elucidate observed changes in
staff behaviour in terms of opportunity identification and post-course behaviours. In
2019 selected partners of the firm, including the four who completed the Master’s
degree, were surveyed with an instrument to evaluate personal EM propensity.

ENTREPRENEURIAL EDUCATION EFFECTS

Decision-Making Style

In the first two years of the entrepreneurship program (2011 and 2012) when using
CSI to measure changes in propensity for intuitive decision-making, only a little
change was observed (see mean values in orange bars, Figure 17.2). Indeed, the
scores were close to the world mean for managers (on the analytical side of the
mid-point) as determined from international testing (Allinson et al., 2000). However,
over subsequent years (2013 to 2017) the decision style score moved below the
mid-point, towards a more intuitive style, reaching a mean score close to the world
mean for entrepreneurs. This significant shift from 2010 to 2017 represented
a change of 17.8 per cent (Gillin et al., 2018). Re-measurement of CSI levels of
previously graduated staff in 2018 (see Figure 17.2) suggests they either maintained
or marginally improved their propensity for intuitive decision-making after their
completion of the program. The outliers for each cohort are also shown.
 Facilitating intuitive decision-making 235

Figure 17.2 Cognitive Style Index (CSI): Participants in entrepreneurship

course – at start of each course 2011‒2017 and re-measured in
November 2018

Figure 17.3 Entrepreneurial mindset propensities for six partners

236 Handbook of intuition research as practice

Entrepreneurial Mindset

Completion of the Entrepreneurial Mindset survey by a cross section of firm partners

in 2019 (see Figure 17.3) indicates that those partners who completed the (in-house)
Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, namely Partner 1, 3, 4 and 6, show
a greater propensity for intuitive EM characteristics over the general partnership,
represented by Partner 2 and 5.

Partner Interviews

Development of the firm’s entrepreneurial culture and EM characteristics follow-

ing participation in the education intervention are best understood by considering
comments extracted from structured interviews with partners who completed 4, 8
or 12 course units. These interviews reveal a significantly positive attitude towards
entrepreneurship within the organization, and a broad range of initiatives that support
a corporate entrepreneurial strategy. The findings are grouped around the four
dimensions of entrepreneurial mindset, as shown in Figure 17.3 with the associated
characteristics:

Behaviour – Pro-active/Reactive:

• It is generally accepted by the senior partnership that if you don’t continually adapt and
change as a professional practice, you risk irrelevancy in the market. Entrepreneurship
and a willingness to innovate are seen as essential. (Partner 4)
• We have to be proactive and responsive, anticipating our clients’ needs so that we
are a step ahead. There is a great level of complexity, complexity around regulation,
accounting rules, taxation rules … You need to be more anticipatory, ahead of the
curve, see the problems before the problems occur … The next evolution is all about
preventing the problems, predicting the future, creating the future … That is the direc-
tion we are going as a firm. (Partner 3)

Decision Making – Intuitive/Analytical:

• We want our staff to continually look outside the firm, understand what the opportuni-
ties might be for us to grow and for us to better service our clients. This has always been
encouraged by management. If there are good ideas, if they’re well thought through,
you want partners to have a go. If it works, fantastic, if it doesn’t work, fine, we move
on. (Managing Partner)
• We’re not prepared to put the reputation of the firm at risk, but we are prepared to invest
in growing the business through innovation, and if some of those initiatives work, great,
if not, we move on. (Managing Partner)
• We don’t encourage risk as an end in itself. At the same time, we have supported some
‘risky’ projects that had a good business plan. (Partner 1)
 Facilitating intuitive decision-making 237

Leadership – Collaborative/Directive:

• We’re aware that not tapping into the innate, innovative abilities of over 600 staff, that
we’re relying on a small partner group. So, there’s a lost opportunity. An innovation
committee was formed recently with a view to addressing this point, looking at ways
of germinating ideas, capturing ideas, and funding them, across the firm. We need to
harness the power of everybody. (Partner 3)
• We have supported projects related to entrepreneurship of the next generation, projects
on entrepreneurship incubators. Through the Institute we have captured a lot of intel-
lectual property that we want to develop further. We need to leverage off some of the
projects that have been developed by those who have completed the master’s course.
(Partner 6)

Awareness – Spirituality/Cognitive:

• We’re now dealing more with entrepreneurs, and we have the confidence to do it.
(Managing Partner)
• It enables us to initiate new conversations with our clients. It’s a different conversation,
it enables us to inspire our clients and make them more aspirational. It gives you the
capacity to empathize with your clients better and engage with them better. (Partner 6)
• The type of work that our people were doing has changed … We were looking for
a reskilling of our core capabilities around the provision of valuable business advice,
and it was too important to leave it to others, essentially. This in-house program is a key
ingredient in the education of an ‘aware’ business advisor. (Partner 3)

THINKING DISPOSITIONS ON CULTURE CHANGE AND

BEHAVIOUR

The claustrophobic impact of a focus on compliance in accounting and financial ser-

vices can take precedence over the necessary attention and time required to develop
staff in the firm’s commitment to deliver specialist advising services to their clients
and to build a high degree of trust. One solution identified by partners of the studied
firm was to consider a strategic initiative to cultivate corporate entrepreneurship,
intuitive decision-making style and an entrepreneurial mindset amongst staff across
the organization, with a focus on identifying and evaluating opportunities, and also
sharing these skills with clients in order to grow both the firm and client businesses.
Such strategic approach produces added value in the marketplace (Malewska, 2019)
and develops staff with strong cognitive-based intuitive behaviour better suited to
manage uncertainty (Wang et al., 2018).
After seven years of in-house entrepreneurship education within the firm, as
reported above, it is clear that an effective change, both in firm and personal entrepre-
neurial behaviour, is the key to innovation, productivity and effective competition.
By enhancing intuitive decision-making skills and developing an entrepreneurial
mindset, the measured changes amongst course participants confirm that entrepre-
neurial thinking and associated behaviour as well as practice can be taught (Neck et
al., 2014). Indeed, this case confirms that exposure of staff to selected pedagogical
238 Handbook of intuition research as practice

principles, appropriate entrepreneurship education programs and inspirational lectur-

ing staff can and does affect changes in participants both personally and corporately
in regard to opportunity focus, entrepreneurial mindset and strategic culture (Davis
et al.,2015). As Kickul et al. (2010) showed, this impact pertains less to learning the
process but rather to the way how learning and information is accessed and practised.
In addition, the reported findings confirm the conclusion of Sadler-Smith (2016) that
businesses exercising strong intuitive cognition in decision making are more likely to
identify opportunities that can be turned into new business markets (and innovation).
Significantly, results from this longitudinal case study have demonstrated the
value of Cognitive Style Index (CSI) for assessing the impact of entrepreneurship
learning/training aimed at the development of staff culture and practice that is both
passionate and committed to being opportunity focused, creative, team-based, pro-
viding outstanding service to clients and delivering effective innovation that grows
the business. This finding confirms Blume and Covin’s (2011) conclusion that the
strength of the entrepreneur’s intuitive cognitive style is contingent upon the indi-
vidual's perception that intuition is an acceptable basis for decision making. There
has been much debate over the theoretical foundations of the Allinson et al.’s (2000)
CSI instrument and it is accepted that a dual process-based index would produce
more precise measures. However, in this study the CSI is robust enough to provide
confidence in assessing staff change/behaviours resulting from entrepreneurship
education and training.
Importantly, the administration of the CSI over a seven-year period in each entry
cohort provides a valuable insight into the long-term impact of such entrepreneurship
learning. Even when tested several years after the initial course experience, the
participating staff have retained their propensity towards intuitive decision-making
style. This experience can guide academics in developing teaching programs that
enable students to understand EM as a concept and their own unique entrepreneurial
being (Davis et al., 2015).
It is worth noting that the CSI was administered to participants as they entered
a new cohort of the program. They had no formal course work in the degree program
before taking the CSI. Yet each successive cohort on entry indicated a higher pro-
pensity towards intuitive decision-making than the previous one. This was not under-
stood until analysing the comments made by partners in the structured interviews. It
became clear that as each cohort progressed through the program, the participants
were sharing their learning, sharing new opportunities, socializing and developing
a new culture. The partners claimed that as existing staff observed the change they
sought to associate with it and finally apply to do the course. This effective change in
corporate culture was captured by the CSI testing. As partners noted:

What I see now is that the type of conversations that the people who have been through the
program have with their clients is very different. They are far more forward looking, they
are open to questions, they are more conscious of the client’s environment, their competi-
tive situation and the opportunities, and they will engage more holistically with the client.
(Partner 3)
 Facilitating intuitive decision-making 239

A lot of the innovation that is happening internally in the firm comes from projects that
were developed during the course. You can see the difference in the people who have done
the course. There’s no question about it. (Partner 6)

This is in accord with the findings of Ireland et al. (2003) that managers who rec-
ognize and drive opportunities in the organization add to the development of an
entrepreneurial culture by impacting firm strategic management, innovation and
wealth creation.
In addition, results of the EM survey of selected partners confirm Shepherd et
al.’s (2010) finding that personal entrepreneurial mindset is inextricably interwoven
with an expressed organizational entrepreneurial culture. The four dimensions of
EM (Hazelton & Gillin, 2019) and their associated characteristic propensities (see
Figure 17.1) provide a good match with the rankings of personal style in the sample
of six partners. Importantly, the interwoven nature of corporate culture and personal
mindset is further confirmed by those partners with an entrepreneurship Master’s
degree who showed a strong propensity towards collaborative leadership, intuitive
decision-making, pro-active behaviour and spiritual awareness in overall perfor-
mance when compared to the non-participant partners. In line with Dane and Pratt
(2007), these EM partners acknowledge the valuable contribution to entrepreneurial
mindset formation that the entrepreneurial education programs have made to the firm
and their employees by establishing a rigorous and complex cognitive framework.
One partner observed:

It puts you into the mindset of what an entrepreneur would be thinking. It helps in framing
the questions and framing the structure. (Partner 3)

Overall, developing a strong intuitive decision-making mindset within the firm

culture feeds into enhanced opportunity recognition and creative skills to deliver
opportunities that can be turned into new business markets (and innovation). It
also confirms Sadler-Smith’s (2016) observation that staff with positive intuitive
decision-making style produces much stronger outcomes when compared with indi-
viduals possessing a mainly analytical cognitive style. The reported study confirms
also the observation of Davis et al. (2015) that entrepreneur-minded decision makers
demonstrate a higher ‘risk propensity’ than managers.

CONCLUSIONS

This seven-year commitment to entrepreneurship in-house education by participat-

ing staff (partners and senior managers) and continued financial investment by the
firm have resulted in a significant change in the firm’s culture. The development
of dynamic staff with an opportunity focus and a positive increase in propensity
for intuitive thinking and decision-making, correlate strongly with the increase in
innovation culture and improvement in the firm’s competitiveness and profitability.
240 Handbook of intuition research as practice

These have demonstrated the value of the Cognitive Style Index (CSI) for
assessing changes in thinking and decision-making styles following participation
in a purpose-designed entrepreneurship education program. The establishment and
recognition of the importance of intuition and intuitive decision-making style for the
development of an entrepreneurial mindset may not create theory of itself but intui-
tion theory will need to be consistent with these observations. It would be instructive
if a dual process-based instrument could be used in conjunction with entrepreneurial
learning to further assess validity of the appropriate theory construction.
The case study shows that ‘firm-partner management’ has a passionate commit-
ment to further developing intuitive thinking and decision-making amongst staff
as part of the entrepreneurial mindset within the firm. Significantly, the findings
demonstrate the importance of a holistic view of entrepreneurial behaviour, oppor-
tunity focus, decision making and the spiritual/moral understanding that drive a suc-
cessful entrepreneur mindset. This new way of thinking about opportunities is now
an established entrepreneurial strategy that involves the firm’s external environment
and the commitments, decisions and actions necessary to pursue them, especially
under conditions of uncertainty that commonly accompany rapid and significant
environmental changes.

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