International market selection: A cognitive mapping perspective

In the international market selection literature, selecting new markets is often largely understood as an information-processing problem. The notion is that managers require extensive market information to reduce decision-making complexity. We argue, however, that managerial cognition is more central to international market selection processes, since recognition and evaluation of strategic stimuli strongly affect the way this process is approached and executed. Market environments are not unambiguous realities, but abstractions that are given meaning through processes of selection, identification and screening. To select among international markets, managers impose mental maps to acknowledge market opportunities and threats. On this basis we propose a model for mapping managerial decision-making, based on the so-called means-end theory.