IER-09-02-03-pp035--2144-Evans,Trapczynski 2023, Vol. 9, No. 2 10.15678/IER.2023.0902.03 The role and antecedents of contextual intelligence in complex decision-making environments: The case of the pharmaceutical/biotech sector Richard Evans, Piotr Trąpczyński A B S T R A C T Objective: The objective of this article is to explore the concept of contextual intelligence (CI) as an important individual trait in complex decision-making environments and to understand its antecedents. Research Design & Methods: We surveyed 52 professionals from the pharmaceutical/biotech sector to ex- plore the antecedents of CI behaviours by using Spearman’s rho correlation analysis, Student’s t-tests, and a two-stage cluster analysis. Findings: Gender does not appear to differentiate the level of CI, while age is only negatively correlated with future-minded behaviour. Respondents with doctorate education were characterised by a higher level of com- munitarian behaviours than those with lower education qualification attainment. Implications & Recommendations: In roles which are subject to VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) conditions, the integration of linguistics, cultural awareness, and analytical abilities are important besides interpersonal skills, especially in face-to-face or virtual interactions. Contribution & Value Added: Our study provides a novel empirical contribution to the concept of CI through an exploratory study of medical affairs professionals and their self-reported CI behaviour profiles, including several individual-level characteristics. Article type: research article Keywords: Contextual intelligence; decision-making; VUCA; complex environments; decision-maker characteristics JEL codes: D81, D91, M16 Received: 2 January 2023 Revised: 6 March 2023 Accepted: 21 March 2023 Suggested citation: Evans, R., & Trąpczyński, P. (2023). The role and antecedents of contextual intelligence in complex decision- making environments: The case of the pharmaceutical/biotech sector. International Entrepreneurship Review, 9(2), 35-48. https://doi.org/10.15678/IER.2023.0902.03 INTRODUCTION Scholars have long called for increased attention to the context of decision-making (Elbanna & Child, 2007; Elbanna et al., 2020; Hough & White, 2003; Shepherd & Rudd, 2014). In particular for strategic decisions which can be regarded as ‘ill-structured, nonroutine, uncertain and pervasive’ (Shepherd & Rudd, 2014, p. 340), the context which needs to be taken into account pertains to the top management team (TMT), strategic decision-specific characteristics, the external environment, or the characteristics of the firm itself. While scholars have long urged to pay more attention to the context in different areas, such as strategy, management or entrepreneurship, the relevance of considering contextual variables in international entrepreneurship (IE) and international business (IB) studies has surfaced relatively recently (Child, 2009; Child et al., 2022; Elbanna et al., 2020; Reuber et al., 2017; Teagarden et al., 2018). In the field of IB, this context is particularly complex, as decision-makers are confronted with several diverse and interrelated economic, cultural, institutional, political, social, and technolog- ical as well as other environments across national and organisational borders (Child et al., 2022). International Entrepreneurship Review RI E 36 | Richard Evans, Piotr Trąpczyński Shapiro, Von Glinow and Xiao (Shapiro et al., 2007) coined the term ‘polycontextuality,’ which refers to multiple and qualitatively different contexts embedded within one another, which contribute to individuals’ – and thus organisations’ – enactment of their situation. With regard to the aforesaid external context, firms have to operate in a complex environment which may be described as a VUCA, i.e. characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (Breen, 2017; Sarkar, 2016). It is in turbulent environments where Kutz and Bamford-Wade (2013) argue that the relevance of monitoring and responding proactively to the behaviour of other people with ap- propriate adaptation matters in particular, since the notion of context pertains to the interactions and interdependencies among and between individuals within an organisation and beyond it. Thus, an im- portant characteristic of decision makers can be referred to as contextual intelligence (CI), which ‘is the awareness of the interactions between and movement among these agents which, ultimately informs behaviour in a socially complex environment’ (Kutz & Bamford-Wade, 2013, p. 67). Meanwhile, a lot of research acknowledging the relevance of the ‘micro-foundations of strategy within international entrepreneurship or international business focuses on the demographic charac- teristics of decision-makers, such as gender, age, educational background, language skills, or cognitive styles (Elbanna, Child, & Hsieh, 2020; Kiss, Williams, & Houghton, 2013; Maitland & Sammartino, 2015; Shepherd & Rudd, 2014). Some studies investigated the effects of managers’ psychological character- istics on decision processes, including the locus of control, need for achievement, risk-taking propen- sity, proactiveness or global mindset (Elbanna et al., 2020). However, contextual intelligence (CI) has not been examined for its relevance to international entrepreneurship or international business, alt- hough its relevance has been prominently acknowledged (Khanna, 2014; Khanna, 2015). In the mean- time, it has been reported as an important leadership skill which can be conducive to ‘identifying ex- ternal and internal influences that are not immediately obvious’ (Kutz & Stiltner, 2022, p. 2). Kutz and Stiltner (2022) investigated the CI behaviours of athletic trainers practising in the United States of America, with particular attention to differences related to respondent characteristics of the CI behav- iours. They found that the most notable difference was athletic trainers with less experience and/or less education reported practising several CI behaviours less than more educated or more experienced respondents. However, there were no differences between males and females. Kutz et al. (2017) stud- ied healthcare managers and found, among other things, that female healthcare managers with bach- elor’s degrees reported practice of four CI behaviours more frequently than those with some col- lege/technical training, and in three cases those with masters’ degrees more frequently than those with some college/technical training. However, the results with regard to age and education differed for specific dimensions, with no consistent patterns which could be generalised. Given the aforesaid paucity of research considering decision-maker characteristics of particular relevance, especially in the VUCA environment, in the current exploratory article, we aim to: − delineate the practice frequency of CI by medical affairs (MA) professionals operating in a com- plex and dynamic contextual environment; − describe differences according to respondent characteristics to explore the antecedents to CI behaviours. We address these objectives in the empirical context of MA professionals from the pharmaceuti- cal/biotech industry whose role is to co-operate and communicate with healthcare professionals (HCP). The definition of ‘health’ that we use is a social construct described by the World Health Organ- isation (WHO) as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the ab- sence of disease or infirmity’ (WHO, 1946). This is clearly a complex and contextual definition given that we are all unique due to the genetic heterogeneity of the human race, which while being an ally in the ongoing and omnipresent struggle against pathogens, makes medical or clinical decision-making more complex. In this context, the predominantly positivist approach of scientific realism may be chal- lenged in conditions of making healthcare decisions requiring extrapolation of study data for example due to study design which may lead to ambiguity or uncertainty. An interpretivist approach may be more conceptually suited to dealing with data interpretation and discussive communications around The role and antecedents of contextual intelligence in complex… | 37 further understanding and application in healthcare decision-making and the development of perspec- tives required for the extrapolation of study results to inform individual healthcare decisions. Thus, in reality, it is important to emphasise interpersonal and communication skills which could further en- hance MA communications with HCPs regarding the translation of scientific research aimed at explain- ing, discussing, and understanding how this may apply to healthcare decisions and bring relevant feed- back on insights from HCPs which companies may act on. The paper is structured as follows. We will first present the concept of CI and discuss its different applications. Subsequently, we will elaborate on the methodology of our exploratory study and on Kutz’s (2017) operationalisation of CI. We will then present our empirical findings and finally, we will discuss their relevance for international business and entrepreneurship. LITERATURE REVIEW Contextual intelligence was described by Sternberg (1985) under the concept of practical intelligence, where context-competent individuals showed abilities to easily fit into new surroundings, adapt to the surroundings and be able to manage the surroundings as appropriate which he classified as a contex- tual sub-theory of intelligence (Sternberg, 1985, p. 45). This concept was further distilled by Terenzini (1993). Given the advances in IT, the growing pace of internationalisation, and the pursuit of increased decision-making effectiveness, Terenzini (1993) implies that there are three forms of personal compe- tence required besides organisational understanding: − Tier 1 – Technical/Analytical Intelligence; − Tier 2 – Issues Intelligence; − Tier 3 – Contextual Intelligence (CI). Tier 1 appears to be related to a cognitive construct, given that it relates to factual knowledge/infor- mation and analytical and methodological competencies and skills for modelling, which may be taken to represent the intelligence quotient (IQ). Tier 2 relates to generic and generalisable organisational and interpersonal skills which are necessary to function effectively which, for modelling, may be aligned with emotional intelligence (EQ). The author proposes that Tier 1 intelligence precedes Tier 2 intelligence. Tier 3, or, the ‘crowning form,’ represents the experiential knowledge or wisdom attributes with the other foundational Tiers to facilitate real people taking actual decisions by individuals who earn themselves legitimacy, trust, and respect based on their profiles. This aspect of decision-making or formulation and implementation of an action plan is further described by Motamedi (2018) as ‘contextual competence’ which he describes as comprising the hybridisation of CI and development of an action plan. Khanna (Khanna, 2014; Khanna, 2015) described CI as the ability to understand the limits of our knowledge and to adapt that knowledge to a context different from the one in which it was developed, which may be interpreted as a feature of being able to deal with complexity by applying a concept which appears to be an experiential or tacit knowledge or a feature of an individual showing an ability somewhat similar to experiential innervation. In his publication in 2014 (Khanna, 2014), he also stresses the need for managers to develop experience or knowledge of local context from their own perspective rather than relying on conventional market research. Khanna (Khanna, 2014) published his perspective on the relationship between theory learned in business schools and practice, noting that many people then overestimate the role of such theory when looking to succeed in international business and entrepreneurship due to differing conditions which exist and are difficult to codify. He further cites the lack of CI as being a contributor to high failure rates regarding cross-border businesses whereas having knowledge of success in a country may not be a significant factor to predict business success in other countries. It is clear that in some aspects of life, knowing facts and deciding in certain scenarios or areas of life is very easy but in the field of international business and entrepreneurship or discussions around health the context is complex, and we need to understand the limits of our knowledge. With this in 38 | Richard Evans, Piotr Trąpczyński mind, being able to call on and apply CI is a universally important skill when dealing with VUCA condi- tions and this includes situations when there may be several ‘right answers,’ but CI will seek to identify and focus on the best answer or option to implement (Kutz, 2017, p. 14). Kutz and Bamford-Wade (2013) reported that CI is a model which facilitates leadership and im- provement of performance in complex, transforming environments which according to Knight et al. (1997) represents a better predictor than IQ in real-life scenarios. Noteworthy, CI is differentiated from emotional intelligence (EQ) through the application of good judgement and intuitive insights especially in the environment of non-linear relationships (Kutz & Bamford-Wade, 2013; Nye, 2008). While the concept of CI was previously published, Kutz identified specific behaviours related to it (Kutz, 2017; Kutz & Bamford-Wade, 2013). The contextual intelligence framework is a circumplex based on 12 behaviours organised around three time-orientations (i.e. Hindsight, Insight, and Fore- sight), called 3D thinking, which in turn are grouped according to three meta-skills (Complexity Think- ing, Synchronicity, and Tacit Awareness) (Kutz, 2017; Kutz & Bamford-Wade, 2013). This operationali- sation of CI will be used in our exploratory study described in the ensuing sections. With regard to medical education, there is a major challenge to academic constructs related to the clinical practice of systems thinking at the level of an individual patient which may lead to chal- lenges when working with complex scenarios where benefit may be achieved through deviation from mechanistic guidelines (Paes, 2019). These mechanistic guidelines do of course have validity in cer- tain non-complex scenarios but there is also a need to be able to act in a non-linear fashion when appropriate. Overall, this interface between theory and practice does raise questions about the level or balance of educational attainment required for particular roles versus experience. Especially, when these may not be major actors in the final decision-making. This is of course a major area of differentiation between medicine and IB given that even after discussion of certain treatments with a physician the patient may still decline treatment, whereas in business the actions are more con- trolled and implemented based on the decisions taken. Despite recent evidence supporting females attaining higher grades in school subjects, we still see evidence of under-representation for females in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) which the authors report as being multifactorial (Verdugo-Castro et al., 2022). Given this scenario, a vital research question arises as to the profiles of CI in females compared to males in light of the hybridisation required to effectively implement praxis in the fields of complex decision-making re- quirements. Thus far, only Kutz et al. (2017) investigated differences in CI of females with different levels of education, while Kutz and Stiltner (2022) looked into differences between education level, experience level, and the number of credentials. We followed these research efforts in the context of the pharma- ceutical/biotech sector to address the research questions of how CI behaviours differ between: RQ1: gender; RQ2: age; RQ3: education level; RQ4: area of study (related to the context, i.e. medical and healthcare, or unrelated). RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Empirical Setting and Data Collection One response to engage and support healthcare decision-making by HCPs in healthcare industries from the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device sectors has been to develop and implement a medical affairs (MA) function which has a major role in communicating scientific or medical infor- mation to and from HCPs in a fair, balanced, and scientifically accurate framework. Core require- ments for roles in MA are usually to hold an advanced degree and have the ability to show strong interpersonal skills and be able to communicate scientific and technical data effectively (Theron et al., 2021). Typical qualifications for these roles include physicians, pharmacists, and MSc- or PhD- level scientists; other profiles supplementary to medicine may also be considered. The role and antecedents of contextual intelligence in complex… | 39 Training for these roles is usually delivered by the employing company and covers disease area and therapeutics, compliance including pharmacovigilance, company product training, and any ad- ditional legal/regulatory or company standard operating procedures required to perform the de- fined role they are employed to do. There is currently no additional required certification for roles in MA apart from those covered under typical qualifications. The MA function is a hybrid department which includes both face-to-face functional roles (usu- ally field-based as medical science liaisons (MSL), or hybrid including head office/field-based roles) or non-HCP facing roles which includes the Medical Information (MI) service. The challenges of engaging with HCPs in order to communicate scientific or medical data dictate that soft/human skills would also play a very important part, especially when engaging in face-to-face or virtual encounters with HCPs. These skills may also improve opportunities for further career devel- opment in a corporate and/or internationally mobile profession within MA function and life. A non-experimental descriptive survey of MA professionals’ self-reported behaviours was con- ducted utilising a cohort based on a sample of LinkedIn networked professionals from the pharma- ceutical and biotech sectors. The survey was targeted mainly at MA professionals. However, some responses were collected from medical, commercial, global marketing, or medical communications functions depending on the respondents’ description of responsibilities which may differ across or- ganisations. The data collection took place in October 2021 and resulted in an effective sample size of N=51. The objective of the convenience sampling was to account for the role of such respondent characteristics as gender, age, and the level and field of education. The distribution of these charac- teristics is provided in Table 1. Table 1. Characteristics of the respondents Characteristics N (%) Gender (N=51) Female 22 (43) Male 29 (57) Age range (yrs) 25-34 8 (16) 35-44 9 (18) 45-54 22 (43) 55-64 12 (24) Highest level of academic qualification obtained Bachelor’s degree 1 (2) Master’s degree 20 (39) Doctorate 30 (59) Field of highest educational attainment Business 1 (2) Healthcare 13 (25) Medicine 13 (25) Pharmacy 5 (10) Science 19 (37) Current role function Commercial 1 (2) Medical 11 (22) Medical Affairs 37 (73) Other Global Marketing 1 (2) Medical Communications 1 (2) Source: own elaboration of the survey data. 40 | Richard Evans, Piotr Trąpczyński Data Operationalisation The Contextual Intelligence Profile (CIP™) tool used had content validity established in a previous pub- lication (Kutz et al., 2017) and was developed by Matthew Kutz, who represents his framework for CI as a circumplex representing three meta-skills described as complexity thinking, synchronicity, and tacit awareness related to time-oriented descriptors of foresight (the ability to articulate a realistic plan for an ideal future), hindsight (the ability to use past experiences to their full advantage), and insight (the ability to understand what influences the present moment) which he further describes as 3D thinking and these are further defined through 12 CI behaviours aligning four behaviours per 3D thinking descriptor (Kutz, 2017). Kutz originally identified the 12 CI behaviours following a series of research projects which focused on identifying important leadership behaviours regardless of industry, job, or rank in an organization (Kutz, 2017). He describes CI as ‘the ability to demonstrate the skill to discern, transition between, and respond to many different contexts’ (Kutz, 2017, p. 31). Moreover, the 12 behaviours comprise CI when they are practised en-masse as it is the sum of these parts and not individual behaviours which demonstrate CI in practice (Kutz, 2017, p. 37–50). The details of the measurement instrument are provided in Table 2. Table 2. CI behaviours’ conceptual framework 3D thinking dimension CI behaviour CI description Foresight Diagnoses context Awareness and understanding of the environment related to people and surround- ings related to how they may influence each other. Change agent Ability to ask or raise difficult or challenging questions to introduce or do things dif- ferently through readily supporting with full confidence, highlighting the danger of not changing and also having an open mind for further continuous improvements. Future- minded Ability and self-awareness as to when they can see and communicate a clear plan aimed at overcoming obstacles and/or contradictions which may of course change as well as when to consult others to help fill any gaps in the plan(s). Intentional leadership A keen self-awareness of leadership style and personal preferences in order to learn and adopt additional appropriate leadership styles in advance of being required. Hindsight Construc- tive use of influence Accurate interpretation based on previous experience of which power (legitimate, expert, referent, coercive, reward) is likely to be most effective with certain individ- uals and/or situations. Critical thinker A high degree of self-awareness to recognise limitations and bias in their perspec- tives but readily embrace complexity and new ideas through critical analysis of the past and the ability to innervate experiences. Influencer Differentiated from ‘constructive use of influence’ focusing on the use of interper- sonal skills, previous success and empathy to communicate your perspective and building rapport to enable/inform awareness of whether the message is received. Consensus builder Aligning people with different perspectives and/or competing values around a col- laborative solution through the appropriate use of questions and harmonising the different perspectives into a good-faith effort. Insight Communi- tarian A personal trait which is focused on active support for a community and the connec- tion or interactions between self and the community with which you may identify with based on deeply-held beliefs. Mission minded Alignment with corporate equity and reputation with a heightened awareness of how the performance and actions of self and/or others may affect perceptions of the employing organisation. Appreci- ates di- verse ideas Demonstrating courage to listen to alternative or additional ideas of people who may have different perspectives to yours in a sincere way which builds respect even in an environment of disagreement, conflicting, or different ideas. Multicul- tural lead- ership A leadership trait which demonstrates empathy to try to understand differences in cultures, gender and ethnicity in a demonstration of authenticity, humility and ap- preciation that context matters. Source: own elaboration based on Kutz (2017). The role and antecedents of contextual intelligence in complex… | 41 To address the research objectives formulated at the outset, we conducted statistical analyses using the IBM SPSS Statistics version 25 package. Using this tool, Spearman’s rho correlation anal- ysis and Student’s t-tests as well as a two-stage cluster analysis were performed. The classic thresh- old α = 0.05 was adopted as the level of statistical significance. Prior to conducting all analyses, the data set was analysed for missing values, revealing that they were random. Thus, stochastic regres- sion imputation (simple imputation) was used. To prepare the data for analysis, first, the distributions of all variables were verified. Basic de- scriptive statistics were calculated together with the Shapiro-Wilk test. Due to the presence of out- liers exceeding the third standard deviation, they were removed and replaced with the next closest values in the set. The results of the analysis are presented in Table 3 for the main dimensions of the CI tool and the specific behaviours, respectively. Table 3. Descriptive statistics with the Shapiro-Wilk test Variables M Me SD Sk. Kurt. Min. Max. W p Hindsight 65.82 68.00 11.44 -0.47 0.47 31.00 88.00 0.98 0.514 Foresight 65.67 67.00 11.77 -0.27 -0.50 39.00 90.00 0.98 0.551 Insight 64.04 66.00 11.79 -0.98 1.08 29.00 83.00 0.94 0.010 Communitarian 13.59 14.00 4.35 -0.49 -0.86 4.00 20.00 0.94 0.008 Diagnoses Context 16.94 18.00 3.46 -0.65 -0.23 8.00 22.00 0.94 0.018 Consensus Builder 15.94 16.00 3.23 -0.55 0.48 7.00 23.00 0.97 0.146 Mission Minded 14.77 15.00 4.11 -0.59 -0.19 5.00 22.00 0.96 0.066 Embraces Diverse Ideas 17.37 17.00 3.61 -0.27 -0.66 9.00 24.00 0.97 0.181 Influencer 16.86 18.00 3.27 -0.17 -0.31 10.00 24.00 0.97 0.319 Critical Thinker 16.94 17.00 3.02 -0.38 0.48 9.00 23.00 0.97 0.251 Multicultural Leadership 18.47 19.00 3.19 -0.52 -0.08 10.00 24.00 0.96 0.125 Future Minded 16.82 17.00 3.29 -0.25 -0.71 10.00 23.00 0.97 0.144 Change Agent 15.90 16.00 3.76 -0.27 -0.33 7.00 24.00 0.97 0.265 Intentional Leadership 16.00 16.00 3.92 -0.53 0.42 4.00 23.00 0.97 0.208 Constructive Influence 16.24 17.00 3.43 -0.45 0.06 6.00 22.00 0.96 0.082 Source: own elaboration of the survey data. The distribution normality tests showed that the distributions of most variables were close to the Gaussian curve. Only the Communitarian and Diagnoses Context indicators of CI were distant from the normal distribution (p <0.05). However, the skews did not exceed the absolute value of 1. This indicates a distribution with a slight level of asymmetry. Therefore, the ensuing analyses were based on parametric tests. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Relationships Between Contextual Intelligence and Sociodemographic Variables To explore how sociodemographic variables are related to CI, both a series of Student’s t-tests for independent samples and an analysis of Spearman’s rho correlation were performed, whereby gender differences were tested first. The conducted Student’s t-test for independent samples revealed no statistically significant effects. This means that gender did not appear to differentiate the level of CI, neither for the main dimensions nor for specific behaviours (Table 4). Subsequently, the analyses of Spearman’s rho correlation between age and indicators of CI were performed. Table 5 presents the results of this analysis. The analysis showed that age was only related to the contextual intelligence behaviour of Future Minded. The relationship was negative and moder- ate. It follows that the older the respondents were, the lower the intensity of this CI behaviour among them. The other correlations were statistically insignificant. In the next step, it was verified whether the level of education differentiates the intensity of behav- iour related to contextual intelligence. Bachelor’s education (n = 1) and graduate education (n = 20) were combined for the analyses. Student’s t-tests were performed again for independent samples (Table 6). 42 | Richard Evans, Piotr Trąpczyński Table 4. Gender differences in CI Variables Male (n = 29) Female (n = 22) t p 95% CI Cohen’s d M SD M SD LL UL Hindsight 65.03 12.85 66.86 9.46 -0.56 0.577 -8.38 4.72 0.16 Foresight 65.65 12.50 65.68 11.03 -0.01 0.993 -6.78 6.73 0.00 Insight 63.45 13.68 64.82 8.97 -0.41 0.686 -8.12 5.39 0.12 Communitarian 13.24 4.83 14.05 3.68 -0.67 0.503 -3.20 1.59 0.18 Diagnoses Context 16.76 3.65 17.18 3.25 -0.43 0.668 -2.40 1.56 0.12 Consensus Builder 15.86 3.46 16.09 2.83 -0.25 0.802 -2.05 1.59 0.07 Mission Minded 15.00 4.04 14.45 4.26 0.47 0.643 -1.81 2.90 0.13 Embraces Diverse Ideas 17.45 3.94 17.27 3.21 0.17 0.865 -1.90 2.25 0.05 Influencer 16.72 3.56 17.05 2.90 -0.34 0.732 -2.19 1.55 0.10 Critical Thinker 16.90 3.45 17.00 2.43 -0.13 0.901 -1.76 1.55 0.03 Multicultural Leadership 18.03 3.52 19.05 2.66 -1.12 0.267 -2.82 0.80 0.32 Future Minded 17.07 3.52 16.50 3.00 0.61 0.546 -1.31 2.45 0.17 Change Agent 16.34 3.83 15.32 3.68 0.96 0.340 -1.11 3.17 0.27 Intentional Leadership 15.48 4.32 16.68 3.29 -1.08 0.284 -3.42 1.02 0.31 Constructive Influence 15.79 3.58 16.82 3.20 -1.06 0.295 -2.97 0.92 0.30 Source: own elaboration of the survey data. Table 5. Age differences in CI Variables Statistics Age Hindsight Spearman’s rho -0.14 significance 0.317 Foresight Spearman’s rho -0.17 significance 0.244 Insight Spearman’s rho -0.12 significance 0.412 Communitarian Spearman’s rho -0.05 significance 0.703 Diagnoses Context Spearman’s rho -0.08 significance 0.570 Consensus Builder Spearman’s rho -0.10 significance 0.469 Mission Minded Spearman’s rho -0.19 significance 0.192 Embraces Diverse Ideas Spearman’s rho -0.11 significance 0.428 Influencer Spearman’s rho -0.12 significance 0.391 Critical Thinker Spearman’s rho -0.11 significance 0.457 Multicultural Leadership Spearman’s rho -0.06 significance 0.676 Future Minded Spearman’s rho -0.30 significance 0.031 Change Agent Spearman’s rho -0.01 significance 0.951 Intentional Leadership Spearman’s rho -0.13 significance 0.358 Constructive Influence Spearman’s rho -0.10 significance 0.488 Source: own elaboration of the survey data. The role and antecedents of contextual intelligence in complex… | 43 Table 6. Differences in CI dimensions depending on the level of education Variables Bachelor’s & master Degree (n = 21) Doctorate (n = 30) t p 95% CI Cohen’s d M SD M SD LL UL Hindsight 67.38 10.32 64.73 12.22 0.81 0.422 -3.92 9.21 0.23 Foresight 66.19 10.95 65.30 12.49 0.26 0.793 -5.90 7.69 0.08 Insight 62.67 8.21 66.27 11.14 -1.26 0.214 -9.35 2.14 0.36 Communitarian 11.33 3.92 15.17 3.97 -3.41 0.001 -6.09 -1.57 0.97 Diagnoses Context 16.57 3.30 17.20 3.60 -0.63 0.529 -2.62 1.36 0.18 Consensus Builder 16.38 2.82 15.63 3.50 0.81 0.421 -1.10 2.60 0.23 Mission Minded 14.57 4.25 14.90 4.07 -0.28 0.781 -2.70 2.04 0.08 Embraces Diverse Ideas 17.43 3.44 17.33 3.78 0.09 0.927 -1.99 2.18 0.03 Influencer 17.57 3.38 16.37 3.15 1.30 0.198 -0.65 3.06 0.37 Critical Thinker 16.33 3.14 17.37 2.92 -1.21 0.233 -2.75 0.69 0.34 Multicultural Leadership 18.10 3.13 18.73 3.26 -0.70 0.488 -2.47 1.20 0.20 Future Minded 16.90 3.42 16.77 3.26 0.15 0.884 -1.76 2.04 0.04 Change Agent 16.24 3.75 15.67 3.82 0.53 0.599 -1.60 2.74 0.15 Intentional Leadership 16.48 2.79 15.67 4.57 0.78 0.437 -1.26 2.88 0.21 Constructive Influence 17.10 3.03 15.63 3.61 1.52 0.135 -0.47 3.40 0.43 Source: own elaboration of the survey data. Only the communitarian index showed clear differences. The recorded effect was very powerful. Comparing the means, respondents with doctorate education were characterised by a higher level of Communitarian behaviours than those with lower educational attainment. The remaining indicators of CI were not differentiated by the education of the respondents. Finally, we verified whether there were differences in the behaviour of CI depending on the field in which the respondents completed their education. For our analyses, the fields of medicine (n = 13) and health care (n = 13) were combined into one group and compared with the fields of science or other fields: economics (n = 1), pharmacy (n = 5), and science (n = 19). The results of the Student’s t- tests for independent samples turned out to be statistically insignificant for each variable. This means that medical subjects did not differ from research subjects in terms of CI (Table 7). Table 7. Differences in CI dimensions depending on the scientific area Variables Medicine & healthcare (n = 26) Science & other (n = 25) t p 95% CI Cohen’s d M SD M SD LL UL Hindsight 64.96 11.92 66.72 11.09 -0.54 0.588 -8.25 4.73 0.15 Foresight 66.15 12.38 65.16 11.34 0.30 0.766 -5.69 7.68 0.08 Insight 62.92 13.54 65.20 9.80 -0.69 0.496 -8.95 4.40 0.19 Communitarian 13.54 4.82 13.64 3.90 -0.08 0.935 -2.58 2.37 0.02 Diagnoses Context 16.88 3.23 17.00 3.74 -0.12 0.908 -2.08 1.85 0.03 Consensus Builder 16.00 3.73 15.88 2.68 0.13 0.896 -1.71 1.95 0.04 Mission Minded 14.73 3.83 14.80 4.45 -0.06 0.954 -2.40 2.27 0.02 Embraces Diverse Ideas 16.65 3.84 18.12 3.27 -1.47 0.149 -3.48 0.54 0.41 Influencer 16.65 2.78 17.08 3.75 -0.46 0.648 -2.30 1.44 0.13 Critical Thinker 17.04 3.03 16.84 3.08 0.23 0.817 -1.52 1.92 0.07 Multicultural Leadership 18.31 3.39 18.64 3.03 -0.37 0.714 -2.14 1.48 0.10 Future Minded 16.69 3.22 16.96 3.42 -0.29 0.775 -2.14 1.60 0.08 Change Agent 16.42 3.47 15.36 4.05 1.01 0.318 -1.06 3.18 0.28 Intentional Leadership 16.15 4.46 15.84 3.35 0.28 0.778 -1.91 2.54 0.08 Constructive Influence 15.58 3.25 16.92 3.53 -1.41 0.164 -3.25 0.57 0.40 Source: own elaboration of the survey data. 44 | Richard Evans, Piotr Trąpczyński Cluster Analysis of CI To classify the groups from the studied sample in terms of their sociodemographic variables and the behaviour of CI, a two-stage cluster analysis was performed. The analyses included gender, education, and all indicators of CI. The analysis was set up to distinguish three clusters. The Shilouette measure was 0.3, which indicates the correctness of group separation. The three cluster groups were evenly distributed: n = 17, 33.3%. Figure 1 shows the distribution of these clusters. In the first cluster, people with a relatively low level of CI behaviours were identified. Most of them were men with doctoral degrees. The second group included people with a high level of CI. They were also men who completed their education with a doctoral degree. The third cluster included people with a relatively moderate level of CI. They were mainly women with bachelor’s or master’s degree. Table 8 provides detailed information on the prediction coefficients and the percentages of the factors. Table 8. Cluster characteristics extracted from the analysis in the studied sample Predictors Predictor relevance Cluster 1 (n = 17; 33.3%) Cluster 2 (n = 17; 33.3%) Cluster 3 (n = 17; 33.3%) Intentional Leadership 1.00 11.94 19.29 16.76 Constructive Influence 0.90 12.71 18.82 17.18 Education 0.79 Doctorate (88.2%) Doctorate (88.2%) Bachelor & Master Degree (100%) Influencer 0.78 13.65 19.18 17.76 Diagnoses Context 0.65 14.17 19.88 16.76 Consensus Builder 0.52 13.35 18.24 16.24 Mission Minded 0.51 11.59 17.76 14.94 Critical Thinker 0.49 15.00 19.41 16.41 Future Minded 0.46 14.41 19.18 16.88 Change Agent 0.33 13.47 18.24 16.00 Embraces Diverse Ideas 0.24 15.42 19.12 17.76 Multicultural Leadership 0.23 16.82 20.24 18.35 Communitarian 0.21 13.29 16.00 11.47 Sex 0.07 Male (70.6%) Male (58.8%) Female (58.8%) Source: own elaboration of the survey data. To summarise, our study provides a novel empirical contribution to the concept of CI through an exploratory study of MA professionals and their CI behaviour while taking into account several individual- level characteristics. It is interesting to observe the similarity observed between this group and female hospital managers (Kutz et al., 2017) where ‘communitarian’ is reported as the lowest mean behaviour for both groups as well as showing statistically significant differences based on educational attainment comparing bachelor’s/master’s degrees versus doctorates (p = 0.001). This may require further research, especially when looked at from the perspective of Maslow’s sixth tier of self-transcendence (Venter, 2017) in which Maslow describes this person as being someone who is freed from a ‘dichotomous way of thinking’ (Maslow, 1968, p. 180) with potential to have global impact in which they are able to identify and understand different perspectives and not become infatuated with self (Venter, 2017). The insights from this study can be summarised by regarding the reported frequencies of behav- iours in comparison with the a priori ranges used in Kutz et al. (2017) (Table 9). Our findings indicate that around 83.3% (10/12) of the CI behaviours were reported to be prac- tised with very high or high frequency with only mission-minded and communitarian being reported as moderate or low respectively, which is where both of these behaviours were reported among US female hospital managers (Kutz et al., 2017). The role and antecedents of contextual intelligence in complex… | 45 Table 9. Ranked CI behaviour frequencies (Frequency ranges determined a priori as in Kutz et al., 2017) Source: own elaboration of the survey data. CONCLUSIONS This peculiar empirical context with its complexity and the relevance of managerial skills pertaining to an understanding, interpretation, and appropriate reaction to the context can be regarded as a proxy for the broader notion of doing business in VUCA environments. Besides interpersonal skills, in roles which are subject to VUCA conditions, the integration of linguistics, cultural awareness, and analytical abilities are important, especially in face-to-face or virtual interactions. Noteworthy, as a concept, CI is very important in complex scenarios for individuals working in organisations as it enables them to appreciate and understand the specific aspects of the organisational culture and dynamics and thus improves the possibility to make better context-based decisions. Furthermore, CI is important for decisions in the area of international entrepreneurship and busi- ness, because it may improve decision-makers’ understanding and ability to respond to the unique opportunities and challenges presented by the different scenarios which are likely to be unique with more than one correct answer or option available. Indeed, the international activities of the firm are influenced by the external context, both of the foreign countries where the firm is operating and its home economy, as well as the internal context provided by the characteristics of the organisation itself and its members (Child et al., 2022). This leads to the realisation that since firm internationalisation is a highly uncertain process and as decision-makers cope differently with the related uncertainty, the issues of cognitive limits, tolerance of risk and uncertainty, and experience are crucial factors determining strategic decisions (Maitland & Sammartino, 2015; Niittymies & Pajunen, 2020). Extant research provides some evidence that these skills are crucial especially if the actors in the decision process have diverse cultural and educational backgrounds and experiences (Kiss et al., 2013). However, while the vital importance of CI as a skill in an international environment has been already underlined (Khanna, 2014; Khanna, 2015), its use as an important individual characteristic of decision-makers which goes beyond the conventionally studied variables, such as age, education, or international experience is yet to take place. Thus, talent management professionals within pharmaceutical/biotech and medical device and other industries should consider CI as an area which can help to identify and equip people who are more likely to develop as international leaders given the skills required for navigating a VUCA environment in order to make improved or informed career development and/or internationalisation decisions. This descriptive, exploratory small sample size dataset of MA professionals currently working in the pharmaceutical/biotech environment carries a high risk of bias because of the Likert scale, self-rating perception method, sample selection criteria, and generalisation of results; both in healthcare as well as Dimension Mean value Very High (>= 16.75) High (15.50-16.74) Moderate (14.41-15.49) Low (<=14.40) Communitarian 13.59 X Diagnoses Context 16.94 X Consensus Builder 15.94 X Mission Minded 14.77 X Embraces Diverse Ideas 17.37 X Influencer 16.86 X Critical Thinker 16.94 X Multicultural Leadership 18.47 X Future Minded 16.82 X Change Agent 15.90 X Intentional Leadership 16.00 X Constructive Influence 16.24 X 46 | Richard Evans, Piotr Trąpczyński other complex environments such as international business. Future studies should consider the align- ment of CI and leadership profiles aligned with positivist/interpretivist phenotypes in areas which explore the confirmation of CI as a key skill for complex decision-making in VUCA environments such as healthcare, internationalisation, or portfolio management. Scholars should also consider proposing a model which looks at the hypothetical relationship between IQ, EQ, and CI for personnel development. In addition to these avenues of exploration, it would be useful to further explore the 3D profiles given the potential importance of hindsight given that many entering roles in MA are likely to be re- cently qualified and as such, they may hypothetically have clear development requirements in order to communicate more effectively with senior, very experienced healthcare key opinion leaders; the same criteria need to be assessed and applied for people making IB and internationalisation/portfolio decisions. 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Retrieved from https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution on December 16, 2022. 48 | Richard Evans, Piotr Trąpczyński Authors The contribution share of authors is equal and amounted to 50% for each of them. Richard Evans Doctoral Candidate at the Poznań University of Economics and Business, holds, among others, an MSc in Oncology of the Newcastle University and an MBA of the University of Wales. He has worked for over thirty years in the pharmaceutical industry across a range of both commercial and medical leadership roles at local country, regional, above-country, and global levels. He has maintained links with academia through his involvement as a previous external examiner for postgraduate courses for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) at Swansea Metropolitan University, TOPRA MSc in Regulatory Science (Pharmaceuticals and medical devices) at the University of Hertfordshire, and currently for the MSc in Reg- ulatory Science at the University of Hertfordshire. Correspondence to: Mr Richard Evans, ul. Ikara 13, 60-407 Poznań, Poland e-mail: richard3vans@gmail.com ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2388-094X Piotr Trąpczyńśki Associate Professor at the Poznań University of Economics and Business, Department of International Competi- tiveness at the Institute of International Business and Economics. His research interests include foreign direct investments and divestments, export performance and export exits, along with business models. He has pub- lished his research, among other things, in the Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Research, Interna- tional Business Review, European Management Journal or the European Journal of International Management. Correspondence to: Dr hab. Piotr Trąpczyński, prof. UEP, Department of International Competitiveness, Poznań University of Economics and Business, al. Niepodległości 1, 61-875 Poznań, Poland, e-mail: piotr.trapczynski@ue.poznan.pl ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8154-9174 Acknowledgements and Financial Disclosure The authors would like to thank Dr Matthew Kutz for the academic permission to use his Contextual Intelli- gence Profile (CIP). The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their useful comments, which allowed to increase the value of this article. Conflict of Interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relation- ships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Copyright and License This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by Krakow University of Economics – Krakow, Poland The journal is co-financed in the years 2022-2024 by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Poland in the framework of the ministerial programme “Development of Scientific Journals” (RCN) on the basis of contract no. RCN/SP/0251/2021/1 concluded on 13 October 2022 and being in force until 13 October 2024.