Causal cognitive mapping in the entrepreneurial cognition field: A comparison of two alternative methods

Abstract

Despite the growing prevalence of causal mapping procedures in the organizational strategy field and the growing body of research on entrepreneurial cognition, there have been surprisingly few investigations on how scholars might use causal cognitive mapping to elicit entrepreneurs’ cognition. Based on the complementarity between the visual graph method and the matrix-multiplication method, this article outlines an integrative method that both overcomes the methodological issues of causal cognitive mapping and expands the qualitative methods used in the field of entrepreneurial cognition. By performing an empirical comparison, this article provides step-by-step guidance to empower scholars who either choose between these two methods or seek to use these methods in a complementary manner. Particular emphasis is placed on the methodological contributions that expand the entrepreneurial cognition toolbox. The methodological limits and potential improvements of these two methods regarding causal mapping are discussed.