Practice and intuitive thinking: the situated nature of practical work

Purpose – Any reasonably advanced practice is a blend of rational thinking, thinking structured by concepts and numerical representations rendering the world static and immovable, and intuitive thinking, a mode of knowing operating “in‐between” concepts and representations and, therefore, are apprehending the fluid and fleeting nature of being. When moving from being a novice to an expert practitioner, the actor must both appropriate rational thinking and increasingly, as experience is acquired, draw on intuitive thinking. For the novice, the concern is however that intuitive thinking is complicated to articulate or represent but is primarily acquired through years of experience and practice. The paper seeks to discuss practice as a term that includes both these two elements of thinking. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses empirical examples from nursing work, financial trading, and scientific research to further develop the concept of practice. Findings – The paper suggests that “skilled coping” of expert practitioners are examined as a gradual appropriation and combining of rational and intuitive thinking. The difficulty of becoming a skilled practitioner is, inter alia, to acquire inarticulate know‐how through collaboration with experienced peers. Originality/value – The paper seeks to discuss the concept of practice based on process philosophy underlining the distinction between rational and intuitive thinking, yet emphasizing their mutual constitution in the domain of practice. The concept of practice is thus anchored in a solid theoretical framework capable of exploring some of the difficulties involved in acquiring expert skills.