Intuitive judgment: Nigerian small business owners & executives
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2026
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University of Cape Town
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Effective decision-making is widely recognized as the most important job of a leader of any organization. Leaders operating with limited data, significant uncertainty, and complexity rely on intuitive judgment to make good decisions that create value for their organizations. While experience is often considered the best way to build intuitive judgment, a central question remains: How do business owners foster this decisionmaking skill in their senior executives? This dissertation investigates this central question by assessing how the relationship between the business owner and their senior executives engenders intuitive judgment. While extensive research has been conducted on intuitive judgment in large companies, there is limited knowledge of the experiences of small businesses in emerging economies, with no evidence on how the relationship between the business owner and their senior executives fosters or hinders their ability to develop intuitive judgment. Using a qualitative approach that consisted of semi-structured interviews, the researcher engaged with thirty small business owners in Lagos, Nigeria, to examine their understanding and use of intuitive judgment, as well as their approaches to enabling their senior executives to develop this capacity. The research identifies seven approaches utilized by business owners, with three critical ones: providing room for mistakes, encouraging a culture of learning that includes reading and attending training programs, and creating strict systems and structures that foster intuitive judgment. There was some overlap in the senior managers' perspectives. In addition to room for mistakes and the presence of strict systems and structures, senior managers cited the trust placed on them by the business owners and their decisionmaking autonomy as critical for developing and strengthening their intuitive judgment muscles. Interestingly, only 14% of the small businesses demonstrated complete alignment between the perspectives of the business owners and their senior executives in the approaches utilized, exposing a clear perception and implementation gap. The research revealed the decision-making grooming styles, mindsets, and enabling work environments that either foster or limit the emergence of intuitive judgment. It also addresses the challenges of building decision-making autonomy in a low-trust landscape. The research demonstrates the unique potential for creating an enabling culture for conscious and active knowledge transfer, aligned approaches, collaboration, and experience building in a complex operating environment to enhance intuitive judgment.
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Nwuneli, N. 2026. Intuitive judgment: Nigerian small business owners & executives. . University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Commerce ,Graduate School of Business (GSB). http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43849