The Relationship Between Cognitive Maps, Industry Complexity and Strategies Implemented: The Case of the Carpi Textile-Clothing Industrial System

Mario Borroi, Mario Minoja and Alessandro Sinatra

Journal of Management & Governance, 1998, vol. 2, issue 3, 233-266

Abstract: This paper discusses the relationship between the subjective organisation and the perceived competitive structure of an industry based on an empirical study of the Carpi textile-clothing district, which partially replicates a previous study of the Scottish knitwear industry conducted by other authors (Porac et al., 1995). The initial hypothesis to be tested is that an industry may be broken down into a number of subsets of firms within which competition is perceived as being fiercer as compared with firms in different subsets. These subsets, or groups, correspond to the groups or types of firms into which decision-makers -- managers and entrepreneurial business owners alike -- perceive the industry as being divided. The results of the study are then compared to the empirical evidence from the research conducted by other authors. This comparison provides some interesting elements for investigating the relationships between industry complexity, cognitive maps and strategies implemented by the firms belonging to it. After suggesting a definition of complexity of an industry as the number of strategies implemented in it by competitors, we discuss the hypothesis that key-actors in the firms develop a mental picture of their environment that tends to become less comprehensive and accurate as the degree of complexity of the environment itself increases. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998

Date: 1998
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1009981205229 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jmgtgv:v:2:y:1998:i:3:p:233-266

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/10997/PS2

DOI: 10.1023/A:1009981205229

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Management & Governance is currently edited by Lino Cinquini

More articles in Journal of Management & Governance from Springer, Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().