Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of cognitive diversity on strategic issue interpretation among the boards of directors making sense of sustainability management. The study also investigated the centrality of the corporate sustainability issues to identify common interpretative patterns in the shared cognitive maps among the companies. In addition, the aim was to advance quantitative methods for the analysis of decision-makers’ cognition. Design/methodology/approach The research was an exploratory study analyzing 43 individual cognitive maps collected through surveys from the boards of nine cleantech companies. For the elicitation of the cognitive maps, the study used the hybrid cognitive mapping technique. The diversity of the shared cognitive maps was analyzed using the distance ratio formula and the graph analysis method with eigenvector to measure the centrality of the strategic issue interpretation in the maps. Findings This study provides evidence through the analysis of distance ratios on the existence of cognitive diversity among companies within the same industry. Surprisingly, despite the cognitive diversity, the study identified strong common patterns on strategic issue interpretations among the companies. In addition, the study shows that the sustainability management issues have gained minor attention from the boards of directors. Research limitations/implications The initial industry sample provided relatively restricted perspectives on managerial cognition, and to confirm the findings regarding the effects of industry on the shared cognitive maps of top decision-makers, wider industry-level data are needed. Practical implications This study provides an approach to facilitate the process of strategic decision-making for top decision-makers by identifying the shared beliefs of the selected strategic theme and to concentrate on the most central strategic issues in the company and industry. It reveals asymmetry between the significance of sustainability issues in an open agenda and the real position of sustainability concepts in the shared cognitive maps in the green industry. Also, the study advances cognitive mapping techniques for application in the board’s decision-making. Originality/value This paper contributes to brightening the black box of corporate governance by shedding light on the interaction of the concepts of corporate sustainability and other key strategic issues within the shared cognitive maps of the boards. It also provides new empirical knowledge on top decision-making processes and the effects of cognitive diversity on the strategic issue interpretations within the corporate boards of the green industry, and it further develops the methodology for the quantification of cognitive diversity and the content of cognitive maps.
The innovation space has become more complex and knowledgeintensive. As a result, it is increasingly important to see innovations as knowledge that is embodied in learning and technical and organisational knowledge bases. However, in processes, such as innovation development, individuals make sense of it and utilise existing knowledge differently when making decisions about which design of new technology to adopt and develop. This paper highlights the importance of a certain group's cognition in the recognition of new innovations and business opportunities, and presents a method to explore the cognition of different groups. In this study based on a 2-year research project, two different working groups assessed the future innovation and business opportunities in the field of distributed energy generation. Through analysing the results and by presenting the potential method -the heuristic scenario method -to explore cognition in innovation processes, this paper helps to fill the lack of methodologies in cognition research.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Bergman, J-P., Jantunen, A., Saksa, J-M. and Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, P. (2007) 'Cognition of experts and top managers about the changes in innovation space', Int.
This study proposes a framework for the empirical research of cross-border innovation networks dealing with network characteristics, resource and information flows, and decision-making concerning technological innovations. The authors develop a conceptual model that relates network properties, flows of knowledge, and tangible resources with the likelihood of a decision on open innovation, closed innovation, and business expansion without innovations. The model decomposes knowledge flows, considered as the most significant factor for innovation dynamics, into flows of information, trust, and technological competence. The likelihood of strategic decisions in a cross-border innovation network environment is supposed to be dependent on the peculiarities of these flows, network properties such as structural cohesion, autonomy, equivalence, as well as cognitive distance. The paper discusses some distinctive features of this type of network between the North-West of Russia and South-East of Finland.
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