Comparative Causal Mapping: The CMAP3 Method

Comparative Causal Mapping: The CMAP3 Method, by Mauri Laukkanen and Mingde Wang, is an introduction to the conceptual backgrounds of causal (cognitive) mapping and to the typical methods in comparative and composite causal mapping, based on either interview or questionnaire primary data or on secondary documentary data. The discussed CCM research is supported by CMAP3, a freely downloadable (www.uef.fi/cmap3) Windows software platform for CCM studies. The book has three parts. The first discusses the theoretical underpinnings and methodological issues in causal mapping including the target phenomena and different interpretations of causal maps/mapping, the motives for using CCM methods and the criteria of method selection. The second part focuses on the technical aspects of using CMAP3 in typical CCM research. The third part presents three CCM study cases: a classical document-based study; a semi-structured interview-based (SIM) study; and a methodological study comparing SIM with an electronically administered structured hybrid CCM approach. In addition to demonstrating CCM practices, they suggest that different methods produce divergent results and are thus not substitutable. The research task should determine which CCM approach is appropriate. The book will appeal to both academic and professional audiences, in particular to doctoral students and experienced researchers looking for new topics and method approaches, but also to practitioners in fields such as management and organization studies, organizational development, public policy and education, and knowledge management.

Mauri Laukkanen is Professor emeritus of the University of Eastern Finland, Department of Business, Kuopio Campus. He received his PhD (DBA) at the Helsinki School of Economics in 1989. He served at the HSE (now Aalto University Business School) and the Universities of Vaasa and Jyvaskyla before UEF, where he helped found and headed the present Department of Business in 1995-2002. His research interests include entrepreneurship in local economic development, organizational cognition and cognitive mapping methods using CMAP3 software.

Mingde Wang is a Marie Curie Fellow in the PRIMO INT Network funded by the European Commission, and a doctoral student at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. He received his master’s degree in International Relations from Leiden University, and was a lecturer of East Asian relations in the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. His research focuses on international politics and political psychology.