No need to hide: Acknowledging the researcher’s intuition in empirical organizational research
探讨了组织研究中研究者直觉与学术严谨性的矛盾，提出通过区分创造性想象与验证，在保证严谨性的前提下合理纳入直觉，并给出具体操作建议。
Experts on organizational research methods have begun to highlight the importance of researchers’ intuition (i.e. ‘direct knowing’) and have called for more genuine method sections that acknowledge its use. However, using intuition contradicts established research standards of traceability. Hence, when intuition was involved in the research process, researchers must choose between reporting its role, thereby risking the impression of lacking scholarly rigor, and downplaying its role, thereby writing less-than-honest research reports. This article aims to provide a solution to this dilemma by conceptually exploring how intuition can be integrated in research such that scholarly rigor is maintained. Building on Weick’s distinction of creative imagination and validation, it argues that intuition can be legitimately seized if its functioning principles are taken into account and its outcomes are later validated through analytical procedures. The article synthesizes theoretical assumptions and empirical findings on characteristics of intuition with discussions of organizational research methods to derive implications on (1) points in the research process where researchers’ intuitions may be legitimately included and (2) possible types of intuitive outcomes that may be reported. This may contribute to both more genuine method sections and more rigorous research that systematically validates intuition, instead of hiding it.