Abstract
This study examined to what extent managers in Slovenian public utility organizations implement intuition into their decision-making process. Study aimed to determine whether there is a statistically significant link between emotional intelligence and the implementation of intuition in the decision-making process of managers in public utility organizations and focused primarily on emotional competencies, or more precisely, on emotional intelligence and intuition and if any statistically significant differences will be determined of intuition among managers and level of education. Aims of the article: to determine whether there is a statistically significant link between emotional intelligence and the implementation of intuition in the decision-making process of managers in public utility organizations. The bases for the theoretical background were a systematic overview and a critical analysis of the literature from the study field. According to the findings from the literature study, links were developed between the study areas and a hypothesis of the relationship between competencies, emotional intelligence and intuitive decision-making of managers formed. The study used a questionnaire as a measuring instrument, divided into 6 sets: (1) demographic data, (2) emotional intelligence (ESCQ), (3) intuitive potential, (4) use of intuition in decision making, (5) intuitive synthesis, (6) environmental scale and they were distributed among (110) respondents. Unsolved issues: the research in public utility companies should be conducted on a larger sample of respondents. The respondents in the research often base important decisions on intuition (81.7%). The connection between emotional intelligence and implementation of intuition in the decision-making process was determined. A higher level of formal education is associated with rational decision making - that is, the higher the formal education is, the more rationally and non-intuitively decisions were made. The research was conducted in public utility organizations in Slovenia and it would be beneficial to conduct similar studies in other international public utility organizations, on the basis of which comparisons could be made.