COGNITIVE STYLE AND BUSINESS POSTGRADUATES IN TURKEY: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

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1 COGNITIVE STYLE AND BUSINESS POSTGRADUATES IN TURKEY: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS SALİM ATAY Research Assistant Doctoral Candidate Tel.: Fax: SİNAN ARTAN Professor Chair of Management and Organization Marmara University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences İşletme Bölümü, İncirli/İSTANBUL Key Words: Cognition, Cognitive Style, Cognitive Style Index, Analytic, Intuitive. Summary: This study attempts to measure the cognitive style of business postgraduate students and its variation with demographic variables. A recently developed Cognitive Style Index (CSI), which is appropriate for this study was administered to 152 business postgraduates. The CSI considers the intuitive and analytical dimensions of information processing, two key elements which underlie cognitive style. Of the ten demographic categories, participants have scored significantly different on the CSI index. These variables are, namely education level of participant s mother, religion, political affiliation, and income level. No significant differences, however, found between the CSI index and the variables including gender, level of graduate study, field of study, education level of participant s father, religiosity, place of grown up. INTRODUCTION During the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in cognitive style among management researchers and practitioners. Cognitive style is a person s preferred way of gathering, processing, and evaluating information. It influences how people scan their environment for information, how they organize and interpret this information, and how they integrate their interpretations into the mental model and subjective theories that guide their action (Hayes & Allinson, 1998). Lezak (1995) conceptualizes behavior in terms of three functional systems: (1) cognition, which is the information-handling aspect of behavior; (2) emotionality, which concerns feelings and motivation; and (3) executive function, which have to do with how 176

2 behavior is expressed. Of these aspects of behavior, cognition is the way a person acquires, stores and uses knowledge. The four major classes of cognitive functions have their analogues in the computer operations of input, storage, processing (e.g., sorting, combining, relating data in various ways), and output. The literature on cognitive styles has various implications for management practice as well as organizational psychology. First, understanding one s cognitive style is an important facet of any self-development process and should begin to develop a knowledge and understanding of their own cognitive style. Second a number of cognitive style dimensions may be useful in personnel selection. Another work-oriented application of cognitive style is in the area of careers guidance and counseling. Cognitive style can have also important implications for task design, team composition, conflict management, training and development. Finally, helping people understand the implications of their own and others cognitive style can provide a basis for team building and individual and group counseling activities designed to foster better working relationships (Kirton, 1980). The wide variety of previous studies on cognitive style dimensions have led to the proliferation of empirical studies using different measures of cognitive styles, which have resulted in a complex and confusing field of study. A more serious problem, however, has been the lack of valid and reliable measures appropriate for use in various organization settings (see Hayes and Allinson, 1994 for a detailed review). Building on an extensive review of literature, Allinson and Hayes (1996) developed a new measure of cognitive style that is psychometrically sound and convenient to administer in organizational studies. Through this instrument, they were able to reduce the wide variety of styles conceptualized in the literature to a single, superordinate dimension hypothesized by many theorists. This measure of cognitive style, so-called Cognitive Style Index (CSI) (Allinson & Hayes, 1996), is appropriate for this study, because it considers the intuitive and analytical dimensions of information processing, two key elements which underlie cognitive style. People tend to favor one cognitive style over another and their style may fall along a continuum between the two end points of intuition and analysis. Intuition, characteristic of the right brain orientation, refers to immediate judgment based on feeling and the adoption of a global perspective. Analysis, characteristic of the left brain orientation, refers to judgment based on mental reasoning and a focus on detail. These right-left patterns are not merely transient; people seem to have a rather permanent stylistic orientation to the use of one hemisphere. Intuitivists (right-brain dominant) tend to be relatively nonconformist, prefer an open-ended approach to problem solving, rely on random methods of exploration, remember spatial images most easily, and work best with ideas requiring overall assessment. Analysts (left-brain dominant) tend to be more compliant, favor a structured approach to problem solving, depend on systematic methods of investigation, recall verbal material most readily and are especially comfortable with ideas requiring step by step analysis. A similar typology has been provided by Wilson, 1988 (quoted in Hayes and Allison, 1994), where he identified different functions associated with the right and left hemispheres. These functions according to Wilson, are reflected in the characteristics of many cognitive styles. Using Trotter s (1986) functions to categorize a selection of styles, Miller proposed his typology which is shown in Table 1. As part of a broader, ongoing research project, the purpose of this paper is to develop a preliminary examination of the cognitive style of postgraduate business students at Marmara University of Turkey. The second and third stage of the project will explore the cognitive style of managers across a range of organizations and nations as well as its relationship to managerial values. 177

3 The study essentially explores the cognitive styles of postgraduate business students and examines how the measurement of the Cognitive Style Index varies in terms of students demographic characteristics. Next section provides the research methods used in the study. Results and discussion of the findings are provided in the final section. METHODOLOGY The study involved a sample of 152 of postgraduate business students on the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, at Marmara University, Turkey. In terms of the demographic profile of respondents, as shown in Table 2, 78 participants (51.3%) are male and 74 are female (48.7%). Nearly 78 per cent of the participants are enrolled in a master program, with the remainder being enrolled in a Ph.D. program. In terms of fields within the broader business program, 54 (35.5%) chose management and organization, 37 (24.3%) marketing, 31 (20.4%) accounting, and 30 (19.7%) chose human resource management. Majority of the participants are predominantly Muslim (84.2%) with the remainder belonging to other religions. With regard to religiosity of participants, more than half of the participants (54.6%) identified themselves as moderate, 21 (13.8) identified themselves as strong believers, 26 (17.1%) less religious, and 16 (10.5%) identified themselves as non-believer. Of the 152 participants, 113 (74.3%) were grown up in metropolitan cities, 23 (15.1%) in small cities, and 11 were grown up in villages. In terms of income level, 72 (47.4%) belong to high income group, 53 (34.9%) medium, and 26 (17.1%) belong to low income group. Fifty-seven (37.5%) participants declared their political affiliation as center-left, 35 (23.0%) center-right, 16 (10.5%) radical, 29 (19.1%) others, and 15 (9.9%) did not declare their political affiliation. The cognitive style of students was measured using the Cognitive Style Index (CSI) developed by Allinson and Hayes (1996). The survey instrument included a self -report questionnaire designed to assess the superordinate dimensions of cognitive style described earlier. Subjects completed a demographic survey and the Cognitive Style Index. The former solicited data regarding gender, level of graduate study, field of study, education level, religion, religiosity, political affiliation, place of grown-up and income level. The CSI comprises 38 self-report items and requires about 8-10 minutes. Each item has three choices, true, false, or uncertain scored 0, 1, or 2, respectively. Of the 38 items, 17 are reverse scored. For all 38 items responses which were uncertain were scored as 1. This provides a central category for subjects who wished to indicate genuine uncertainty on the grounds that the extreme categories did not apply consistently. It also overcomes the problem associated with Likert scales of five or more points that some subjects tend toward the extremes while others habitually avoid them (Kline, 1993). Hence, total scores could range from 0 to 76. The closer the respondent s score is to 0, the more intuitive is the respondent said to be, and the closer the respondent s score is to 76, the more analytical the respondent is said to be. 178

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Table 2 presents descriptive statistics for total score on the Cognitive Style Index by gender, level of graduate study, field of study, education level of parents, religion, political affiliation, religiosity, place of grown up and income level. Of the ten demographic variables, Table 2 shows that four variables have significant F values. These variables are namely education level of participant s mother (p < 0.1), religion (p < 0.05), political affiliation (p < 0.01), and income level (p < 0.1). In terms of education level of participant s mother, participants whose mothers education are of primary and high school scored higher than the overall CSI mean score, and they differed significantly (p < 0.1) from the participants whose mothers are either illiterate or have university and/or postgraduate degree. Regarding the religion participants who are Muslim significantly differed (p < 0.05) from the others with Muslim participants having higher CSI scores than the participants from other religions. In terms of political affiliation participants who tend to declare themselves as radical scored significantly higher (p < 0.01) than those supporting other political parties such as center left and center right. On the basis of income level significant differences are found between income level of participants and their CSI scores (p < 0.1) with the participants having low income scoring higher on the CSI index. The variables that have no significant variation in terms of demographic categories are gender, level of graduate study, field of study, education level of participant s father, religiosity, and place of grown up. With regard to gender differences, the CSI scores of male and female participants indicate great similarity with the mean values of both groups being 44.8 and 44.2, respectively. This finding, however, does not provide support to the findings of earlier studies by Murphy et al. (1998), Doucette et al. (1998) and Allinson and Hayes (1996), where they found that female participants scored significantly higher on the Cognitive Style Index than male participants. Similarly, participants do not differ in terms on the CSI scores across level of graduate study with the mean CSI score of master students being slightly higher than that of doctoral students. In terms of field of study, participants do not differ significantly on Cognitive Style Index. However, students enrolled in marketing and accounting programs have mean sores higher than the index s overall mean value while students in management-organization have the lowest score fallowed by accounting students. No significant differences are found regarding the level of religiosity. As distinct from other groups with varying levels of religiosity, participants having strong religious beliefs scored above the overall CSI mean value. There exist no significant variation on the CSI value in terms of both education level of participant s father and participant s place of grown up. 179

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6 REFERENCES [1] ALLINSON, C. W. & HAYES, J. (1996). The Cognitive Style Index: a measure of intuition analysis for organizational research. Journal of Management Studies, 33 (1), [2] DOUCETTE A. P. & KELLEHER W. E. (1998). Cognitive Style and Law Students In Eastern Canada: Preliminary Findings. College Students Journal, 33, 2,

7 [3] HAYES, J., & ALLINSON, C. W. (1994). Cognitive Style and its Relevance for Management Practice. British Journal of Management, 5, [4] HAYES, J., & ALLINSON, C. W. (1998). Cognitive Style and the Theory and Practice of Individual and Collective Learning in Organizations. Human Relations, 51(7), [5] KIRTON, M. J. (1980). Adaptors and Innovators in Organizations, Human Relations, 3, [6] KLINE, P. (1993). The Handbook of Psychological Testing. London, Routledge. [7] LEZAK, M. D. (1995). Neuropsychological Assessment. Third Edition, Oregon Health Sciences University and Veterans Administration Hospital, Portland, Oregon, Oxford University Press. [8] MURPHY J. H., KELLEHER W. E., DOUCETTE A. P. and YOUNG J. D. (1998). Test Retest Reliability and Construct Validity of The Cognitive Style Index for Business Undergraduates. Psychological Reports, 82, [9] TROTTER, R. (1986). The Other Hemispheres. Science News, April 3, 219. [10] WILSON, D. K. (1988). Management Learning: A Grounded Study of the Written Reflections of Managers of Their Approach to Their Real Time Work Problems. Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, University of Lancaster, England 182

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