Making sense of a most popular metaphor in Management: Towards a HedgeFox Scale for cognitive styles

In the field of business and management, research on cognition has increased over the last 40 years (Armstrong, Cools & Sadler-Smith, 2012). It gathered momentum, especially in the context of learning, problem solving, and social behavior (Riding & Sadler-Smith, 1997; Chan, 1996; Armstrong & Priola, 2001). A popular example of individual style differences goes back to Tetlock (2005). Based on Isaiah Berlin’s interpretation of the hedgehog-and-fox metaphor, Tetlock studied how cognitive styles influence political expert decision making. He proposed a one-dimensional Hedgehog-Fox Factor that turns the dichotomy into the two poles of a measurement continuum. Our study’s objective is to adapt and validate Tetlock's Hedgehog-Fox Scale to measure the cognitive styles by means of three studies in Germany and Switzerland (N = 4483; N = 5052; N = 7537). Our data lead us to propose a revised and more economic HedgeFox Scale (HFS). However, and in sharp contrast to Tetlock’s findings, the current study provides methodological and theoretical arguments for a two-factor structure. This shift in the dimensionality not only affects the very nature of the construct in question, but also contributes to a recent discussion on cognitive styles’ very structure. Especially for the use in business and management, the HedgeFox-Scale is a convenient instrument to assess cognitive style differences in decision-making processes.