The Recognition Heuristic in Innovation Management : An Experimental Pilot Study on Fast and Frugal Heuristics for Promoting Innovation

Intuitive decision making is a topic that has generated contrasting views due to the perceived trade-off between casting speedily AND accurate judgments. While cognitive psychologists have provided evidence suggesting that human intuition might lead to erroneous decisions, fast and frugal heuristics researchers have countered this view by presenting evidence showing that heuristics can indeed lead to fast and accurate decisions. Particularly, when the recognition heuristic is being accessed. The research on the recognition heuristic proposes that individuals can make accurate decisions when they are exposed to a reference class they know. However, little work has been done on the use of the recognition heuristic in the applied field of innovation management, which is important due to the inherent uncertainty involved in managing innovation. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate whether the recognition heuristic, as one of the building blocks of intuitive decision making, can help managers make accurate and fast decisions in innovation management. This paper reports on the results of three pilot experiments, a qualitative exploration, and a dispositional decision-making questionnaire where the recognition heuristic is applied in situations like those encountered when launching new products. This is a stage of innovation is relevant because new product launches tend to fail due to poor decision-making approaches. The evidence presented in this research suggest that the recognition heuristic can drive accurate intuitive judgments when selecting the best channel to launch a new product in market. It explores how the use of the recognition heuristic varies across groups of participants (N=44) and highlights the affordances of using intuition as a knowledge application strategy when managing an innovation project