The spatial knowledge of retail decision makers: capturing and interpreting group insight using a composite cognitive map |
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Authors: | Ian Clarke Masahide Horita William MacKaness |
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Institution: | 1. Booker Chair in Retail Marketing , University of Durham Business School , Mill Hill Lane, Durham City, DH1 3LB, UK Phone: Tel: +44 191 374 1279;2. University of Durham , UK;3. University of Edinburgh , UK |
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Abstract: | The paper argues that existing techniques for retail site evaluation ignore the useful "soft" insights of retail executives. It outlines a technique for constructing a composite map of retail decision makers' insights into the location influences affecting store performance. It has two objectives: to show how the method can be used to construct a basic knowledge base by helping to elicit decision makers' spatial knowledge; and to clarify the status of the maps in terms of the process of group decision making. Illustrations are given from current work drawn from interviews with executives of a major multiple superstore retailer in the UK. The paper shows how composite mapping provides a means to reduce the ideas of a group without any loss of detail, using key cognitive constructs as a "glue" to provide a template against which individual maps can be compared and better understood. The interpretative method provides a flexible and expedient means for constructing an organizational knowledge base for site location - the value of which can then be tested for modelling purposes - and as an effective counterweight to normative procedures. |
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Keywords: | Retailing Spatial Knowledge Intuition Cognitive Mapping Decision Making Morphology Topology Site Assessment |
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