Intuition, intertemporal preferences and budget

Abstract

This study examined how the intuitive aspects of humans impact on the intertemporal allocation of resources in organizational activities. Making use of a survey, scenarios were arranged to measure the cognitive ability of respondents and to identify their preferences related to resource allocation in budget decisions. A scale of six items was used to investigate how the intervening variable “participation in the budgeting process” was manifested in the relationship between cognitive classification of individuals and their intertemporal preferences. The survey was conducted among a sample comprised of 125 graduate students in Salvador, Bahia, enrolled in different courses. Multiple logistic regression was used for the main analysis of the data and additionally, we used a non-parametric analysis. The findings obtained by main analysis using multiple logistic regression suggest that the classification of individuals as intuitive or non-intuitive does not contribute to the explanation of intertemporal choices. However, additional analysis, by applying the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test suggested the existence of an association between cognitive classification of individuals and intertemporal choices. The results also indicated that participation in the budget process does not influence significantly the relation between intuition, defined from the cognitive classification of the respondents, and the intertemporal choices of individuals.

Keywords: intuition, intertemporal preferences, cognitive classification, resources allocation.