A Study On Social Network Structure And Ambidexterity On Intuitive Decision Making Effectiveness Of Knowledge Workers

Based on expertise in a specific field,Knowledge Intensive Business Service(KIBS)provides knowledge products to customers.The KIBS employees are knowledge workers facing a decision making condition with the characteristics of complex,dynamism,uncertainty and ambiguity.Researches find that expertise and environmental dynamism both will lead to more intuition use,which suggests the popularity of intuitive decision making in KIBS enterprises.However,at present,decision making research in China mainly concentrates on System 2,few is related with the use and effectiveness of intuition in management practice.Therefore,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to make research on the mechanism of enhancing intuition effectiveness,so as to increase the performance of individuals and organizations,at the same time to build competitive advantage of companies.This study is focusing on the relationship of social network structure and intuition effectiveness.Based on the theory of ambidexterity,the mediating role of invidual ambidexterity between social network structure and intuition effeictiveness is tested.Existing literatures mainly concentrate on the influence of expertise on intuition effectiveness starting from individuals,leading to less explanatory power for intuition effectiveness.With ambidexterity as a new variable in addition to expertise,this research explains the relationship of social network structure and intuition effectiveness,as well as tests the moderating role of information heterogeneity and environmental dynamism on the relationship between ambidexterity and intuition effectiveness.In the whole network research on a representative KIBS enterprise,altogether 108 valid questionnaires are collected and used in the analysis by SPSS 18.0,UCINET 6.0 and Amos 7.0.After the analysis of reliability and validity,16 research hypotheses are tested through hierarchical regression method.The study draws conclusions as follows:(1)The inner-degree centrality over moderate level is positively associated with intuition effectiveness,among which individual ambidexterity works as a mediator.Located in the hub of knowledge and information flow,people with high inner-degree centrality receive large amounts of information contributing to the complexity of schemas.However,as the level of inner-degree centrality increases,schemas become too complex to be short of flexibility since the relationship between attributes and sub-schemas is fixed.Strong inner-degree centrality over the moderate level will benefit the growth of individual ambidexterity so that an open and flexible way of thinking is nurtured in the process of division and integration of paradoxical cognition.In this way,the enhanced schema flexibility,together with increasing schema complexity will boost the effectiveness of intuition.(2)When market environmental dynamism is higher than technology environmental dynamism,the ambidexterity with market exploration is more strongly and positively associated with intuition effectiveness than is the ambidexterity with operation exploration.Moreover,the ambidextertiy combining market and operation is more strongly and positively associated with intuition effectiveness than is the ambidexterity with single dimension of market or operation.Altogether four types of individual ambidexterity can be divided in KIBS employees as market exploration and exploitation,operation exploration and exploitation,market exploration-operation exploitation,and market exploitation-operation exploration.Research finds that comparing with market exploration and exploitation,the positive relationship between market exploration-operation exploitation and intuition effectiveness is stronger,but the association of operation exploration and exploitation,market exploitation-operation exploration and intuition effectiveness is not proven.(3)Information heterogeneity and environmental dynamism play a moderating role in the relationship between ambidexterity and intuition effectiveness.Research finds that information heterogeneity will increase the positive association between operation exploration and exploitation.By keeping contact with a great number of non-redudant and heterogeneous information,people get to know more market information and knowledge.It may help lessen the negative result of"marketing myopia" brought by operation exploration and exploitation.Intuition is more suitable in the judgemental tasks lack of well accepted rules and regulations in highly dynamic environment.With the increasing schema flexibility brought by ambidexterity,people display high sensitivity and compatibility by modifying intuitive processes according to different decision making situations.However,it may increase the cost of knowledge use when intuitive decision making fits the situation and tasks,leading to low intuition effectiveness.The innovation of this study may have:?To further research on management decision making by analyzing the mechanism of enhancing intuition effectiveness in KIBS enterprises.?To bring a social perspective by making research on the relationship between social network structure and intuition effectiveness.?To include other variables as ambidexterity and flexibility in addition to expertise on the explanation of intuition effectiveness.In the final part,we make further discussion on research findings and propose possible applications in management practice.The limitations and prospects of the research are also pointed out.