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Fast and intuitive thinking, as well as emotions, play a large role in decision-making. The sociology of wise practice within public administration also suggests that thinking preferences like the use of intuition form a cornerstone of public administrators' virtuous practice. This contribution uses conceptual and theoretical resources from behavioral sciences and public administration to find out whether individual-level differences between public and private sector employees exist with regard to thinking preferences. The article investigates variables that have been subject to extensive research and integrate their clout with the discourse in public administration. Institutional frameworks and social structures may enable or impede the habituation of virtue. The contribution empirically analyses this assumption with respondents from North America (n = 247) and the European Union (n = 1532) with regard to the thinking styles' preference for intuition and preference for deliberation. The public and private sectors differ significantly in terms of preference for deliberative as well as intuitive thinking. A surprising result is that private-sector employees rank higher than public sector employees on both scales. Differences in deliberation show a small effect whereas the effect size with regard to intuitive thinking is negligible. The discussion explores possible explanations for such differences and similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To make good decisions, employees must manage their own intuitions and be able to anticipate decision-making in their work environment. How well this is accomplished has significant consequences for the workplace. A closer examination indicates that individuals utilize various types of intuition. People’s work context is frequently omitted from studies on the use of intuition, resulting in a literature that omits vital aspects of decision-making. To assist applicable research in the workplace, our contribution to the management literature is a comprehensive overview of intuitive decision-making types. Current psychological assessment scales constitute a mature discipline, but they frequently lack the professional applications needed in business administration and economics. Considering this, the primary objective of this article is to assemble and assess many types of intuition and combine them into a new lens for research in the theory and practice of business using a multidimensional approach. It is comprised of rational choice theory, classical intuitive decision making, emotional decisions (gut feelings), fast heuristic decisions, unconscious thought, and anticipation. The overview of several scientifically proven measuring scales produces a theoretical foundation for future empirical study in business administration and economics based on these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]