Chapter IX
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Using Causal Mapping
to Uncover Cognitive
Diversity within a
Top Management Team
David P. Tegarden
Virginia Tech, USA
Linda F. Tegarden
Virginia Tech, USA
Steven D. Sheetz
Virginia Tech, USA
Abstract
The cognitive diversity of top management teams has been shown to affect the
performance of a firm. In some cases, cognitive diversity has been shown to improve firm
performance, in other cases, it has worsened firm performance. Either way, it is useful
to understand the cognitive diversity of a top management team. However, most
approaches to measure cognitive diversity never attempt to open the “black box” to
understand what makes up the cognitive diversity of the team. This research reports on
an approach that identifies diverse belief structures, i.e., cognitive factions, through
the use of causal mapping and cluster analysis. The results show that the use of causal
mapping provides an efficient and effective way to identify idiosyncratic and shared
knowledge among members of a top management team. This approach allows the
cognitive diversity of the top management team to not only to be uncovered, but also
to be understood.