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New designs and software for cognitive causal mapping

Mauri Laukkanen (Department of Business, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland)
Päivi Eriksson (Department of Business, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland)

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management

ISSN: 1746-5648

Article publication date: 16 August 2013

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper's first objective is to develop a new conceptual framework for categorizing and designing cognitive, specifically comparative, causal mapping (CCM) research by building upon the theory‐centred and participant‐centred perspectives. The second purpose is to enable the discerned study prototypes by introducing a new CCM software application, CMAP3.

Design/methodology/approach

Building upon the distinction between theory‐centred (etic) and participant‐centred (emic) perspectives in social research, we first construct and apply a conceptual framework for analysing and categorising extant CCM studies in terms of their objectives and basic design. Next, after noting the important role and basic tasks in computerising causal mapping studies, we present a new CCM software application.

Findings

The theory‐centred/participant‐centred perspectives define four causal mapping study prototypes, each with different goals, basic designs and methodological requirements. Noting the present lack of widely accessible software for qualitatively oriented CCM studies, we introduce CMAP3, a new non‐commercial Windows application, and summarise how it is used in related research.

Originality/value

The framework and the studies representing the prototypes demonstrate the versatility of CCM methods and that the proposed framework offers a new, systematic approach to categorising and designing CCM studies. Research technically, CMAP3 can support the defined CCM‐prototypes, based on a low‐structured (inductive/qualitative) or a structured (nomothetic/quantitative) methodological approach/stance, and having therefore different needs of data acquisition, processing, coding, aggregation/comparison, and analysis of the emerging aggregated cause maps’ contents or structure.

Keywords

Citation

Laukkanen, M. and Eriksson, P. (2013), "New designs and software for cognitive causal mapping", Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 122-147. https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-08-2011-1003

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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